6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus document a debate between Norman Mailer and four feminists.
Starring: Norman MailerDocumentary | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.33:1
English: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
See if any part of this scenario sounds familiar: a person who is a member of a certain group stands up before an assembled multitude and begins advocating for equal treatment for that group, insisting that the group has been downtrodden and discriminated against for too long, and that the group’s lives matter, at which point an absolutely irate member of the audience throws an abrupt conniption fit, jumping up and screaming that all lives matter, before leaving the room in an angry huff. No, this has absolutely nothing to do with the so-called BLM movement and some of the responses it has engendered, it is instead a nearly verbatim exchange that takes place within seconds of the panel discussion about the then nascent women's liberation movement which is at the heart of Town Bloody Hall getting underway. In other words, the more things change, the more they stay the same, and anyone who feels they’ve been buffeted by too much angry discourse about things like “race relations” should perhaps put viewing this 1971 piece by D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus on hold for at least a little while, especially if they’re sensitive to issues surrounding gender roles and even gender identification. For anyone able to make it through the maelstrom, however, Town Bloody Hall is an absolutely fascinating trip through relatively recent history, a history which obviously still is refracting through “current events”, especially with the recent death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the already vehement debate about what might happen to things like abortion rights as a result (abortion rights perhaps unsurprisingly are overtly mentioned by some of the participants in this piece, in what was then a “pre-Roe” era).
Town Bloody Hall is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. In lieu of an insert booklet, Criterion provides a foldout sheet that reproduces the poster and also has an essay by Melissa Anderson and other information. This insert contains the following verbiage on the transfer:
Town Bloody Hall is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right of the image to maintain the proper screen format. This new digital transfer was created in 4K resolution on a Scanity film scanner from the 16 mm A/B reversal. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices and warps were manually removed using MTI Film's DRS, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for jitter, flicker, small dirt, grain and noise management.With an understanding that the source elements utilized for this transfer have some inherent limitations, this is an organic looking presentation, though one that has some obvious deficits in fine detail levels quite a bit of the time. One of the things exacerbating the perception of this transfer is the fairly unstable hand held camera work, where the frame can bounce around and focus pulling can be variable. There are also some obvious differences in clarity and grain structure, even from what are essentially the same perspectives (contrast screenshot 4 with screenshot 17 for an example, though there are others scattered throughout the rest of the screenshots). Colors look a little skewed toward browns, but certain pops of color, as in some of the apparel on display, resonate decently well. Despite the "grain and noise management" alluded to above, grain can occasionally look a bit on the noisy side, something that's especially apparent in some of the most dimly lit material.
The monaural soundtrack was remastered from the original 16 mm magnetic tracks using Avid's Pro Tools and iZotope RX.
Town Bloody Hall features an LPCM Mono track that delivers most of the evening's events without any serious issues. There are isolated moments here, though, where either someone in the audience erupts in fury (it happens more than once, unbelievably) or people on the panel talk over each other, and it's not possible to clearly make out everything that's been said (or yelled, as the case may be). All of the "lectern" material sounds fine, and Mailer's asides from his table are typically well rendered as well. Optional English subtitles are available.
- Greer (1080p; 12:39)
- Mailer (1080p; 13:44)
If you think a panel discussion from 1971 revolving around women's liberation has nothing to say to contemporary audiences, prepare to be disabused of that notion within about thirty seconds of this thing starting. I can actually see this piece making people very angry for resolutely different reasons, and maybe that speaks to its enduring power. Video has some built in limitations which can be discerned at least in part by perusing the screenshots accompanying this review. Audio is generally fine, and the supplementary package very interesting. Recommended.
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