Martin Scorsese isn't the first director you'd think of to make a
period piece based on an Edith Wharton novel, but Age of Innocence is
a Scorsese movie all the way. The Wharton New Yorkers of the 1870s
that Scorsese portrays are obsessed with ritual, and mired in
convention. Nothing is decided with face to face conversation;
everything is decided behind closed doors, behind people's backs.
Nothing is exactly what it seems on the surface, everything is to be
deciphered from the coded behavior of those around you. The
machinations that decide what becomes of the lovers who are the
proponents of this film are relentless and brutal, but always
delivered with a smile and a seemingly innocuous kind word.
Scorsese filmed Age of Innocence with exceptional grace. Every
nuance, and every gesture, no matter how small, is packed with meaning
and feeling. Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer play the star-
crossed lovers, and their respective performances are magnificent, and
haunting. You can feel their longing for each other in every scene.
Wynona Ryder gives one of the best and most underrated performances of
recent years as Day-Lewis' wife, who is nowhere near as vacant as she
seems. A tragedy of manners, Age of Innocence is a treasure
from Martin Scorsese. A must see.
Video: How Does The
Disc Look?
Age of Innocence is presented in anamorphic
widescreen at an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1. This is the
second incarnation of this film I've see on video, the first being a
laserdisc some years ago. Both seem to suffer from some similar
problems, making me wonder if these flaws are part of the film
elements themselves somehow. While some scenes are sharp, detailed,
and three dimensional, others are soft and have an appearance that
looks consistent with noisy, hashy video. On the laserdisc it looked
like chroma noise; on this DVD it looks similar, but I don't know what
to call it because chroma noise isn't something you see on DVD
typically. During these sequences the picture takes on a soft look,
and the background details in particular loosen up. While the colors
are generally deep and saturated, black levels are overdone a bit,
with blacks and shadow detail clearly being crushed at the low end of
the gray scale. Flesh tones sometimes warm up a bit too much at times,
giving them a bit of a red push. Edge enhancement is occasionally
apparent, but not at levels high enough to be distracting in my
opinion.
Audio: How Does the Disc Sound?
Age of
Innocence is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. As befitting the subject
matter, the mix is mostly subdued with little surround activity. At
times the sounds of the indoor fireplaces that are front and center in
the image seemed to reverberate in the surrounds. This seemed like an
artifact as it was so mismatched in relation to what was on screen.
Beyond that, dialog was intelligible, although not always well
integrated with the other soundtrack elements. The opera singers that
appear onstage sporadically throughout the film appear almost
laughably out of synch- their singing looks about as well timed with
their mouth movements as dialog from the old Godzilla movies. Elmer
Bernstein's score for the picture is heavy on stings, and sounds thin
and harsh on the 448kbps Dolby Digital track, which is a shame as it's
a terrific and moving score.
Age of Innocence also
features English and French 2.0 Dolby Surround tracks. Subtitle
options include English, French, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Spanish and
Portuguese, and English Closed Captions.
Supplements: What
Goodies Are There?
Age of Innocence is light on the extras.
The only filmographies are on Scorsese, Daniel Day-Lewis,
Michelle Pfeiffer, and Wynona Ryder. Theatrical trailers for
Age of Innocence, Sense and Sensibility, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and
Gandhi are included as well.
Parting Thoughts
I
love this movie and I wish I had better things to say about this DVD.
Regardless of where the fault lies, the picture has several problems,
although it can and does look stunning at times. The Dolby Digital-
encoded sound did not do justice to the score, and some of the
surround "effects" sounded more like artifacts than
purposeful additions. While I seem to recall rumors of an Age Of
Innocence special edition, this DVD has virtually no value-add
features. This disc is recommended only for diehard fans of the film
who simply must have it just because it's available.
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