DVD DETAILS:
Vision
Szwarc’s visual style in Somewhere in Time is surprisingly mild although he makes good use of a gently dollying camera. He shot the scenes in the present on a different film stock from the scenes in the past and the lighting is subtly more diffuse in the past, giving much of the film a deliberately Impressionistic look. As enticing as this is, the widescreen letterbox transfer is woeful. In a film of deliberate hazing and soft focus gentility, background clarity is necessary and this transfer merely renders it indistinct, grainy and smudged, little better than VHS. It seems after all this time that the studio still has no faith in the movie and only scant concern for the fans. Overall clarity is smeared and the sense of color often muted (although much of this is intended). Nevertheless, the lavish Grand Hotel setting is preserved and the film manages a fine sense of period detail. It also has a solid idea of how the accumulated details in Reeve’s life (past and present) coalesce into his romantic fascination with Seymour and the past – a process akin to the ideas of reference which are so much a part of psychotic delusion. Montage sequences are especially well used and there is a sense of brightness, a delight in the diffuse appearance of natural light and a tender use of reflections in windows, pictures and portraits. The origins of the photograph that bewitches Reeve are most affecting and the recreation of bygone theatre is also historically intriguing.
Sound
The sound transfer is also something of a disappointment in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono only, most lamentable considering the exceptional score by John Barry. The opening features a nice use of overlapping sounds but a hiss is noticeable in the gentle silences. Aural design is quite low-key and although there is a sense of delicate busyness to the rhythms of hotel life, it makes only for a mild presence. The sound mix too seems almost diffused, but in this case much of its mildness is seemingly due to the transfer limitations. Off-screen sounds (notably horses) still carry through slightly when needed to enhance the period feel. Scenes of self-hypnosis are quite effective, especially in the way Reeve’s desperate voice interacts with his own recorded calm voice played back on his tape recorder – encapsulating the sense of a psychotic split within the character as he wrestles for self-control. The source sounds are moderately engaging to build a sense of time and place, but again the film suffers from the lack of a fully-fleshed out transfer: it is akin to watching the film on television as opposed to home theatre as the mono transfer threatens to mute and nullify the individuality of voices and effects, which often must battle to achieve any presence beyond the functional. It is barely even that, especially when considering that this release is marketed as a Special Collector’s Anniversary DVD Edition. read more
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