The Blues-The Soul of a Man (2003) |
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The Blues-The Soul of a Man (2003) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Documentary |
Main Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Wim Wenders (Director) Additional Footage-Bonus Performances Music Highlights-Songs From The Film Outtakes-Keith Brown-The Visit To The Plantation (No Audio) Interviews-Crew-Wim Wenders Featurette-Wim Wenders Q&A Biographies-Crew-Wim Wenders Filmographies-Crew-Wim Wenders Trailer-The Blues Trailer-24 Hour Party People, Standing In The Shadows Of Motown Trailer-Princess Mononoke, Swing, Live Forever |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2003 | ||
| Running Time | 99:39 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (26:16) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 1,2,3,4,5,6 | Directed By | Wim Wenders |
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Studio
Distributor |
Vulcan Productions Madman Entertainment |
Starring |
Laurence Fishburne Lou Reed Bonnie Raitt Nick Cave Cassandra Wilson T-Bone Burnett Alvin Youngblood Hart Shemekia Copeland Garland Jeffries Eagle-Eye Cherry Vernon Reid |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip | ||
| RPI | $29.95 | Music |
Blind Willie Johnson Skip James J.B. Lenoir |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 5.0 (448Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| 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 episode of The Blues is directed by Wim Wenders, a German-born director whose films often feature music of the 1960s or American blues. Most people would probably remember the extensive use of Ry Cooder in Paris, Texas, though the influence dates back to Wenders' earliest movies, such as the short 3 American LPs and his initial feature Summer in the City (Dedicated to The Kinks).
Wenders takes a look at the blues through the medium of his three favourite bluesmen: Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James and J.B. Lenoir. A song by Johnson was included on a recording sent into deep space with Voyager, and this is used as the frame for the story, with Johnson (voiced by Laurence Fishburne) looking at the lives of James and Lenoir.
Johnson cut some records in 1927, but no film footage of him exists. Some silent-style footage with performer Chris Thomas King has been put together, mimed to original recordings. Wenders explains in the audio commentary that they could not even find a photograph of Johnson, but a quick search on the internet reveals at least one photo purporting to be him. Johnson was blind from the age of seven after his stepmother threw lye in his face to get back at his father, and apparently lived a difficult life, dying of pneumonia in 1947 after being forced to sleep in the ruins of his burned-down house.
Nehemiah "Skip" James also cut some records in 1931, but the Depression left him without any income, and for the next thirty years he worked as a Baptist preacher. He was rediscovered for the 1964 Newport Jazz Festival, when in hospital suffering from cancer. Thanks to his rediscovery and the recording of one of his songs by Cream he was able to undergo an operation that prolonged his life until 1969, and he made some more recordings. He had an unusual vocal technique and despite 30 years out of performing still had a prodigious technique with the guitar.
J.B. Lenoir was an obscure artist whose music was unreleased in America, his only LP recording coming out in East Germany. Wenders came across him via a song by John Mayall, a tribute to Lenoir who died of injuries sustained in a car accident in 1967. In making this film Wenders tracked down some footage of Lenoir made by two art students in the early 1960s, and their recollections of him form a significant part of the film.
Several times during the audio commentary Wenders mentions the low budget nature of this work, but it does not really show through in the final product, which is quite enjoyable and interesting. Included in the film are versions of songs by the three bluesmen performed by contemporary artists, including Lou Reed, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Bonnie Raitt, Cassandra Wilson and T-Bone Burnett, amongst others. A pleasant way to spend an hour and a half, and gold to fans of blues music.
The film is presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.
In my review of the first entry in this series, Feel Like Going Home, I described what appeared to be artefacts arising out of an NTSC to PAL video transfer. The same appears to be the case here, though the impact is not as severe. In fact the only severe artefact is aliasing, with a lot of jagged edges and shimmering in some scenes, and less in others. If you are not especially bothered by aliasing, then this is a pretty good transfer, video-wise.
The transfer is reasonably sharp and clear. Most of the film was shot in digital in PAL format according to Wenders, with the reconstruction scenes in black and white shot using a 1920s hand-cranked camera which Wenders had brought in from Germany. The sequences shot with this camera show more fine detail than the digital ones, though the latter seem to have less depth of focus. The reconstruction sequences have also been tampered with to give more of a silent film appearance, with a lot of flicker and vertical shake. The latter causes some visual distortions.
Colour is good and realistic, with accurate flesh tones. Blacks are very clean, without any low level noise that I could see.
There is a lot of what Wenders describes as "found footage", old material from the 1930s or thereabouts, and this footage is riddled with film artefacts. Otherwise the transfer is very clean.
The programme includes subtitles that are burned-in, in a white typeface font. These appear during the songs, in order to compensate for the lack of clarity in the old recordings as well as the diction of the singers. Most of the modern covers of the songs are subtitled as well.
The disc is RSDL-formatted with the layer change placed at 26:16. Like the previous disc in this series that I reviewed, my player had trouble with the layer change. In this case it froze completely, and I had to skip to the next chapter to get past the layer break. The same problem did not occur on a different player, so caveat emptor.
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There is a choice of audio between Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1. While the former is the default, I listened to the latter.
The audio is pretty good, and while it falls short of reference quality, there is really nothing wrong with it. Perhaps it is lacking slightly in fullness, with a digital edge to the sound.
Dialogue is very clear. Some of the song lyrics are hard to decipher, but subtitles are provided for these. The surround mix tends towards the front channels, but there are effects from the rear speakers, for example during the footage of the Voyager lifting off and for a train passing across the screen. The former also triggers the subwoofer, which gets a workout during several of the songs. The surround mix is quite well integrated with the music having a believable soundstage, and no component sounding overemphasised.
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Part of the theme music for the series is heard under the static menu.
This is a very good commentary. Wenders is an engaging speaker and he describes his coming on to the project and the process by which he cam up with the final edit in detail. There are also a lot of tidbits about various elements of the shoot, including the use of a 1920s hand-cranked camera for the reconstruction sequences. However...
There is some more poor quality control here, though whether this is how the material was supplied to Madman or whether this occurred in their mastering is not known to me. The audio commentary is severely out of sync, being some 14 seconds ahead of the video. I'm surprised that no-one noticed this, as Wenders describes things on screen that aren't there for a long while. The original audio can be heard in the background, so comparing the main track with the audio track reveals the extent of the sync issue. Being an audio commentary this is not as severe as it would be if the problem was with the main audio, but it is still a huge problem, and will put off a lot of people from listening to the commentary all the way through, which is a pity.
Some five complete performances of songs by James or Lenoir, which are either alternate versions or extended versions of songs from the film. All are in 1.78:1 as the main feature but are in stereo only. The songs are:
This is simply a menu that enables the songs included in the film to be played, and so it includes bits of the film as well, including snippets of narration.
This is an scene of James returning to the plantation from the reconstruction material, which did not make it to the final film.
A short interview with Wenders talking about aspects of the project.
This is footage of a question and answer session that Wenders did for a screening of the film at the Cinema Nova in Melbourne in 2004. Unfortunately, Wenders appears on video link-up, so the video and especially the audio of him is quite poor - it looks like it was recorded by filming the screen. His answers to the questions posed to him by Tom Ryan are often difficult to understand. There are some excerpts from the film, and we see Ryan in a darkened cinema. The footage from the cinema is pretty good, and the questions are reasonably intelligent. Wenders is quite witty and this is interesting material despite the problems.
A detailed six page text biography.
A complete filmography of the director.
The standard trailer for the entire series.
Trailers for other Madman releases.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The UK Region 2 release reports none of the glitches that I experienced with the Region 4. The edition differs slightly from the Region 4. Firstly, instead of a Dolby Digital 2.0 track there is a Linear PCM 2.0 track, reportedly better than the 5.1 track in sound quality, as you would expect. Then there is a different Q&A session with the director running 9 minutes. The reviewer of this disc indicates that the additional footage of Lou Reed in performance runs 13 minutes, rather than the 6 on the Region 4.
Given the absence of glitches on the Region 2, it would be preferable to the Region 4.
An excellent entry in The Blues series.
The video quality is spoiled by aliasing artefacts.
The audio quality is good.
There are a lot of extras, but the audio commentary is way out of sync.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer DV-S733A, using Component output |
| Display | Sony 86CM Trinitron Wega KVHR36M31. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to DVD player, Dolby Digital, dts and DVD-Audio. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. |
| Amplification | Sony TA-DA9000ES |
| Speakers | Main: Tannoy Revolution R3; Centre: Tannoy Sensys DCC; Rear: Richter Harlequin; Subwoofer: JBL SUB175 |