6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 4.3 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.3 |
Dustin Hoffman directs this comedy drama adapted by writer Ronald Harwood from his own stage play of the same name. Beecham House is a retirement home with a difference: it specifically caters for former artistes including one-time opera singers Cissy (Pauline Collins), Reginald (Tom Courtenay) and Wilf (Billy Connolly). Once part of a quartet, the three still take part in an annual concert to celebrate the birthday of composer Giuseppe Verdi. But this year things are complicated by the arrival of the fourth member of their quartet, Jean (Maggie Smith), a die-hard diva who also happens to be Reginald's ex-wife. Theatrical temperaments and old hostilities flare as the dramatic foursome fuss, flirt and flounce their way through rehearsals, adhering emphatically to that old showbiz adage, 'the show must go on'.
Starring: Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins, Billy Connolly, Michael GambonMusic | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Dustin Hoffman was supposed to make his directorial debut in 1978 when he starred in a passion project called Straight Time, but the dedicated actor found the dual roles too onerous and replaced himself as director with the late Ulu Grossbard several days into filming. (The film remains one of Hoffman's greatest, if least known, performances.) It would be over forty years before Hoffman would again take the director's chair, but this time it was for a film in which he remained behind the camera. Cinematographer John de Borman, whom Hoffman knew from their project Last Chance Harvey, sent him the script for Quartet, adapted by Ronald Harwood (The Pianist) from his play of the same name. De Borman had obviously spotted in Hoffman the same quality that unites all of the characters in Harwood's story. Like Hoffman, having achieved an age north of 70, their undiminished joy in their artistic pursuits keeps them vital, even as time takes its physical toll. Or, as star Billy Connolly summed up the message of Quartet: "Don't die before you're dead!" Harwood's play was inspired by a 1984 Italian documentary, Tosca's Kiss, which featured interviews with residents of the Casa Verdi in Milan, a residence established under the will of composer Guiseppe Verdi for retired musicians. Harwood imagined an English equivalent, which he called Beecham House, established by a fictitious English musician in Verdi's honor, where music is heard daily, old show business rivalries endure and occasionally the smoldering embers of an unresolved love affair churn up clouds of smoke before being rekindled.
Shot on film by John de Borman, who initially sent Hoffman the script and is currently President of the British Society of Cinematographers, Quartet was finished on a digital intermediate and arrives on Blu-ray in an impressive 1080p, AVC-encoded presentation. De Borman's lighting is kind to the aged residents of Beecham House without trying to pretend they're younger than their age. The detailed Blu-ray image captures every crease and wrinkle, but it also registers every twitch of emotional expression that actors of this caliber express through their considerably agile features. (As Hoffman say in his commentary, British actors don't bother with cosmetic surgery like their American counterparts.) The pastoral English country surroundings have been captured with a degree of loving precision that a tourist board might want for its travel brochure. When the night of the gala finally arrives, the finery of both the performers and the attendees can be seen in minute detail, both the men in the black (genuinely black) evening attire and the ladies in their jewels and gowns, many of them sequined. Except for the gala, the film's color palette favors the pastel, which suits both the landscape and the faded wardrobe of Beecham House's clientele. A pattern of fine grain has been left in the film's visual texture by the DI process (which is not always the case with DI processing), and no apparent effort has been made in the Blu-ray's mastering to reduce or alter it. Compression errors were nowhere to be seen, and the image on Anchor Bay's disc appears to be about as close to perfect a reproduction of what one would encounter in a theatrical presentation as could possibly be obtained.
It should be obvious from the film's subject that the dominant presence of Quartet's DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack is music, primarily opera but also English music hall, a bit of Gilbert & Sullivan, and even a touch of hip-hop, courtesy of the lectures presented by Reg to local students. As score composer Dario Marianelli (an Oscar winner for Atonement ) notes in the extras, his job on this film was to write short segments bridging between major compositions by Verdi, Rossini, Schubert and other classical composers. The job of the sound mixers was to keep the dialogue intelligible, while maintaining the credibility of each environment within and without the walls of Beecham House, all the while continually reminding the audience that the home's inhabitants hear music at all times, even when it's not actually playing. The finished track performs these multiple tasks admirably.
Anchor Bay continues to master its Blu-rays for The Weinstein Company with BD-Java but without including bookmarking. It's a bad design that prevents the user from stopping and resuming playback at the same point. Only on TWC discs does Anchor Bay do this.
It's easy to imagine how Quartet could have become a treacly mass of sentiment, but Hoffman and his spirited ensemble never let that happen. Everyone involved—the writer, the director and the stars—are far too aware, and too respectful, of the fact that remaining vital and focused as time wears away at you is a serious business (even if, like Connolly, one's business is comedy). As Hoffman recalls in his commentary, and many moviegoers may not be aware, Maggie Smith, the two-time Oscar-winning actress whom generations now know as Professor Minerva McGonagall had retired in the late Eighties after a long and debilitating illness. Her love of acting brought her back in 1991's Hook, and she has continued working ever since. In Quartet, Dame Maggie breaks new cinematic ground as she utters the f-word for the first time in a screen career spanning over fifty years. She says it beautifully. Highly recommended.
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