Snow Falling on Cedars: Collector's Edition (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Featurette-Spotlight On Location (21:43) Audio Commentary-Scott Hicks (Director) Deleted Scenes-(21:06) Notes-Manzanar Internment Camp Theatrical Trailer-1.78:1, not 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 Production Notes Biographies-Cast & Crew Web Links
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	122:00
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (77:57)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Scott Hicks
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Ethan Hawke James Cromwell Richard Jenkins Youki Kudoh James Rebhorn Sam Shepard Rick Yune Max Von Sydow
Case	Brackley-Trans-No Lip
RPI	$36.95	Music	James Newton Howard

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Portuguese French Arabic	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Providing a plot synopsis for this film is actually an enormously difficult thing, as it is an extremely dense film with an awful lot going on, with most of it not having a lot to do with what is supposedly happening on screen. At its very core, it is a simple mystery about discovering what happened one foggy night in a local shipping channel that resulted in the drowning of a local fisherman Carl Heine (Eric Thal). When he fails to return, the local Sheriff, Art Moran (Richard Jenkins) heads out in search of Carl's vessel. Discovered adrift in the calm shipping channel with its nets still out, the whereabouts of Carl is soon discovered. On a lot of rather circumstantial evidence, an "inscrutable" Japanese American fisherman in Kazuo Miyamoto (Rick Yune) is charged with Carl's murder, and so mystery number one is played out in the court of the little town of San Pedrio. However, all is not as plain as it seems and in playing out mystery number one, mystery number two is brought into play as the wife of the accused, Hatsue Miyamoto (Youki Kudoh), had a relationship with the editor/reporter of the local newspaper, Ishmael Chambers (Ethan Hawke) and this forms a backdrop to the courtroom story. This relationship failed to survive the Second World War, which is the basis of the third mystery around which the film revolves: the relationship of the American and Japanese American population of this small town that was very much split by one of the most disgraceful episodes in American history. For those that are not aware, shortly after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, the United States government invoked laws that resulted in American citizens of Japanese descent being rounded up and placed into internment camps for much of the rest of the war.

    Unfortunately, to provide much more of a synopsis would in fact give away far too much of the film, and to be honest, this film has such a wide scope that what is going on is very much a subjective thing. It is a love story in many ways, a reminder of how difficult it is to divorce oneself away from deep relationships of the past, and how they continue to affect the future. It is a story about racism and prejudice, on a tapestry far less known than the more well-reported black and white issue. It is a story about the irrationality of such racism and prejudice based purely on how one looks, rather than looking at the rationality of the character of a person, and how it resulted in one of the worst passages in American history. It is a story about the mistrust that arises from the irrationality of the racism and prejudice. It is an indictment of the lack of genuine commitment to the philosophies at the very core of the American Declaration of Independence. The more one watches this film, the more one can find within the film. It can be viewed as shallowly as the simple murder mystery, or it can be viewed as deeply as the strong racist divisions that did exist and still exist in not just American society, but in most societies of the supposedly developed countries of the world.

    Obviously to bring to the screen such a dense story requires special talents and special dedication. This begins with the superb screenplay but requires special performances to bring the screenplay to life, and in that regard this is blessed with some fine efforts. At the supposed core of the film is Ethan Hawke, but in some ways his lead character is very much a periphery to the story - a sort of link but not much more to the true flow of the film. His performance as the young reporter trying to overcome the effects of World War Two as well as trying to move beyond the shadow of his father is very good indeed. Japanese pop star Youki Kudoh is no less brilliant as the wife of the accused, trying to come to terms with the charge against her husband, her youthful relationship with Ishmael and the desires of her parents to be true to her race. Scott Hicks has assembled a superb ensemble cast here and each provides a truly memorable performance. Max Von Sydow is wonderful as the ageing Swedish American lawyer, Sam Shepard briefly memorable as Ishmael's father, Rick Yune (in his debut role) the epitome of Japanese stoicism and inscrutability, Celia Weston suitably convincing as the somewhat racist widow of a German American farmer and James Cromwell his sterlingly reliable self as the judge. Everywhere you look here there is a quality of performance that just draws you in to the story. The direction of Scott Hicks is stunningly effective, but what really stands out here above all else is some of the best cinematography you are ever likely to see. The result is a visual treat of rare quality and how this did not win Best Cinematography at the Oscars (it was nominated, but lost out in the American Beauty hype-fest) is beyond my comprehension.

    Certainly the extensive use of flashbacks to provide so much of the flow of the story is not going to be to everyone's tastes. But in this instance it is done so utterly superbly that it is very hard to imagine the novel by David Guterson being brought to life in any other way. If La Vita e Bella (Life Is Beautiful) made an early bid for release of the year, then this effort is certainly going to push it very hard indeed. A superbly evocative film that is very atypical of the general quality that seems to make it onto Region 4 DVD. Do yourself a huge favour and give this one a view or three.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and in this instance is 16x9 enhanced, which of course begs the question as to why Universal is not consistent in the application of 16x9 enhancement.

    From the opening scene of the barely-visible fishing boat in the fog, this transfer just exudes quality, in both definition and clarity. This definition and clarity is sustained throughout the entire film, other than in those places where it was deliberately restrained (such as in the fog), and this is perhaps no better demonstrated than the shots in the forest during the rain, when just about every rain drop is clearly seen. This is a wonderfully sharp transfer highlighted by the stunning definition during the darker segments of the film. Despite the extremely effective use made of deep shadows, the detail nonetheless remains uniformly high throughout. There did not appear to be any grain at all in the transfer and to make any suggestion about the presence of low level noise in the transfer would be to invoke demands for my incarceration. Visually, this is as stunningly good a transfer as I have ever seen.

    Whilst the palette of colours has been deliberately kept very restrained (as noted in the audio commentary) this remains a wonderfully vibrant transfer, with a positive radiance to the greys and browns inherent in so much of the film. The result is an extremely convincing depiction of a cold bleak winter in the waters off Washington state. You will be very sadly disappointed if you are looking for bright primary colours here, as they simply do not fit the period nor mood of the film at all. There is obviously no hint of oversaturation at all, and little indication anywhere of colour bleed.

    There are absolutely no hints of any MPEG artefacts here at all. The only evidence of film-to-video artefacts in the transfer were some very minor instances of aliasing at around the 12:40 mark and for brief instances from then through to around the 14:00 mark. These are very, very minor instances and are barely noticeable and certainly not distracting to the film at all. As far as I can recall the only film artefact in the whole transfer was actually during the Universal logo! I am sure there were others but they were completely non-disruptive to the film and I did not notice them if they were there.

    This is an RSDL formatted disc and the layer change is a very good one, coming at 77:57. It is barely noticeable and is completely non-disruptive to the flow of the film.

Audio

    There are four audio tracks on the DVD: an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, a French Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, a Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and an English Audio Commentary in Dolby Digital 2.0. You should note that the packaging is incorrect in referring to an Italian soundtrack, as this is not present on the DVD. I listened to the English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and the English Audio Commentary.

    This is a heavily sound driven film, even though Scott Hicks tried to minimize the use of dialogue as much as possible. The result is a soundtrack that has a wide range in the audio level that does require just a touch of judicious manipulation of the volume control at times. However, this is a film-related matter and not a DVD-related matter and in general the dialogue was clear and easy to understand.

    There was no suggestion of audio sync problems with the soundtrack.

    The original music score comes from James Newton Howard and a stunner it is too. Superbly evocative at times, wonderfully sublime at others, you will go a long way before finding as well a matched soundtrack as this in recent films. In some ways this is the very best I have heard from this source, and he is definitely now amongst the elite in this field of artistic endeavour.

    The main feature of the soundtrack is the fact that there is nothing at all wrong with it. Simple statement of fact. The surround channel use is very good, wonderfully evocative with a glorious spaciousness and crispness to it, as befitting the setting of the film. The bass channel got rather limited use, which is to be expected in a film of this sort, but when called upon it did a superb job. The soundscape overall is so stunningly effective that it borders on being uncanny. There was obviously a very large degree of emphasis placed upon the sound for the film, as evidenced by the interesting juxtaposition of sound effects at times, and this is clearly reflected in the quality of the audio transfer. Brilliant stuff, and amply demonstrating yet again that subtlety is a most effective way of showing off sound capabilities.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer (2:28)

Audio Commentary - Scott Hicks (Director)

Biographies - Cast and Crew

Deleted Scenes (21:06)

Featurette - Spotlight On Location (21:43)

Notes - Manzanar Internment Camp

Production Notes

Web Links

• Additional Pan and Scan version of the film

    A superb video transfer.

    A superb audio transfer.

    A very good extras package.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall