7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.1 |
A married woman's passion for a former love drives her mad.
Starring: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey (I), Geraldine Brooks, Stanley RidgesFilm-Noir | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Often cited as the best performance of star Joan Crawford's career, Possessed is a film that doesn't hesitate to risk going off the deep end, over the top or off the charts; choose your favorite metaphor for the extreme, and Possessed fulfills it. Because of its visual style and overtly Freudian psychology, Possessed is often called a film noir. Indeed, the featurette included in the Blu-ray extras calls it the "quintessential" film noir, but it has never struck me as so easy to categorize. Classics of film noir like Double Indemnity or Out of the Past are stories about venal people whose actions are motivated by lust and greed, usually more the latter than the former, but the heroine of Possessed (if you can call her that) is driven by an irrational passion of which the motivation remains obscure. Some commentators have called it amour fou ("crazy love"), which is as good a description as any. One of the main reasons that Crawford is so impressive in the role is that she is able to make this insanity believable, as her character struggles (and fails) to control it, while it slowly corrodes a life that, to all outward appearances, should be idyllic. Crawford made Possessed two years after her Oscar-winning role in Mildred Pierce, and it got her another nomination. The director was Curtis Bernhardt, a German-Jewish refugee who had just directed Bette Davis in A Stolen Life and was regarded at Warner Bros. as a "woman's director". Using all the stylistic tricks of German Expressionism, Bernhardt crafted a harrowing melodrama that blurred the lines, not so much between right and wrong, but between real events and imaginary ones, as Crawford's character gradually loses her ability to tell the difference.
The Warner Archive Collection has produced another sterling rendition of a black-and-white classic with its 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray of Possessed, which was shot by Joseph A. Valentine (Shadow of a Doubt, Rope and Victor Fleming's Joan of Arc). The blacks, grays and whites are precisely rendered with excellent densities, giving the image an almost tactile quality that is essential to director Bernhardt's compositions, which are often deliberately unsettling: claustrophobic, oddly angled, off-balance. In scene after scene, Crawford's Louise is crowded by objects in the frame, bisected by shadows or props, imprisoned by pillars, windows frames or shadows cast by stair railings or other architectural elements. The commentary by Drew Casper points out more of these than you ever thought possible, and once you start looking for them, they're everywhere. Not since Possessed was shown on 35mm film have they been so easy to spot. The film's grain pattern appears to be fine and natural, and the detail is consistently excellent throughout (except, of course, where scenes are intentionally dark). WAC has followed its usual practicing of mastering the disc at a high average bitrate, in this case 38.00 Mbps.
Possessed's original mono track is presented in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0, with identical left and right front channels. Although the dynamic range is limited by contemporary standards, the track has very good fidelity, with no noise or interference. The dialogue is clear, and certain key sound effects (e.g., the roar of a boat motor that's just a little too loud) have the impact needed to help convey Louise's state of mind. The score by Oscar winner Franz Waxman (Sunset Boulevard and A Place in the Sun) may strike some viewers as overcooked, but it is consistent with the film's overall style and the overwrought state of its protagonist. Within the limits of the source, the score sounds very good indeed.
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2005 DVD of Possessed, which was also included in the first volume of The Joan Crawford Collection.
Possessed is not a film for all tastes. For fans of Joan Crawford, it is essential viewing; indeed, as commentator Drew Casper emphasizes, it's a film that seems to have been made for her fans. Film noir fans may respond to it or may feel, as I do, that to call Possessed a film noir is to stretch the genre's meaning past the breaking point. Whether or not the film holds personal appeal, it marks an important collaboration between one of old Hollywood's defining stars and several crucial talents behind the camera, and the craftsmanship is undeniable. WAC has preserved another classic from the vaults in a durable Blu-ray presentation. Highly recommended.
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4K Restoration
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