7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
A behind-the-scenes drama and espionage thriller in Cold War-era England that centers on a journalist, a producer, and an anchorman for an investigative news program.
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Romola Garai, Dominic West, Anna Chancellor, Oona ChaplinPeriod | 100% |
Drama | 4% |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080i
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: LPCM 2.0
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Screenwriter Abi Morgan's best-known works in America are probably The Iron Lady (2011), which won Meryl Streep her third Oscar, and Shame (2011), a searing film portrayal of sex addiction that was more talked about than seen. In her native Britain, however, Morgan's most successful creation is a series for the BBC called The Hour, whose initial season was so popular that another was ordered as soon as it had concluded on August 23, 2011. That second season has just concluded on both the BBC and BBC America. The Hour is set in the 1950s. At its most literal level, it's about the creation of what was then an entirely new form of television: a weekly "news magazine" devoted to in-depth reporting on major stories. The notion of investigative journalism delivered by TV "news readers" is common enough today, but at the dawn of television, it raised both eyebrows and hackles. Especially in a country that did not have the explicit command of the First Amendment, news outlets on a network that was government funded, as the BBC was and remains, were expected to stick to the government view of the facts and otherwise shut up. The decision to push further, to challenge the government orthodoxy, caused collisions not only between the BBC and the government, but also between factions within the BBC. Morgan is far too effective an entertainer to rest everything on this historical clash of ideas. Around this piece of journalistic history, she also wove a Cold War espionage tale as shadowy as anything that John le Carré might have conceived (although Morgan's characters prefer the more glamorous world of James Bond). She placed her story at a pivotal moment in British history: the Suez Crisis that began in July 1956, when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal. Thereafter, Israel invaded Egypt, and an Anglo-French force bombed Cairo. The ultimate resolution, while not especially successful for Egypt, validated its role as a player in international affairs and confirmed Britain's decline as an imperial power. This sense of the old order crumbling but scrambling desperately to shore up its foundations is everywhere in The Hour, and not just in the stories being related by the eager young reporters experimenting with a new programming format. Above all, Morgan created intriguing characters with backstories worth learning as they are gradually revealed. I suspect that, if one were to check Morgan's personal video library, there would be copies of Broadcast News in multiple formats. The complex personal and professional triangle at the heart of The Hour owes much to James L. Brooks's 1987 classic, but Morgan has given it such a distinctly British character (and Fifties flavor) that the resemblance may not be immediately obvious.
Season One of The Hour was shot by Chris Seager, the same cinematographer who shot the Fifties period drama Call the Midwife, which was also a BBC production. According to IMDb, Seager used the same Arriflex D-21 digital camera for The Hour, which would make sense, since most BBC productions are now digitally acquired. A comparison between the imagery of the two productions is instructive, because it shows how a cinematographer adapts his lighting to the needs of the story. Where Call the Midwife had the faded look of memories and scrapbooks, The Hour presents a bright and vivid image, even when dealing with matters shrouded in mystery. The goal is to make the viewer feel part of what is happening now, no doubt aping what a show like The Hour tried to do in an era when seeing TV in the home was still a novel experience. As with other digitally originated material, BBC has encoded The Hour for Blu-ray at 1080i, but the interlaced format is not apparent to the eye until one freeze-frames. In motion, the interlacing is not evident and does not generate visible artifacts. The image on these AVC-encoded Blu-rays is sharply detailed, revealing all of the fine patterns in the impeccably chosen wardrobe (discussed in detail in the extras) and the elaborate decor of locations like the Sherwin household and the Elms estate. Blacks are deep, which is essential for scenes involving multiple tuxedos, and contrast isn't overstated, which is especially important on the set for "The Hour", which involves a lot of light gray backgrounds. The color palette doesn't seem to be "muted" so much as limited, because the production design has been carefully controlled to limit the number of colors in a scene as much as possible. Consistent with the era in television, this is a simple, less colorful world. What colors there are, though, are sufficiently saturated to make an impression.
As is typical of BBC productions, The Hour has a stereo track, which is provided as PCM 2.0. It delivers the dialogue and essential sound effects clearly. Its limitations in surround ambiance can be observed in episode 5, where the team takes to the streets to record protests; despite the frenetic activity, the sound remains mostly in front, even when the track is played through a surround decoder. Still, the episode is plenty effective without the sounds of crowds and galloping horses running through the rear speakers. The atmospheric score is by Daniel Giorgetti.
Television journalists still deal with many of the same issues of ethics and responsibility depicted in The Hour. One of the many virtues of Abi Morgan's drama is to capture them in the infancy of the medium and the excitement of first discovery. Unlike something like Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom, which depicts an era where the issues have been fully formulated by decades of debate, The Hour presents them as if by accident, as characters doing things they hadn't planned to do with their lives find themselves facing dilemmas they could never have anticipated. Highly recommended.
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