The Portrait of a Lady (1996) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Drama |
Main Menu Audio Featurette-Behind The Scenes Booklet |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 1996 | ||
Running Time | 138:37 | ||
RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (87:58) | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Language Select Then Menu | ||
Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | Jane Campion |
Studio
Distributor |
Universal Pictures Home Video |
Starring |
Nicole Kidman John Malkovich Barbara Hershey Mary-Louise Parker Martin Donovan Shelley Winters Richard E. Grant Shelley Duvall Christian Bale Viggo Mortensen Valentina Cervi John Gielgud |
Case | ? | ||
RPI | $36.95 | Music | Woiciech Kilar |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles |
English French Italian Spanish Portuguese Dutch |
Smoking | Yes |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | No |
That's not to say that I didn't admire the performances. Nicole Kidman was excellent, and believable, as the victim. John Malkovich portrayed a manipulative b****** with great panache - I hated him quite readily. The performances were admirable, but the story was quite unpleasant.
This movie begins in England in 1872, and stretches across several years. Nicole Kidman is a young woman, recently arrived from America to stay with her uncle (John Gielgud) after the death of her parents. Although Lord Warburton (Richard Grant) proposes marriage (a very suitable marriage), she turns him down - she has plans to see more of life before marrying. She has already turned down an American suitor, although he reappears at intervals. The uncle dies, and he leaves a fortune (70,000 pounds) to her - that fortune is the cause of her unhappiness. She travels, visiting Florence and Rome. There she meets a woman (Barbara Hershey) who introduces her to Osmond (John Malkovich). She finds him fascinating (in the sinister sense) and marries him - she does not appreciate that he is really only marrying her for her money, although he finds her somewhat interesting (perhaps because he has plans to break her spirit?).
The Portrait of a Lady is directed by Jane Campion. She has indulged herself in some arty camera angles which I found more annoying than attractive.
The start of the movie is confusing - it begins with what sounds like school girls discussing kisses, then shows girls in modern dress, including one with a walkman. Hard to rationalize this opening with the rest of the movie, except to suggest that perhaps it is a clumsy way of hinting that this was why Nicole Kidman's character was captivated with Osmond.
The movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. It is 16x9 enhanced. The original aspect ratio was 2.35:1, and the composition of the film is clearly intended for that aspect ratio. This is a major fault.
The picture is sharp, with surprisingly good shadow detail and no low-level noise. Unfortunately, with the exception of one or two sun-lit scenes, it is way too dark. I thought this was an artistic choice, albeit one I found unpleasant, but the documentary proved enlightening (what a dreadful pun!). Comparing scenes from the movie with the equivalent scenes in the documentary, it is quite clear that someone has messed up badly - the whole movie should have been rather brighter than it is.
Colour is undersaturated, due, no doubt to the darkness of the film. A couple of sunlit scenes seem better, but even there colours seem a little washed out.
There are some minor film artefacts, but nothing major. There are no MPEG artefacts. There were one or two moments showing aliasing, but they were not troublesome.
The disc is single sided, dual layer (RSDL) with the layer change at 87:58. This is a poor layer change, with a horse and carriage freezing solid. If they'd delayed it a half a second it would have been at a scene change and virtually invisible.
Sharpness | |
Shadow Detail | |
Colour | |
Grain/Pixelization | |
Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
Film Artefacts | |
Overall |
There are five soundtracks in English, German, Dutch, Swedish, and Norwegian. I listened to the English soundtrack in Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 kbps.
Dialogue is mostly clear and easy to understand. There are a few lines that are a little muffled, including one from Shelley Duvall that I only understood after switching on the English subtitles.
The score is rather good, and includes excerpts from Schubert, Strauss, and Bach.
The surrounds are not heavily used, but they provide some nice effects on occasion.
My subwoofer switches off when it has received no signal for 10 minutes; it switches on when it detects a signal. During this movie it switched itself on and off regularly - there is not a lot of low frequency content in the soundtrack.
Dialogue | |
Audio Sync | |
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
Surround Channel Use | |
Subwoofer | |
Overall |
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The video quality is doubly wrong - wrong aspect ratio, and wrong brightness level.
The audio quality is very good.
The extras offer quality, if not quantity.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Pioneer DV-737, using Component output |
Display | Sony VPL-VW10HT LCD Projector, ScreenTechnics matte white screen with a gain of 1.0 (280cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Denon AVC-A1SE |
Speakers | Front Left and Right: Krix Euphonix, Centre: Krix KDX-C Rears: Krix KDX-M, Subwoofer: Krix Seismix 5 |