Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		5.0

Snow Falling on Cedars Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson November 10, 2019

I remember seeing Scott Hicks's biopic Shine (1996) about the concert pianist David Helfgott in a music and film course and being only modestly impressed. I took issue with the story and the screenplay's treatment of young David's relationship with his father. When I got the Criterion LaserDisc and re-watched it, the film grew on me and I appreciated it more. When I saw Snow Falling on Cedars, I took note of the big artistic leap Scott made in adapting David Guterson's eponymous 1994 novel, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. It was Hick's first major studio feature and he had backing from two of Hollywood's heavyweight producers, Kathleen Kennedy and husband Frank Marshall. He also had a terrific ensemble of character actors. Most striking to the eye is Jeannine Oppewall's production design and Robert Richardson's multifaceted cinematography.

The first draft of the script was written by Ronald Bass, who penned the screenplay to one of my favorite Coppola pictures, Gardens of Stone (1987). Hicks took out some of the courtroom exposition and added more flashbacks and time cuts. The movie opens with the mysterious death of fisherman Carl Heine (Eric Thal) amidst a thick fog. Carl was last seen with Kabuo Miyomoto (Rick Yune), a Japanese American whose charged with his murder. The Miyomoto trial located off San Piedro Island in Seattle, WA carries personal and professional significance for Ishmael Chambers (Ethan Hawke). Ishmael was the childhood and teen lover of Kabuo's wife, Hatsue (Yûki Kudô). But war and racial strife between Americans and the Japanese separated Ishmael and Hatsue. Now Ishmael sits atop the balcony as one of the courtroom reporters. Kabuo is in a tough spot since a lot of xenophobia lingers nine years after Pearl Harbor over Japanese émigrés who have become US citizens. Several of the witnesses for prosecutor Alvin Hooks (James Rebhorn) are overtly racist and give biased testimony. It's hard for Ishmael to stomach because he and his fellow journalist father Arthur (Sam Shepard) were brought up to accept immigrants, regardless of ethnicity. It's up to Ishmael if he can uncover any hard evidence to show whether or not Carl's demise was an accident. The legendary Max von Sydow plays Kabuo's defense attorney, whose in the mold of an older Henry Fonda.

Ishmael approaches Hatsue.

Snow Falling on Cedars isn't really about nor does it concern itself with the tropes and machinations of a courtroom drama. Drawing on his experience in documentary, Hicks recreates a shameful event in American history: the rounding up of Japanese Americans and their incarceration in internment camps (most notably Manzanar) following the attack at Pearl Harbor. Hicks and editor Hank Corwin cut together an extended montage wherein hordes of families are led to the detention centers. It's one of three films to chronicle that episode, along with John Korty's 1976 TV movie Farewell to Manzanar (which is available on DVD) and Emiko Omori's documentary Rabbit in the Moon (1999).

On first viewing, the movie can be difficult to follow due to an intricate structure that interweaves three or four time periods. Bass and Hicks rely on the characters' psychology and memories that can contradict what another character is speaking about. For example, Prosecutor Hooks asks widow Susan Marie Heine (Arija Bareikis) something about her husband but she's thinking about a physically intimate moment that she shared with Carl. The film frequently cuts away from the courtroom proceedings to an individual's memories that aren't directly related in content.

SFoC succeeds on many levels. It's a triumph for Hicks, his cast, Richardson, Corwin, Oppewall, and composer James Newton Howard. There are Hollywood films that have its canvas but can't pull off its ambitious structure.

Snow Falling on Cedars Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout Select has given Snow Falling on Cedars its worldwide premiere on Blu-ray on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. To commemorate its 20th anniversary, the boutique label has issued a Collector's Edition with a shiny slipcover that's thicker than normal. The film appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of approximately 2.39:1. This new 4K transfer was restored and supervised by cinematographer Robert Richardson, who explains in a recently recorded featurette that the original camera negative is seemingly lost (perhaps perishing in one of the fires on the Universal lot?) so he worked from an extant betatape and also consulted the 2000 DVD transfer. Richardson has sought to bring the film back to the way he and Hicks originally wanted it to look, which is almost black and white. On the recycled commentary, Hicks specifies that the bleach bypass process gives the effect of "tremendously dense blacks, very silvery whites, and a very narrow range of color." You'll notice those visual attributes throughout my frame grabs. Richardson reduced the grain by 35 percent from the DVD because he wanted the sky to have an ominous, bleak look (see Screenshot #s 13 and 19). (But don't worry, Richardson did leave grain intact.) For the strawberry festival parade (#17), Richardson did exactly what he did for the veterans' march at the beginning of Born on the Fourth of July: he desaturated the colors. The interiors are very dark. All the courtroom scenes are set during overcast days and at least once scene is illumined only by candlelight. One half of the face is often dark (think of a Gordon Willis-shot picture during the '70s.) The only scenes to feature some sunlight are those in the strawberry fields but those also have rain. The DI print is clean except for some infinitesimal white specks that occasionally pop up. The transfer sports an average video bitrate of 32000 kbps.

Shout has provided twelve chapters for the 127-minute feature.

Snow Falling on Cedars Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout supplies an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (2930 kbps, 24-bit) and a English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (1697 kbps, 24-bit) downsample. Sound post-production work on SFoC was done at Skywalker Ranch near Marin County, CA. The mix completed by Skywalker Sound delivers a lot of sonic highlights on the 5.1 track. I've always loved the sound design for this film and had the volume turned up from the start. The first reel has a reverberating sound emitting from Carl's air horn as well as seagulls flying overhead. Dialogue is primarily spoken in English, though there is some Japanese. Large embedded white English subtitles are displayed in a sans serif font (see #23). The war scenes on the beach at Tarawa contain heavy gunfire and my surrounds bristled with energy and a lot of bass. The sub-woofer rumbled and my floor shook. The light switch heard in the detention center (Screenshot #16) was quite forceful and produced a powerful effect.

James Newton's masterful score boasts a lovely theme for Ishmael and Hatsue on cello. It's elegiac and sears with tender memory and sorrow. He develops the cello solo with some high-pitched strings that are heart-wrenching. The shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo-flute, emits a breathy sound that really comes through the speakers. Newton incorporates synths to memorable effect while Ishmael clicks away at his typewriter. Arguably the score's most powerful moment (and the acoustical zenith on the lossless 5.1) is the rising chorus and full orchestra when Ishmael is on the beach and sees visions of his childhood. It climaxes with timpani. This is the loudest the sound reaches on the BD.

Snow Falling on Cedars Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Scott Hicks - the soft-spoken and sapient Uganda native guides the viewer through the film's intricate sections and stylistic choices. Hicks imparts lots of nuggets about the production and his with collaborators. This is a great commentary with only a few gaps. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW Accident Rules – A Look Back at the Film Including Brand-new Interviews with Director/Co-writer Scott Hicks, Novelist David Guterson, Director of Photography Robert Richardson, and Composer James Newton Howard (51:39, 1080p) - Brian Ward produced and directed this new retrospective doc. It proceeds in four chapters: "Adapting the Novel," "The Production," "The Cast," and "Post Production." Guterson and Hicks repeat some of the same info that they told on Universal's 2000 DVD extras but share some new stories as well. The interview snippets with Richardson are all culled from the new restoration featurette. All interviews are spoken in English, not subtitled.

• NEW A Fresh Snow – A Look at the Restoration of the Film with Robert Richardson (10:12, 1080p) - this is an absolute must-watch. Richardson is seated in dark room with a digital grader who works from a $40,000 monitor for calibration. The DP explains his choices regarding color temperature, lighting, and grain for creating this new transfer. In English, not subtitled.

• Spotlight on Location: The Making of Snow Falling on Cedars (21:43, upscaled to 1080i) - an official EPK featurette Universal released on its 2000 DVD. It mixes in clips from the film with interviews. We hear from Guterson, Hicks, co-writer Ron Bass, producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, DP Richardson, composer Howard, as well as actors Ethan Hawke, Yûki Kudô, Rick Yune, Max von Sydow, James Cromwell, and Sam Shepard. It's much better than a major studio's promotional fluff but I would have liked it to have been longer. The interviews are shown in 1.33:1 while excerpts from the movie are letterboxed but cropped. Renowned making-of documentarian Laurent Bouzereau produced and directed it. All interviews are spoken in English, not subtitled.

• Deleted Scenes (21:59, upscaled to 1080i) - ten deleted and/or extended scenes displayed in non-anamorphic 2.35:1 with the timecode on the bottom bar. They're from a rough, earlier cut and have film artifacts. Each scene varies in length with some long and others very brief. Dolby Digital 2.0.

• Theatrical Trailer (2:29, upscaled to 1080i) - Universal's original theatrical trailer for SFoC presented in non-anamorphic 1.85:1. A slower arrangement of Howard's main theme is heard and I don't think Decca featured it in on their album.

Snow Falling on Cedars Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Critics and audience patrons reportedly had trouble deriving emotional connections through the triple-line structure of Snow Falling on Cedars. See it again and again and you'll be richly rewarded. I've seen it many times and it's something I've turned on repeatedly while getting for work in the morning. Robert Richardson never ceases to amaze and should have won the Oscar for Best Cinematography over Conrad Hall's fine work for American Beauty. There isn't a shot in SFoC that he repeats twice. Each frame has its unique texture. The image is often opaque and I've read that he used shallow focus shots more in this film than in any other he's shot. It's a master class and I could have easily uploaded 100 screenshots. Shout Select delivers a transfer that is representative of the aesthetic design that Hicks and Richardson initially wished. The uncompressed 5.1 track is cleanly mixed and sounds considerably more immersive than the DVD's DD 5.1. The new interviews with the filmmakers add to the body of knowledge about the film. A COLLECTOR'S SERIES title.