DVD DETAILS:
Vision
The 16:9 enhanced widescreen visual transfer is often outstanding. The filmmakers’ precise control of colour and light is everywhere in evidence and the transfer preserves a truly masterful, radiantly cinematic accomplishment – a finely etched interplay of the naturalistic and the progressively stylized. At times, particularly at the beginning, it feels like a painting come to life, and the all-important sunset scenes are emotive high-points, the golden tint to these shots suggesting that these are truly pristine moments in these youth’s lives. Style is more integrated into story, character and theme than was present in the artificiality of the previous One from the Heart. Well-lit figures often stand out from deep blacks and the widescreen preserves the evolving sense of group dynamics in the compositions. It often uses primary colours for striking effect, and the delicate, flowing superimpositions add a poetic quality to the proceedings. The visual beauty is reserved for the sunsets and the golden moments where the youths are at their most secure – colour and darkness gradually revealing an emotional predicament, with Howell’s sense of self finally evident when his peroxided hair matches the golden moments that were so precious to him and the tragic Macchio. The use of gold suggests the ability, however fleeting, to rise above one’s condition towards something better – the process of adolescent yearning as it turns to adulthood.
Sound
The sound transfer on this DVD is equally fine, although only in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. The full, vibrant spatial score is a delight in an accomplished mix. It is full of standout touches, for instance the drive-in scene cleverly uses the sounds of a screened film as background to the conversations of the characters, establishing a solid sense of place from scene to scene and location to location as sounds merge and flow. The voices are always crisp and well-defined. The mix is perfectly judged, also making good use of the difference in soundscapes between individual scenes. Although some critics found the score by Carmine Coppola too melodramatic it is nonetheless a fine complement, highlighting the journey these characters go through and further linking the movie to the filmmaking style of the period in which it is set. Incidental sounds are always crisp and there was no fatal hiss evident. It is a transfer that preserves the cinematic effects of the original film, with fine spatial moments and a consistent clarity throughout. It also makes good use of songs from the era to frame the characters’ movements and initial purposelessness – indeed the evocative score signals through its highpoints the growing emotional awareness of these characters to their true social circumstances. How they react is a measure of peer pressure, social expectation and individual will. In sound and vision it is a splendid evocation of period. The film has a deliberation not in evidence in the glut of teenage movies that proliferated in the early 1980s, and the transfer preserves this. read more
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