7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Author Eugene O'Neill gives an autobiographical account of his explosive homelife, fused by a drug-addicted mother, a father who wallows in drink after realizing he is no longer a famous actor and an older brother who is emotionally unstable and a misfit. The family is reflected by the youngest son, who is a sensitive and aspiring writer.
Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson (I), Jason Robards, Dean StockwellDrama | 100% |
Melodrama | Insignificant |
Period | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 16-bit)
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
This is probably going to strike at least some readers as absolute sacrilege, but as someone with both an English
degree as well as a career that has included substantial work in the theater, I often think Eugene O’Neill’s plays are
better experienced read than actually performed. There’s something about O’Neill’s breathtakingly verbose characters
and his often dour outlook on life that makes experiencing his writing on the stage almost too intense, too
personal, too hard to endure. Reading his plays by contrast allows some distance, as odd as that may seem, as the
action takes place in the reader’s imagination and may therefore not be quite as visceral as when seen before the
eyes. This may be one reason that O’Neill’s plays have not always had an easy transition to cinema, certainly at least
as
vicarious an entertainment as reading or even play going, but also one that envelops the audience in a way that
sometimes cannot be equaled even by live theatrical performances. Seeing an actor in close-up on a huge screen is
obviously a much more intimate experience in its own way than seeing a proscenium stage full of actors, and it certainly
assaults the senses more directly than the reflected image in the mind as one reads. This is obviously a rather
philosophical discussion, but one only need look at some of the films culled from O’Neill’s writing to have some concrete
examples.
One of O’Neill’s first mainstream triumphs, Anna Christie, has been filmed several times, including the
famous version with Greta Garbo that was marketed with the iconic tagline “Garbo Talks!”, but none of the film versions
is able to really capture the full, seedy majesty of O’Neill’s conception. Strange Interlude had to be severely cut
from its original stage
version, not just for length purposes (it ran some four hours in its stage incarnation), but also due to both its explicit
subject matter and its almost nonstop use of soliloquoys, which some productions made more understandable by
having the actors carry masks which they kept aimed at other players on stage while they delivered their “inner
thoughts”. The film version of The Emperor Jones radically reinvented
O’Neill’s conception, even if it kept original Broadway star Paul Robeson, but it often seems shockingly offensive to
politically correct minds when viewed today, and as incredible as Robeson's long monologue is, it's not particularly
cinematic.
One of O'Neill's most titanic accomplishments, Mourning Becomes Electra, was a notorious
flop for RKO and suffered from the fate that seemed to hamper many O'Neill translations from stage to screen: it was
simply too long (over three hours in its original cut, though it was quickly edited down to more manageable size,
something that of course eviscerated O'Neill's text) for contemporary audiences to handle. The case could easily be
made that it was O'Neill's one comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, that actually made the easiest transition to the
screen. (It's perhaps worth noting briefly that both Ah, Wilderness! and Anna Christie have been
musicalized through the years. Ah, Wilderness! actually underwent the transformation twice, as both the 1948
film Summer Holiday and then about a decade later as the Broadway musical Take Me Along!. Anna
Christie hit the stage as New Girl in Town, featuring choreography by Bob Fosse.) All of this of course brings
us to Long Day's Journey Into Night, another one of those legendary O'Neill titles that is characterized by both
its fierce intimacy as well as its perhaps unwieldy length. But due to some very smart direction and a pitch perfect cast,
this is in many ways the most successful film version of any of O'Neill's dramatic pieces.
Long Day's Journey Into Night is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. While this is easily the best this film has ever looked on any home video release, there are still some issues, most of which are endemic to the elements. I've seen this film projected several times as well as seen previously released DVDs, and even the theatrical exhibitions suffered from inconsistent contrast and some damage, two things that are well in evidence here. There are recurrent (albeit minor) problems at the very edge of the frame, with what looks like print- through or bleed-through running up the sides of the image from time to time. Some of the darker sequences (notably the ending of the film) are hobbled by extremely milky blacks and print-through. Aside from these flaws, however, this is a wonderfully sharp and well detailed transfer that beautifully conveys Boris Kaufman's lustrous black and white cinematography. The film is filled with extreme close-ups, and those reveal abundant fine detail.
Long Day's Journey Into Night's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track is in very good shape. O'Neill's poetic dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly, and Andre Previn's spare piano based score sounds surprisingly full bodied (some previous home video releases wreaked havoc with Previn's score, making it a tinny, brittle mess). There's no real damage of any kind to report on this track. This is obviously a very narrow soundscape, but it's artfully rendered, and some of the foley effects, notably the omnipresent foghorn, sound just fine.
There are no supplements included on this disc.
Long Day's Journey Into Night remains a lot to digest, and some may not be able to make it through the entire film in one sitting. But this is simply a showcase for its stars, and O'Neill's original conception and writing makes it through virtually unscathed. Lumet directs with understatement, but he extracts one of Hepburn's most compelling performances. This Blu-ray still exhibits some of the anomalies that have hindered every showing of this film, either theatrically or on home video, that I've personally witnessed, but it also features much stronger overall contrast and detail than on previous releases. Highly recommended.
Signed Limited Edition to 100 Copies - SOLD OUT
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