Gigi

BUY

General		Extras
Category	Musical	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 2.35:1, non-16x9, Dolby Digital 1.0
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1958	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	110:43 minutes	Other Extras	Main Menu Audio
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	2,4	Director	Vincente Minnelli
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Leslie Caron Maurice Chevalier Louis Jourdan Hermione Gingold Eva Gabor Jacques Bergerac Isabel Jeans
Case	Amaray
RRP	$36.95	Music	Andre Previn

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	No	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 3.0, 384Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 1.0, 192Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 1.0, 192Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	2.35.1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?Yes	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese German Romanian Bulgarian English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    But how bad can it really be when it won nine Oscars in 1959 from nine nominations? And when you look at those it won you do have to ponder further: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Colour), Best Cinematography (Colour), Best Costume Design (Colour), Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Music-Scoring of a Musical Picture, Best Music- Song, Best Picture and Best Writing - Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. A decent enough haul indeed, but I really do wonder what this infatuation was with musicals in the 1950s and 1960s, bearing in mind that the ilk of West Side Story and My Fair Lady also garnered decent hauls - and in the case of the former, is one of the worst films I have ever had the misfortune to watch. Perhaps it should be enshrined as a new reviewers' theorem - the more Oscars that a film garners, the less likely it is to be a film to enjoy. Yes, I hate musicals, and have no problem admitting it. So why did I end up with another for review you ask? I wish I knew, but I think it may have had something to do with sticking my hand up when everyone else kept theirs down. And, unusually enough, we have the chance to preview a Warners release.

    Despite all the above, it has to be admitted that since the renowned Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe duo seemed to be incapable of anything less than good, there is music aplenty to enjoy here, including I Remember It Well and Thank Heaven For Little Girls. Set in 1900, the broad story here is of Gigi (Leslie Caron), a vivacious young girl who blossoms into a beautiful woman. Her close friend is the wealthiest man in France in Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan) who has always looked upon her as a young family friend and nothing more. However, after a bust up with his latest girlfriend, at the behest of his uncle Honore Lachaille (Maurice Chevalier), he enters into a wild round of parties and evenings with beautiful women. All of this is a tedious bore to him and he pines for companionship - which he finds in Gigi. Eventually it dawns on him that he is in love with her and offers her the world - well, at least cars, house, servants, clothes. Gigi, though wants it all, including the one thing that money cannot substitute for - his love.

    Whilst the story is elegantly simple, like so many of the musicals involving Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, it has been parlayed into a reasonably entertaining little film. Whilst it is by no means the best from these two gentlemen (and let's face it, the films are theirs and no one else's), that title being generally accepted to belong to My Fair Lady, that makes it better than most musicals ever made. Much of the charm of the film derives from the performance of Maurice Chevalier in his role as the narrator of the show, and this leaves no doubt about the Gallic nature of this film. Leslie Caron carries off the role of Gigi pretty well, although perhaps lacking just a little in naivety as the young girl blossoming into a woman. The rest are pretty much along for the ride, since only Louis Jourdan really has any central role here. I do, however, question the Best Director Oscar awarded to Vincente Minnelli, as there really is nothing here that I find really exceptional. Indeed at times this barely gets above pedestrian other than the Gallic charm of Maurice Chevalier.

    Overall, I would have to agree with my father that this is not the best musical ever made but it certainly has a lot more charm than say the appalling West Side Story.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and it is 16x9 enhanced.

    Overall, the transfer is quite sharp and reasonably well-defined throughout. The shadow detail is very good for a film of this age, which matches the fine detail caught by the camera throughout. There are some minor problems with grain and this does detract just a little from what is otherwise quite a clear transfer. There is no problem with low level noise in the transfer.

    The main problem with the visual aspect of the transfer, however, is the rather obvious matte work. There are a couple of sequences, notably during the coach rides, where they were obviously shot blue matte, with the background being placed in later. Whilst this might have looked really good on the big screen in 1958, the digital medium exposes the lack of quality in the work unmercifully. Adding to this problem is the fact that at times there is some rather noticeable jitter in the background only (the sequence between 10:00 and 12:00 is especially problematic in this regard).

    The colours are very nicely rendered throughout, and consistently so. There is a nice richness of tone to the colours, although perhaps this is not such a good idea in view of the red walls of Gigi's grandmother's house! Overall, this is a nicely vibrant transfer, with no hint of oversaturation at all.

    There is a rather peculiar aspect to the transfer which was most off-putting. Side to side pans where there are backgrounds with strong vertical lines tend to demonstrate a peculiar shifting in the background image as if it is curving around the cameras. Whatever the reason for it, I found it most off-putting. [Ed. This is lens distortion due to the anamorphic lenses used to shoot this movie.] Other than that, there did not appear to be any MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There was a consistent problem with film-to-video artefacts, but only in one aspect: the waistcoat worn by Honore Lachaille's servant shimmers quite atrociously whenever he is in a scene. The worst sequence is between 36:00 and 37:40. Other than that, there were no real problems at all. The film shows its age with quite a decent sprinkling of film artefacts, with some especially obvious hair marks to add to the frequent dirt marks. Perhaps nothing more than we should expect in a forty-two year old film, but a little disappointing compared to earlier releases.

Audio

    There are three soundtracks on this DVD: the English Dolby Digital 3.0 soundtrack, a French Dolby Digital 1.0 mono soundtrack and an Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 mono soundtrack. I listened to the English soundtrack.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand throughout, as was the singing.

    Audio sync does not appear to be a problem with the transfer.

    The score comprises original compositions from Alan Jay Lerner (lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music) which is of course what the film is all about. Lerner and Loewe did this sort of stuff better than most, and this is probably one of their best efforts from a tune point of view. The musical score comes from Andre Previn and the fact that it won an Oscar illustrates how good it should be: I say should be, as this is another example of what I consider an undeserved Oscar. I simply do not find this a memorable score at all, although perhaps the wealth of fine tunes from Lerner and Loewe overshadows it far too much for its own good.

    If nothing else, I found the Dolby Digital 3.0 soundtrack to be a little problematic. Part of the problem is perhaps that not having heard this format before, I was unprepared for how completely flat and frontal the soundscape is: this simply lacks any sort of depth to the soundscape. To be blunt, this film cried out for a lot more air in the sound, and I would suggest that a surround-encoded 2.0 soundtrack would have sounded significantly better, and aided the film a lot more. Apart from the lack of air in the sound, and the very flat soundscape, there is not a whole lot to complain about here. Obviously there is no action from the rear surround channels nor the bass channel.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer (3:25)

    A pretty good video transfer in general.

    A slightly problematic audio transfer.

    A start in the right direction for extras after a succession of devoid releases.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
5th July 2000