The Blues-Feel Like Going Home (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Main Menu Audio Additional Footage-Bonus Performances Music Highlights-Songs From The Film Featurette-Interview With Martin Scorsese Biographies-Crew-Martin Scorsese Filmographies-Crew-Martin Scorsese Trailer-The Blues Trailer-Amandla!, Kiki's Delivery Service, Playtime, Russian Ark Trailer-Standing In The Shadows Of Motown
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	79:34
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (56:24)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Martin Scorsese
Studio Distributor	Vulcan Productions Madman Entertainment	Starring	Corey Harris Willie King Taj Mahal Otha Turner
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This is the first in a series of seven films under the banner The Blues, about the form of music that emanates from the Mississippi delta and which was very influential in the development of rock and roll. Executive produced by Martin Scorsese, a blues fan, this first episode was directed by him.

    The series differs from Ken Burns' series Jazz in that it does not take a chronological view of the development of this form of music, nor does this first episode have any talking heads pontificating about the music and its history. Instead, Scorsese goes directly to the epicentre of the Delta, where we meet some of the living practitioners of the art, such as Willie King, Taj Mahal and others. We follow Corey Harris as he meets Otha Turner, who made his own fifes from sugar cane. He must have been in his mid-nineties (he has since died) and was almost the last of the cane players. Harris then travels to Mali, where he finds the roots of the Blues style.

    This is fascinating material, even for someone like me who is not normally interested in this style of music. The material is compelling, featuring some legendary performers in the genre, such as Robert Johnson, who died at 27 and was reputed to have sold his soul to the Devil. There are only two known photographs of him, but we get an archival interview with Johnny Shines who travelled and played with him. There are old TV performances from John Lee Hooker, Son House and Muddy Waters to boot, as well as recordings made long ago by musicologist Alan Lomax. Scorsese takes a back seat, appearing on screen once and narrating part of the film. It is very well put together and well worth seeing, even if the blues isn't your thing. I will look forward to seeing the rest of the films, directed by six different directors, including Mike Figgis, Clint Eastwood and Wim Wenders.

Video

    The video is in the original 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is reasonable but looks like an NTSC to PAL transfer, with considerable aliasing and a lack of sharpness in fine detail. Brightness and contrast are good, and colour is also good. There is a mixture of black and white and colour footage, some of it deliberately grainy. Some of the newer footage is in black and white. The older footage suffers from the usual film artefacts, but these do not really matter very much.

    The aliasing, which occurs on most straight edges in the recent material (especially guitar strings), gets quite annoying. So does the lack of sharpness due to the NTSC conversion, which at times seems to have generated a faint combing effect.

    Subtitles are provided for some sequences and are burned-in. They are in a clear white font, and are used to translate French dialogue in the Mali sequences as well as some of the more incomprehensible English. It is a pity that optional subtitles were not available for the rest, as some of the thick American accents are difficult to understand.

    The disc is RSDL-formatted, and has one of the worst layer changes I have seen for a while. The change occurs at 56:24 at a cut, and it took about two seconds for my player to negotiate it. I thought that the player was about to crash.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The default track is Dolby Digital 5.1, with an alternative 2.0 soundtrack. I listened to the default track.

    The soundtrack is quite good, with clear music and dialogue and a reasonable dynamic range. I could not describe this as reference quality, but I did not have any problems with the audio. The older material has the inevitable hiss and crackle, but the newer music is clean, though not of CD quality.

    The surround mix is fairly quiet. There is little in the way of rear channel audio and no low frequency effects that I could detect. The sound is very frontal, and being spread across the three front channels seems to rob it of stereo effects, which seem more pronounced in the 2.0 track. That track also seems to have more presence and liveliness, so viewers may prefer to listen to it.

    Very little needs to be said about the quality of the music - blues admirers will love this.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Main Menu Audio

    The audio on the menu is a blues song that I do not recall from this film.

Additional Footage-Bonus Performances (14:36)

    Performances by Taj Mahal, Corey Harris, Willie King and others, some of which are fuller versions of what appears in the film. Others seem to be taken from the film itself and end abruptly.

Music Highlights-Songs From The Film (19:54)

    Some 25 songs excerpted from the film, which means that some of them end very abruptly, though others appear to be extended versions.

Featurette-Interview With Martin Scorsese (4:28)

    A brief interview which gives some background to the director's interest in the blues.

Biographies-Crew-Martin Scorsese

    A lengthy and detailed text biography of the director.

Filmographies-Crew-Martin Scorsese

    A complete filmography.

Trailer-The Blues (5:45)

    A very long trailer which deals with the entire seven film series.

Trailers-Amandla!, Kiki's Delivery Service, Playtime, Russian Ark, Standing In The Shadows Of Motown (10:05)

    Trailers grouped under the Madman Propaganda rubric.

    The Region 4 seems to be identical to the Region 1 and Region 2 releases, though I would imagine the Region 1 would have better video quality. There are no reviews available to confirm this.

    Fascinating stuff, even for non-blues fans.

    The video quality is not so good, with a poor layer change as well.

    The audio quality is very good.

    A lot of extras, though their repeat value does not seem to be high.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall