Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Rapture Blu-ray Movie Review

A largely unknown gem debuts on Blu-ray.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 8, 2011

If you were asked to name a notable performance by a young actor in the early to mid-sixties, chances are most American minds at any rate would immediately gravitate to either Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker or perhaps Mary Badham in To Kill a Mockingbird. For those fonder of lighter fare the kids of Mary Poppins or even The Sound of Music might enter the fray. How many of you thought of Patricia Gozzi in either Sundays and Cybèle or Rapture? Probably very few, if any, and of those the vast majority most likely thought of Sundays and Cybèle. Gozzi is largely forgotten today, partially due to the fact that she largely gave up acting after she married, but simply based on these two films alone she must certainly be accorded all due respect as one of the finest adolescent performers of her era, and perhaps of all time. Winsome, vulnerable, yet surprisingly alluring, with eyes that seem like windows into an ocean deep soul, Gozzi gives two radically different performances in Sundays and Cybèle and Rapture, though both of the roles are emotionally fragile young girls who are victims of boorish adult behavior. How Gozzi failed to be nominated for an Oscar for either (in fact both) of these films is one of the vagaries of show business, probably as much due to the fact both films were either international or foreign releases without huge impact on American shores, at least at the time. (It’s a bit harder to explain with regard to Sundays and Cybèle, since that film did indeed garner several Academy Award nominations, and won the 1962 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film). Rapture has at least a couple of well known names in its performer pool, notably Melvyn Douglas and Dean Stockwell, and Ingmar Bergman regular (and recent costar of the Dragon Tattoo trilogy) Gunnel Lindblom is also on hand, but chances are it’s going to be Gozzi and Gozzi alone who sears the synapses and refuses to vacate memories long after Rapture has ended.

Lovers of British film may well have thought of a 1961 film featuring some incredible young performances, notably Hayley Mills, in Bryan Forbes’ Whistle Down the Wind, and in fact Rapture bears certain similarities to that film. Much like in Whistle Down the Wind, there’s a misperception about a stranger at the heart of Rapture. Young Agnes (Gozzi) is obviously a slightly (maybe more than slightly) disturbed youngster (Gozzi was 15 when the film was made) who is under the thumb of her martinet father (Melvyn Douglas). When Agnes, her father and her housekeeper-nanny Karen (Lindblom) are out taking a walk across the rugged Brittany terrain one day, they see a horrific accident involving a police van, an accident which allows a convict named Joseph (Dean Stockwell) to make a hasty getaway, running right by the shocked family. Later Joseph shows up at the family’s rustic home overlooking the ocean, and Agnes decides Joseph is a scarecrow she has fashioned come to life, since Joseph has purloined the scarecrow’s clothes. The religious subtext of Whistle Down the Wind is at least slightly echoed in Rapture as well (though ironically the film's title has little to do with the contemporary Christian eschatological use of the word). Aside from the two main characters' names being Joseph and Agnes, notice how Guillermin also not so subtly points out the iconic cross on which the scarecrow was hung. In fact there's a case to be made that something akin to Original Sin is lurking just beneath the surface of the film, at least a Sin (with a capital S) that Agnes' father is attempting with all his might to suppress (or perhaps repress).

The reappearance of Joseph leads to the central section of the film, where Agnes and Joseph develop an attraction to each other, with devastating results. Agnes' burgeoning sexuality is at the heart of the film, and indeed a lot of Rapture plays out like the quasi-hallucinatory fevered dream of a hormone-fueled kid on the verge of adulthood. Rapture has a fascinating pedigree and that may account for its quasi-hypnotic feeling, one which is perhaps unexpected considering the sort of turgid set up of the film. While the screenplay is credited to Stanley Mann (based on a novel called “Rapture In My Rags” by Phyllis Hastings), there’s another fascinating credit for “screen treatment”, bestowed on one Ennio Flaiano. That name may not sound overly familiar, but a quick review of some of the films Flaiano either wrote or contributed to writing should quickly reveal how important he’s been to twentieth century film: Variety Lights, The White Sheik, I Vitelloni, La Strada and 8 ½ are just some of the famous films Flaiano helped craft with his longtime collaborator Federico Fellini. Could this have been an aborted Fellini project at one point? The mind boggles, for strangely enough (especially considering Lindblom’s participation), Rapture is much more redolent of the works of Ingmar Bergman than it is of those of Fellini.

This is also one of the oddest films ever to be helmed by John Guillermin, a director whose oeuvre includes everything from late fifties and early sixties Tarzan films to war epics like The Blue Max and The Bridge at Remagen to Shaft in Africa to The Towering Inferno to the 1976 King Kong which helped catapult Jessica Lange to fame. But against all odds, Guillermin crafts a careful and nuanced film, one which somehow maintains an aura of poetry even though elements of it are incredibly brutal. The film has an unbelievably lyrical quality even when the human emotions are raw and frankly unbalanced at times.

As Twilight Time’s Nick Redman discussed with me in our exclusive interview which ran when The Egyptian was released, Twilight Time is at the mercy of the studios it enters into licensing agreements with, and those studios supply already existing HD masters that are in their assets catalog. It’s absolutely mind boggling that a film so passed over by the vagaries of time and PR hype should have received an HD upgrade, but it’s a lucky thing that this has happened. Rapture provides a tantalizing glimps at Patricia Gozzi, certainly one of the most charismatic and accomplished young actresses of the early sixties, and one who is probably (unfairly) forever going to be consigned to “whatever happened to” ignominy.

Rapture Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Rapture is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Twilight Time with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This Cinemascope black and white presentation delivers a really solid looking, beautifully defined image that features abundant but natural looking grain, excellent contrast and some luscious black levels. The film was lensed by Marcel Grignon (Oscar nominated for Is Paris Burning?), and the film looks gorgeous, with incredible vistas of the Brittany coast bringing the stormy interior lives of the characters out into the open. There are a couple of issues with the transfer that may bother some, though truth be told when not frozen in a screencap, they're much less noticeable. The first of these is rather evident haloing courtesy of digital sharpening (see screencap 4 for a good example), and some slight though apparent crush in some of the film's many darker scenes. Overall, though, this is a fantastic looking transfer that wonderfully recreates the widescreen ambience of a mid-sixties 'Scope black and white feature.

Rapture Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Rapture features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 soundtrack that isn't especially bombastic but which serves the film's quieter ambitions quite ably. Some of the performers have obviously been post-looped, so some of the lip motions don't quite match the dialogue, but overall levels are consistent and the entire track has clarity and good dynamic range. Fidelity is excellent throughout, with no damage, and Georges Delerue's magnificent score (see below) also sounds brilliant.

Rapture Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Isolated Score. Georges Delerue may not be a name that's familiar to some of the younger readers of the site, but the French composer has a handful of Oscar nominations (and one win) to his name, as well as other international awards, and his scores tend to be incredibly melodic and evocative. (Though Delerue won his Academy Award for A Little Romance, I highly recommend checking out his first nominated score, his wonderful work on Anne of the Thousand Days from 1969). That's certainly the case with his work on Rapture, one of his earlier efforts that reveals Delerue's mastery of emotional content within generally instantly accessible themes and ideas. The best thing about this presentation is that there were evidently still stereo stems available, so while the main soundtrack is mono, we have a glorious stereo presentation of the score here via a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track. You'll also hear the engineer calling out take numbers throughout this track.

Rapture Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Rapture is one of the most unique films of its era, one with an amazing cast and crew and one which defies any real attempt to adequately describe it. Dreamlike in the best Fellini way, though without his joie de vivre, and in fact hallucinatory in the best (frankly morose) Bergman way, Rapture is emotionally devastating due largely to the absolutely incredible work of Patricia Gozzi. How this young woman didn't go on to superstardom is beyond me (though evidently it was at least due in part to her own decision to stop acting). Rapture proves what an incomparable actress Gozzi was, and though the film is beautifully made and receives a nice high definition transfer here, it's Gozzi's contribution that ultimately makes Rapture Highly recommended.