Don Quixote - American Ballet Theater

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General		Extras
Category	Ballet	Booklet  Listing - Cast and Crew Synopsis  Web Links
Rating
Year Released	1983
Running Time	85:48 minutes
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Selection, then Menu
Region	2,3,4,5,6	Director	Brian Large
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision Australia	Starring	Mikhail Baryshnikov Cynthia Harvey Richard Schafer Brian Adams Victor Barbee Frank Smith
Case	Transparent Amaray
RPI	$39.95	Music	Ludwig Minkus

    Okay, the broad story being told here in dance is pretty simple in reality. Take one heroine, Kitri (Cynthia Harvey), the guy who loves her, Basil (Mikhail Baryshnikov), the rich guy who lusts after her, Gamache (Victor Barbee) and one slightly eccentric and possibly senile old Spanish knight, Don Quixote (Richard Schafer), stir the pot a little and out pops the slight story. Basil loves Kitri but her old man Lorenzo (Frank Smith) rather fancies the idea of having the wealthy Gamache as a son-in-law. As a result, Basil and Kitri decide to run off together, and seek shelter with the gypsies. Don Quixote rocks up in search of his beloved Dulcinea (a person who only exists in his mind) and mistakes Kitri for her. However things are soon sorted out but then Gamache comes in hot pursuit with Lorenzo in tow. As Basil and Kitri again flee, Don Quixote points them in the wrong direction only to have his bumbling attendant Sancho Panza (Brian Adams) point the two in the right direction. Basil and Kitri are happily whiling away the time in the tavern when Lorenzo and Gamache arrive to spoil the day. Basil makes to kill himself and Kitri implores Don Quixote to get Lorenzo to agree to her marrying her dying love. Naturally Lorenzo does, and she and the mysteriously resuscitated Basil are married, with Gamache and eventually Lorenzo accepting the inevitable defeat.

    Nothing much in the way of originality here and in broad terms this has been a staple of many art forms, including theatre and film, for many years. However, dance makes it more difficult to tell a story and there are times here that you do lose track of what is going on. In place of a plot you can follow you thus fall back on lots of dancing. I might not know much about ballet, but one thing I do know - Mikhail Baryshnikov can dance. You do not need to be an expert to see how vastly superior he is to the cast and corps here. There is far greater range, fluidity and vitality to his dancing than any other here, and by a long shot. Cynthia Harvey is pretty decent but not in the same league. The rest are just there to support the great one. Mind you, it helps when you are also the choreographer of the ballet, so you can guarantee yourself all the best bits!

    I really cannot say that I enjoyed this at all, but certainly the eighty minutes or so are quite reasonably filled with lots of ballet action and lots of excuses to see why Mikhail Baryshnikov could please the ladies whilst the rest of the male cast could not. However, this is definitely something for fans of ballet only.

Video

    The transfer is presented in Full Frame format and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The area where this transfer most shows its age is in the slightly flat image. There is an amazing lack of depth to the image with the result that there is little in the way of detail in the transfer. Sharpness is at best only pretty good and often is fairly average. Clarity is acceptable enough although there is plenty of consistent albeit minor grain throughout the transfer. Shadow detail is similarly quite average and is not up to what we would expect in similar recordings today. There would appear to be some minor noise issues in the sky background, especially during the first Act.

    The transfer is consistently slightly undersaturated throughout with the result that this is not as vibrant as we would have expected. Since this is supposed to capture the full Spanish colour, this is a bit underwhelming overall. I really did find myself wishing for a lot more depth to the colours here, for it really could have been a visual treat. There is no problem with oversaturation in the transfer. There are a couple of minor issues with colour bleed in the transfer, mainly in some slightly more flashy colours in the middle background.

    There are no significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There did not appear to be any significant film-to-video artefacts in the transfer. There did not appear to be any significant film artefacts in the transfer.
 
 

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Since all the soundtrack has to do is carry the music by Ludwig Minkus, there is not much to say about the soundtrack. The music by the way is quite wonderful and this really is a nice breezy eighty odd minutes from that point of view.

    Sorry to say but there is nothing much else to say about the soundtrack. Obviously lacking surround and bass channel use, it is fairly open and clean, giving the music a reasonable chance to shine.
 
 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Booklet

Listing - Cast and Crew

Synopsis

Web Link

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
5th April, 2001