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| Robert
Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe, Paul Stewart |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Perry (Robert Blake): I thought
Mr. Clutter was a very nice man. He was a real gentleman... I thought
so right
up to the moment I cut his throat.
Two ex-convicts are pursued by policemen
after a botched burglary during which they killed a whole family.
 Truman
Capote's phenomenal first book offered a fictionalized recreation
of the hunt, arrest and execution of two young ex-cons who murdered
an entire family when an attempted robbery goed bad. Hollywood
was quick to pick up the rights and rush it into production, but
rather than the watered-down sesationalist account of the highly
disturbing events, writer-director Richard Brooks created an understated,
documentary-like adaptation that follows its two main characters
unflinchingly, but never uncompassionately. While never coming
close to condoning or explaining away their horrendous crime, the
film brilliantly charts the path that ends up leading towards inevitable
tragedy.
What makes this a work of cinematic art rather than a well-intentioned
movie-of-the-week is the thoughtfulness of the writing, the subtle,
fragile central performances, and especially the amazing cinematography
by the legendary Conrad Hall. His black-and-white widescreen images
adds a level of poetry as well as articulating emotions the characters
themselves are unable to express, most famously in the shot of
pouring rain reflected on Robert Blake's face as he stoically faces
execution. Amazingly, the film has hardly dated in the thirty-six
years since its original release, retaining its stark power and
offering an insightful look at the nature of crime. |
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Identical releases are available
for Region 1 and Region 2.
The anamorphic widescreen
image is framed at an aspect ratio of approx. 2.35:1. Conrad
Hall's incredible black-and-white cinematography is one of
the film's great strength, and it's a relief to see it in
all of its widescreen glory in an excellent, if unrestored,
transfer. There are occasional white specks and slight blemishes
on the source print, but nothing too distracting, nor is
there very much noticeable grain beyond that which provides
a natural, film-like look to the feature.
The sound mix is rather unusually presented in a three-track
Dolby Digital that utilizes only the three front channels
(left, center and right). This gives a nice spread to Quincy
Jones's jazzy score, with the three discrete audio channels
offering terrific separation and surprisingly good fidelity.
The film's theatrical
trailer is the only extra, unfortunately. It focuses
mostly on the film's fact-based background and on the likenesses
of the actors to the actual perpetrators. A
singly static menu screen offers access to the disc's limited features.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed:
October 22, 2003
Click
here for IMDB info on In
Cold Blood.
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