7.1 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The real-life story of Czar Nicholas II, the last Russian monarch, his wife Alexandra and their daughters. The imperial family is overthrown and exiled to Siberia with a painful secret that binds them all to the mystical monk Rasputin.
Starring: Michael Jayston, Janet Suzman, Lynne Frederick, Fiona Fullerton, Harry AndrewsDrama | 100% |
History | 79% |
Biography | 59% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
It’s always interesting to see what a director chooses as his follow up to an immense success, for in the wild and wooly world of filmmaking, there’s probably no better time to actively chart one’s course the way one really wants to than directly after a critical and box office success. Franklin J. Schaffner had had a rather august career already in television (winning an Emmy for the original version of Twelve Angry Men), before moving to film and directing such well regarded outings as Gore Vidal’s The Best Man and the seriously underappreciated The War Lord. Schaffner started to hit the big time in 1968 with the immense success of Planet of the Apes, but it was 1970’s Patton that really put Schaffner atop the A- list, with one of those “A”’s being an Academy Award for Best Director. Schaffner had already demonstrated his range with his relatively few but rather wide ranging film oeuvre, but his next outing seemed to be his attempt for a David Lean like majesty of blending an intimate personal story with epochal historical events. Now it should be stated up front that evidently producer Sam Spiegel reached out to Schaffner after Spiegel's first choice(s) for director didn't pan out, as there was a lot of money (and prestige) on the line, but it was still up to Schaffner to accept the offer, which he did. Robert K. Massie’s international bestseller Nicholas and Alexandra had done a remarkable job of personalizing the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia, putting their personal trials (and peccadilloes) in the context of a simmering societal upheaval, all wrapped around the devastating genetic anomaly of hemophilia. Schaffner chose to bring this epic story to life in a sumptuously huge production which received quite a bit of critical acclaim and six Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture), but which never really caught fire at the box office. Perhaps audiences in the early seventies simply weren’t that interested in revisiting a time that seemed too opulent by half and characters that had little relevance to their own lives. Subsequent years brought a somewhat new (or at least revived) interest in the subject when longtime Anastasia claimant Anna Anderson was proven to be a fake after a DNA test, and then when the opening of long repressed Soviet files finally allowed the remains of the royal family to be found (Massie wrote a fascinating followup called The Romanovs: The Final Chapter after the files were released, which I highly recommend), and so the time may in fact be riper than ever for a new audience to explore a sad, deeply flawed and yet somehow noble family whose personal problems and bad decisions wreaked havoc on world history for decades after their own grisly demise.
Nicholas and Alexandra is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Twilight Time with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Twilight Time has found a really excellent partner in Sony-Columbia for this side of their licensing deal, with one remarkable looking high definition master after another having been offered to the distributor for release. Nicholas and Alexandra follows in this largely infallible tradition with a stellar looking high definition presentation that only has the tiniest of niggling issues to detract from what is certainly one of the most gorgeous, naturally filmic looking presentations that Twilight Time has released. Freddie Young's sumptuous cinematography pops magnificently throughout this presentation, and the colors are incredibly robust and well saturated (just take a look at screenshot 19 and marvel at the reds and blues). Fine detail is commendable in the film's many close-ups. Some wide shots do suffer from just a tad of softness, but the only real problem of any magnitude (and it's quite minor, frankly) is some crush in the darkest scenes, especially when Rasputin, who is always clad completely in black is in them. He tends to look like a disembodied head a time or two, but that perhaps only adds to the spookiness of the character. Otherwise, this is one fantastic looking Blu-ray that should easily please even the most picky videophile.
It's perhaps a little disappointing that Sony-Columbia didn't repurpose Nicholas and Alexandra's original mono mix for what could have been a really exciting surround mix, but the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono offering here ably supports both dialogue and Richard Rodney Bennett's rousing score, even if some of the "busier" sequences tend to sound a bit crowded. Fidelity is excellent with good reproduction through all frequency ranges. Dynamic range is quite wide, with the DTS-HD Master Audio rendering easily handling both the hushed dialogue sequences as well as the noisier action segments.
Nicholas and Alexandra is an impeccably handsome film, but there's no denying it suffers from a certain emotional distance, something that tends to afflict many such "intimate" epics that focus on famous historical figures. Schaffner directs with calm assurance, and both the cast and crew offer incredibly well wrought contributions. The film is certainly one of the most gorgeous of its era from a purely production design perspective, but it's also graced with some unusually excellent performances. You may not really care about any of the characters here, either the royals or the burgeoning underclass epitomized by Lenin, Trotsky and the rest of the Bolsheviks, but Nicholas and Alexandra is still a largely captivating film. This Blu-ray looks stupendous and sounds fine. Highly recommended.
2011
2006
2016
1964
2010
2018
1987
2008
2006
2011
1997
Special Edition
1968
2005
2013
Napoléon vu par Abel Gance
1927
2008
2013
1982
2008
2004