The Learning Tree (1969/Warner Archive DVD) + Lillian’s
Story (1995/PAL Region Free Import) + Iceman
(1984/Umbrella/Region Four Import DVDs)
Picture: C+/C-/C+ Sound: C+/C/B- Extras: D Films: B-/B-/C
PLEASE NOTE: Tree is a Warner Archive website exclusive and can be ordered at
the link below. The Iceman import DVDs here can only be operated on machines capable of
playing back DVDs that can handle Region Zero/0/Free PAL format software, while
Lillian’s Story can only be operated
on machines capable of playing back DVDs that can handle Region Four/4/ PAL
format software; both can be ordered from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment
at the website address provided at the end of the review.
Three older
dramas have arrived on DVD that are unusual and unusually released, so that is
why they are grouped together.
Gordon
Parks was a very successful writer and one of the few African American
directors who worked regularly in the 1969s and 1970s. Along with The Color Purple, his book The
Learning Tree is one of the most widely available books on the Black
Experience in better schools and libraries across America. Parks also did the feature film adaptation of
his book in 1969, now available as an on-line exclusive on the Warner Archive
website.
The story
of the young man Newt (Kyle Johnson) growing up in the racist, segregated south
is a realistic, often honest and hardly politically correct look at the
triumphs and tragedies of his life and those around him. It is honest about the racism, poverty, oppression
and real growing pains no matter what is happening. The film holds up surprisingly well and was
made to be a big screen event film by Warner Bros. at the time. It is very faithful to the book and deserves
revived interest. It could have been the
basis for a Black New Wave if Blaxploitation had not arrived.
Jerzy
Domaradszki’s drama Lillian’s Story
(1995) is a bold work that deals with mental illness, sexual abuse and even
incest as the title character (Ruth Cracknell) has to reconstruct her life to
find some happiness in her old age, surviving a living hell and dealing with
immense unhappiness throughout her life.
We learn about the sources of the pain through many flashback sequences
and the script slowly unravels the truth about how she landed up in a mental
institute, how she got out and much more.
Playing
her at a young age in an amazing performance is Toni Collette, who is fearless
throughout in dealing with very painful material. This Australian film was underseen
(especially outside of its home country apparently) and deserves a much better
fate than it received. Hope this DVD
release helps.
Finally
we have Fred Schepisi’s Iceman (1984),
part of a cycle that Robin Wood helped to dub the “more human than human” films
where we learn more about ourselves by meeting “the other” in a fantastic
character. In this case, timothy Hutton
plays the head of an arctic expedition that finds a man (John Lone) from 40,000
years ago in a block of ice. Remarkably,
they are able to cut him out and in a “scientific miracle” find a way to revive
him.
What
follows was already predictable from films before this cycle and Lone is
remarkably good in the title role, but the film ultimately does not add up to
much despite some good efforts on the part of the cast and even with Norman
Jewison co-producing, it is another Schepisi film that does not add up for
me. However, it remains a curio and
seems to use some of the same locations and props as John Carpenter’s 1982
remake of The Thing (reviewed
elsewhere on this site). Lindsay Crouse
also stars.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Tree
and Iceman are looking good, but not
great with softness in both cases (both were shot in real 35mm anamorphic
Panavision), but Tree tends to have
a better print with a newer transfer and the DVD-R quality might hamper it
slightly. Color can look really good,
but not always and not what you would expect from a film that was issued in
three-strip, dye-transfer Technicolor prints that are now very valuable and
highly collectible. Iceman was also shot for a big screen and it shows, with the PAL
definition (540i) making this more watchable, but it needs a newer
transfer. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Tree is very good for its age with
limited distortion and is clean overall, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Iceman has good Pro Logic surrounds and
has the best sound here.
The 1.33
X 1 image on Story is very noisy and
we cannot be certain about the correctness of the framing, while the Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo is also down at least a generation and weak, so be careful
of volume switching.
None of
the discs have any extras.
As noted
above, you can order the PAL DVD imports exclusively from Umbrella at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
You can
order Learning Tree at this link:
http://www.wbshop.com/Learning-Tree-The/1000190563,default,pd.html
-
Nicholas Sheffo
