Lancelot of the Lake
Picture: C Sound: C Extras: C- Film: B
A French version of King
Arthur? Yes. Even after the hilarity of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Robert
Bresson tackled the tale in a portrayal unlike any other. I recall seeing Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) and Diary of a Country Priest (1954), which of course led up to his
most notable work Pickpocket (1959),
but Bresson’s stamp with Lancelot of the
Lake has very few of his stylistic or narrative trademarks, almost making
the film stand out among his work.
Some will find the films
patterns both poetic and visual to form certain motifs that repeat and form a
typical trademark that Bresson worked with since he was always striving for
keeping a certain rhythm within his work.
Looking back on Diary of a
Country Priest, one quickly sees how the filmmaker establishes a certain
mood, a certain setting, and then the characters grace that space with a
particular movement. Either their speech
or their mannerisms establish a waveform that Bresson captures unlike so many
filmmakers. This is the type of
filmmaker that is above many when it comes to untraditional and unconventional
ways, since this is ‘higher’ filmmaking at its best.
What most will appreciate
about the film is that it does not glamorize the legend of Arthur, but simply
reduces the legend down to the barest essentials and allows for those ideas to
spring about. The direction, set design,
acting, and overall production point to a standard that set the film for being
more realistic and more focused on the actual principles and dilemma within our
characters versus the action based versions we have come to know since.
New Yorker has delivered
Bresson’s film to us for DVD in a 1.66 X 1 anamorphic transfer, which appears
to be cropped around all edges. On some
TV’s the film might even display closer to a 1.78 X 1 transfer, which might
lose even more picture information. The
cropping might also be due to a second or third generation print, which might
also explain the muddiness of the transfer as well. Colors are very shifty and bleeding. Contrast is all over the place with detail
and depth being very lackluster. The print is semi clean in terms of dirt and
debris, but the image quality still suffers and appears to be more like a VHS
sourced print.
The 2.0 French Mono is
nothing spectacular either, but for most that are reading subtitles you will be
satisfied with the nice bold white subtitles that appear to be new. The audio seems a tad compressed, but being a
Dolby Digital audio track that is nothing surprising. A 5.1 mix would probably have proved more
disastrous anyway. A trailer for the
film also is on the disc, but is one of the most uninteresting trailers I’ve
ever encountered!
Without a doubt true
Bresson fans will hunt down this DVD and probably be somewhat happy with the
overall presentation. Fans of the legend
behind King Arthur should give this stripped down version a shot as well, even
if it is French. Sometimes a different
perspective can lead to interesting results when compared to other ventures.
- Nate Goss
