James Dean: Forever Young (2005)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating	?
Year Of Production	2005
Running Time	84:07
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Michael J. Sheridan
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Martin Sheen
Case	?
RPI	Box	Music	Timothy Wynn Patrea Patrick Fred Roth

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.66:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Varies	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Arabic Bulgarian Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Italian Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Slovenian Spanish Swedish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    This final disc of the Complete James Dean Collection is a documentary that is only available with the boxed set. Narrated by Martin Sheen, it traces Dean's career from his early bit parts in Pepsi advertisements through to his tragic death at a mere 24 years of age.

    The documentary comprises a wealth of old footage of James Dean's TV appearances as well as a number of stills taken by professional photographers, candidly by his friends, and photos taken by Dean himself. There is also 16mm film footage taken by Dean of behind the scenes happenings on the Giant set, as well as scenes from early films in which he had bit parts. It is not an overly sentimental documentary and gives a factual account of Dean's career without romanticising him.

Video

    The video quality is variable as the source material is mixed. Most of the documentary consists of 1950s TV footage and old film stock, so sharpness is often poor and almost every film artefact you can name is present at some point. Scratches, hairs and spots all appear at some some stage, but, due to the historic nature of the footage, this is not really a criticism of the video quality. Considering the origin of much of the material, the video transfer is more than acceptable.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    A Dolby Digital 2.0 track is provided and it is clear and without problems. Some of the old TV footage suffers from the bandwidth and hiss limitations of the era, but the commentary is always clean and distinct. Most of the sound is concentrated around the centre sound stage, with only some audio effects moving to the left or right.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras.

    As far as I can determine, the Region 1 disc is identical to the Region 4.

    An interesting documentary on the career of one of the most influential and iconic actors ever. If you are a James Dean fan you will want to see it. Those who are unfamiliar with Dean's work will find this documentary enhances their appreciation of the movies in this set.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall