6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A flamboyant English teacher and a new, stoic art teacher collide at an upscale prep school. A high-spirited courtship begins and she finds herself enjoying the battle. Another battle they begin has the students trying to prove which is more powerful, the word or the picture. But the true war is against their own demons, as two troubled souls struggle for connection.
Starring: Clive Owen, Juliette Binoche, Bruce Davison, Navid Negahban, Amy BrennemanDrama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Romance | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
There is probably nobody anywhere—other than a few fringe lunatics who complain about imagined huge pay rates and three months of vacation every year—who would deny that teaching is a noble profession. Maybe even the noblest profession. And so there’s a built in tendency for films to lionize teachers, whether they’re the crusty Mr. Chips or the nurturing Miss Dove. There are exceptions, of course, with films like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie springing to mind, but on the whole, teachers often tend to float through films like semi-divine beings, dispensing knowledge and even wisdom and setting sometimes troubled youths’ lives in order with just a scholarly allusion to a poem or painting helping to point the way. All of these tendencies, including a little of Brodie’s antithetical approach, are on display in the enjoyable if rote Words and Pictures, a film which posits not one but two teachers who are attempting to inspire their frankly obnoxious upper crust students to a life of civic responsibility and intellectual acumen. If this pair isn't exactly noble in the traditional sense, and is undoubtedly damaged, there's still a subtext of a wise elder attempting to stir something deep within dulled student spirits, one of the hoariest tropes in any film involving teachers. Clive Owen is hard drinking English teacher Jack Marcus, a once promising poet who is drowning his malaise in lots of alcohol while occasionally berating his bratty charges as “droids”. (These are definitely not the droids Jack is looking for.) Juliette Binoche shows up as new hire Dina Delsanto, a world famous painter who is reduced to teaching due to her debilitating rheumatoid arthritis, a condition she attempts to keep as private as possible, despite the fact that it makes her true passion—painting, of course—next to impossible. There’s an obvious spark of attraction between Jack and Dina from almost the first moment, but in one of the conveniences that tend to crop up all too frequently in films of this ilk, the two are pitted against each other in a pseudo-philosophical debate of what Art—literature or painting—is the more expressive and, potentially, helpful in aiding students ford the raging rivers of adult life. It’s all patently silly, and even more than a bit overwrought at times, but the innate charms of Owen and Binoche (who evidently did her own rather impressive painting for the film) carry Words and Pictures on a genial enough course.
Words and Pictures is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. This digitally shot feature is impeccably sharp and clear, with a good, natural looking palette that pops quite nicely when things like Binoche's art are on display. Otherwise, Schepisi and DP Ian Baker tend to favor a somewhat tamped down color space, with lots of browns, taupes and beiges, leaving small items like a scarf Binoche wears to provide little pops of hue. Fine detail is excellent in close-ups and even midrange shots, offering nicely clear views of things like pill on costumes. Baker and Schepisi play with light quite evocatively here, including some almost noir-ish moments of louvred blinds casting horizontal bars of shade across a classroom, and the consistent contrast helps to make the most of such moments. There are no issues with compression artifacts or other anomalies to cause any worry.
Words and Pictures' lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 doesn't have a whale of a lot to work with in terms of providing a sonic "wow" factor, but there's good, consistent, if sometimes quite subtle, immersion here, courtesy of a wealth of ambient environmental sounds both inside and outside of the school grounds. Paul Grabowsky's score was a little too treacly for my personal tastes, but it wafts through the surrounds quite nicely and provides a nice bed of sound for several key scenes. Dialogue is always very cleanly presented, and the track has no issues of any kind to warrant concern.
Words and Pictures seems to want to be both old fashioned and cutting edge, and there's simply not room enough for both in Di Pego's by the numbers screenplay. The basic conflict here is so pretentious to begin with, and the solution to the supposed "controversy" so easy to solve, that the film just seems to be whiling away the time just waiting for the appointed dramatic beats to drop at the appropriate times. Still, Owen and Binoche are two commanding presences, and they fill this film with some actual emotion, instead of the hot air that is otherwise providing the environment. Technical merits here are very strong, and with caveats noted, Words and Pictures comes Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
2011
Warner Archive Collection
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