Gardens of Stone (1987)

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General		Extras
Category	War	Trailer-Birdy; Glory; Brian's Song
Rating
Year Of Production	1987
Running Time	107:15
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Francis Ford Coppola
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	James Caan James Earl Jones Anjelica Huston D.B. Sweeney Mary Stuart Masterson
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Carmine Coppola

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Hindi Portuguese	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

Make A Hole, Make It Wide!

    Gardens Of Stone is another in the recently released collection of Francis Ford Coppola films to make their way to DVD.

    Made in 1987, some eight years after Coppola's seminal Vietnam epic, Apocalypse Now, this is another take on that controversial war, and is really the complete antithesis of that classic 1970s film. The title, Gardens Of Stone, is a euphemism for the Arlington National Cemetery with its bright flowers and row upon row of headstones, where those killed in battle are laid to rest. The men who work there refer to it simply as 'The Garden'.

    The opening scenes are set in 1969 and show a full military honours funeral at Arlington. A grieving widow is presented with the Stars and Stripes as a token of appreciation for their loved one who lost his life serving the greater cause. The story then flips back to 1968 where we meet a young army infantryman, Jackie Willow (D.B. Sweeney). He's assigned to Fort Meyer in Virginia and to the 3rd Infantry. This is the famous 'Old Guard' of the US forces and rather than shooting the Vietcong, he's assigned to ceremonial duty and escort for funerals at Arlington. The problem is, Willow would rather be tramping through the jungles of South-East Asia shooting people and defending the greater good. Instead, he is getting meticulously dressed and playing with rifles that don't shoot and bayonets that don't stick.

    His sergeant, Clell Hazard (James Caan) is a veteran of the war in Korea, and is also sick to death of the ceremonial duty and forever sticking boys in boxes into the ground. He wants a transfer to a training base, where he feels he can at least offer something. He effectively wants to help the recruits before they die and not after. His Sergeant-Major, 'Goody' Nelson (played with great passion and humour by James Earl Jones) is reluctant to lose his mate to the other side of the country.

    Both Hazard and Willow battle the bureaucracy of the military, trying to get transferred and both also fall in love at about the same time. Hazard is smitten with the classy Washington Post reporter who lives in the same building as he does. Samantha (Anjelica Huston) is dead against the war in Vietnam, protesting publicly and loudly at every opportunity. While her politics are at odds with Hazard's, she falls deeply in love with him. Willow falls for an old childhood sweetheart, Rachel (Mary Stuart Masterson) and marriage looks likely. Both men, one old and cynical, the other fresh faced and eager, have much to lose should their dreams to get away from 'The Old Guard' come true.

    This is an anti-war film, but not one which bangs a moral over your head with a shovel. It subtly shows that during major international conflicts, not everyone who is eager to get to war can actually go. Someone must stay home and do the jobs that no-one really wants to do. The internal turmoil of the characters as they face a job that effectively makes them 'toy' soldiers is keenly portrayed, but the climax is a little disappointing and well sign-posted during much of the film.

Video

    I wasn't expecting a whole lot from this transfer, but it took me by surprise. Aside from a little dirt and a bit of grain it really is quite good.

    Presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, it is also 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is reasonably sharp throughout, though there is a fair smattering of edge enhancement present. This raises its head more often when the story moves indoors, particularly in the dimly lit interiors of Clell's and Sam's apartments. Shadow detail is excellent. Between 55:10 and 55:19 the print looks quite grubby and there is significant grain present here also. There is no low level noise.

    Colours are quite splendid, with plenty of the bright blue and red military dress uniforms on display. Skin tones in some of the interior shots (especially those in the residential areas) looked a little reddish. Other than those minor blemishes, this is a colourful and trouble free transfer.

    I saw no MPEG artefacts. Thankfully, there are few major film-to-video artefacts, with aliasing in particular absent. Film artefacts pop up here and there, though they are nothing of any great size to worry about.

    There are plenty of subtitles present. I sampled the English variety and found them adequate, without being 100 per cent accurate.

    This is a single layered disc, so there is no layer change to navigate.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are five soundtracks in total on this disc. All are Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks with the surround flag embedded in the bitstream. Supported languages are English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish. English was my favoured choice and the track I listened to.

    Somewhat disappointingly, this is a really quite unremarkable soundtrack. You'd almost swear it was a mono track due to the predominant centre channel use. The left and right channels are used, just not to any great extent and with little panning or separation.

    Dialogue is pretty much all this film is about. It is handled well with no obvious audio sync problems.

    I was never a huge fan of Carmine Coppola's work in The Godfather. Sure, his efforts paled into insignificance against the great Nino Rota's captivating work, but here Coppola senior is on his own, and this is really a rather lacklustre effort.

    There is basically no surround or dedicated subwoofer use. It isn't missed.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Trailer

    Not a trailer for the actual film, unfortunately. These are only trailers for other Columbia Tristar releases: Birdy, Glory, and Brian's Song.

    Apart from a pan and scan version on the flip side of the disc, the Region 1 disc is identical to the Region 4 version. I would certainly favour the local disc here.

    Gardens of Stone is not one of Francis Ford Coppola's more well known works (at least by me anyway), and it comes a very distant second behind Apocalypse Now as the seminal Vietnam war film. It certainly offers a distinct view on not so much the Vietnam war, since this story could actually be set during any conflict, but war in general, and those that are left home to fight their own internal battles, rather than against a rifle-bearing enemy. The actors do a pretty fine job with James Caan and James Earl Jones in particular sharing a special bond.  Anjelica Huston is pretty classy in her role and D.B. Sweeney captures the naivety of a young soldier perfectly.

    The video transfer far exceeds what I was expecting and really is quite pleasing to watch.

    The audio on the other hand is rather lacklustre and is effectively a mono soundtrack.

    There are effectively no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall