7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 3.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.4 |
A hunter happens upon a fugitive and his daughter living in a Georgia swamp. He falls in love with the girl and persuades the fugitive to return to town.
Starring: Walter Brennan, Walter Huston, Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Ward BondDrama | 100% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The Golden Age of the Hollywood studio system is often likened to a factory where product was churned out on a
weekly basis without much regard for content and similarly without too much worry about ultimate quality. The studios, which
in those days owned their own theaters and needed to keep those theaters “stocked” with new films on a weekly
basis, had their “production line” down pat, and the amazing thing is that despite turning out a huge number of films
every year, the quality (in terms of craftsmanship at least) was fairly uniformly consistent, a testament to the
hardworking men and women who populated the studio “working class” in those days. And while it certainly can’t be
denied that there was a certain amount of populist pabulum fed to the masses by the studios in those days, there were
also an intriguing number of lesser known films that regularly pushed the envelope in one way or the other.
Case in point: 1941’s odd Swamp Water, ostensibly French master Jean Renoir’s first American film, though it’s
rather widely speculated that 20th Century Fox’s Darryl Zanuck had producer Irving Pichel reshoot quite a bit of the
movie before it was released to a largely uncaring audience. But watching this peculiar, and in a strange way haunting,
film, one is immediately struck by a salient question: could anything like Swamp Water get greenlit by
anyone, major studio or indie alike, in this era of cookie cutter plots and Syd Field-inspired screenplays? All of
the major studios who were cranking out at least a film a week in the thirties and forties had their own peculiar little
releases now and again, but Swamp Water is certainly one of the most peculiar of that era, a moody
Southern Gothic take on backwoods Georgia life that plays like Green Acres as revisited by someone like Tim
Burton or even Douglas Sirk. Yes, that obviously sounds weird, but Swamp Water is a fantastic example
of what an unusual auteur could do (even if his work was tinkered with at some stage in the production
process) within the confines of the old guard studio system.
This is what classic black and white cinematography should look like! Swamp Water is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Twilight Time with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. This high definition presentation is one of the most gloriously beautiful black and white transfers in recent memory, with lustrous gray scale, deep, rich blacks, and glistening whites. Shadow detail is superb and the incredible lighting effects are resplendent throughout. There is some quite noticeable damage running through this presentation, including a long black scratch that reoccurs on the left side of the frame with some regularity. The only minor quibble some may have with the transfer itself is some extremely minor and transitory shimmer and aliasing on some of the moss strewn trees in the Okefenokee Swamp, but even this anomaly is short-lived and not very distracting.
Swamp Water's original soundtrack is delivered via a serviceable DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono track. While fidelity is excellent, and there's no real damage to report, the track has the generally boxy sound of an early forties feature, something that actually is more noticeable in the score than in the actual dialogue. Everything is cleanly and clearly presented, and there's really not even an egregious hiss to report, but the midrange is definitely this track's strong suit, while highs and lows fall off somewhat.
Isolated Score, a Twilight Time hallmark, offers David Buttolph's moody score in mono, delivered via a DTS-HD Master 2.0 mix.
One of the pull quotes on the back cover of this Blu-ray release of Swamp Water calls the film "Faulkneresque", and there's certainly that Southern Gothic feeling running through this film in abundance. This is a bit more soap operatic than most Faulkner, at least in Faulkner's original literary form (he didn't always translate very well to film), and it must be admitted that this may not in fact even be a "true" Renoir film, if scuttlebutt about its convoluted production history is to be believed. But there's equally something undeniably Renoirian about this film, especially with regard to its lush visuals, which remain the film's single most striking aspect. This won't be a film that suits everyone's tastes, but for those who love Renoir, or who are in the mood for something decidedly different, Swamp Water is a fascinating case study in an auteur struggling to escape the confines of the studio system. Highly recommended.
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