7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.1 |
At the beginning of the 20th century an American woman is abducted in Morocco by Berbers. The attempts to free her range from diplomatic pressure to military intervention.
Starring: Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, Brian Keith, John Huston, Geoffrey LewisPeriod | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Action | 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)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Among filmmakers who emerged from the creative cauldron of the 1970s, John Milius is one of the most intriguing but least remembered. Part of that, I suspect, is attributable to the very quality that makes Milius unique, which is his almost pathological addiction to conflict and contradiction. Like Sam Peckinpah, a director he admires, Milius' creativity seems to feed on opposition. As the old studio system was gradually replaced by the media conglomerates that began to take shape in the Eighties, Milius was ill-equipped to make the kind of compromises that have allowed contemporaries like Spielberg, Lucas, Scorsese and Coppola to continue making movies. A typical example of Milius' rhetoric can be found on the commentary track recorded in 2004 for The Wind and the Lion, where Milius contrasts his "imperialist side" with his "Marxist side". Having ensured that he's grabbed every listener's attention (and offended more than a few), Milius chuckles as if he didn't mean any of it—but he probably does. Milius is best known for the original Conan the Barbarian (1982) with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the original Red Dawn (1984) with Patrick Swayze, but the film that best captures his unique temperament is the 1975 epic The Wind and the Lion (hereafter, "W&L"), which was originally an MGM production but is now owned by Warner. A reasonable success on its initial release in May 1975, the film was overshadowed by the first modern blockbuster, Jaws, which appeared the following month and was all anyone talked about for the rest of the summer. But W&L has proved as durable as Jaws in its own small way, because there's nothing else like it. While Milius' fellow rebels were looking for new ways to reframe the cinematic world, Milius deliberately tried to recreate the look of a David Lean epic. He even shot in some of the same locations used for Lean's Lawrence of Arabia. The subversive element was what Milius put into the frame, which was the very opposite of a David Lean story. W&L is so light-hearted in its treatment of serious matters, and Milius is so irreverent in his portrayal of even the characters he admires (notably President Theodore Roosevelt), that the film often verges on a Mel Brooks satire. My college friends were particularly fond of the following solemn exchange between Sean Connery's noble Berber commander, Raisuli, and the Sherif of Wazan, the Sultan's representative, as they set off on horseback:
Raisuli: Where is it exactly where we are going? Sherif: To a small village east of Rabat at the foot of the mountains. Raisuli: It is good. Sherif: What is good? Raisuli: It is good . . . to know where we are going.
Milius picked Oscar-winning cinematographer Billy Williams (Gandhi ) to shoot The Wind and the Lion, because he admired Williams' work for Ken Russell on Women in Love. Throughout his commentary, Milius repeatedly praises Williams' ability to capture the beauty of the locations and the natural production value of the sky's changing colors. Warner Archive Collection's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray continues WAC's string of solid releases with a sharp and detailed image featuring vividly saturated color, solid blacks (essential for various night scenes and Raisuli's signature dark attire), good contrast levels and a gorgeous sense of depth from the framing of sky, mountains and the golden sands of the desert. Grain is finely rendered, and video noise is entirely absent. The quality of the transfer can be readily observed in the tiny details of rock formations, sand, Connery's weatherbeaten face and the many long shots of large groups of soldiers or Berber warriors in which each figure remains distinct. As has been their practice, WAC has not aimed for the tight compression favored by their parent company but has used the available space on a BD-50 to achieve a generous average bitrate of 34.87 Mbps. No compression errors appeared, and the parent company might want to consider whether the continued high quality of WAC's releases may have something to do with its willingness to use all of the digital real estate that a Blu-ray disc provides.
W&L was released in mono, but it also received a 70mm release with a six-track mix that was presumably the basis for the 5.1 soundtrack presented on the 2004 DVD in Dolby Digital and on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA. Like many such mixes created for mono films, the orientation remains forward, but the separations across the front soundstage are noticeable, especially in major action scenes and in the spacious rendering of Jerry Goldsmith's majestic score. Dynamic range is remarkably good for a film of the period, especially at the low end, which helps drive home the impact of the copious gunfire and explosions (some of which used real dynamite, according to Milius' commentary). The dialogue is generally clear, except for an occasional phrase from Connery, where the combination of a Scottish brogue and Arabic expressions can be challenging. (Milius has suggested, perhaps facetiously, that we assume Connery's character was taught English by a Scotsman.)
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2004 DVD.
The Wind and the Lion is unique, original, often perplexing, sometimes maddening, but always entertaining. What you see in it will depend a lot on what you bring to it, especially after the many twists and turns in the rocky relationship between the United States and the manifold elements of the Middle East in the years since the film's release. But whatever your reaction, you certainly won't be bored. Highly recommended.
1976
1968
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1966
Warner Archive Collection
1975
1968
1952
Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
1966
1978
1942
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1960
Fox Studio Classics
1942
1967
Director's Cut
2005
2018
1959
1983
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1979