Ben Hur
(2010 TV Mini-Series/Sony DVD)/Parade’s
End (1964)/Women In Love
(2011/BBC DVDs)
Picture: C+/C/C+ Sound: C+/C/C+ Extras: C-/D/D Episodes: C+/B/C+
Mini-series
continue to be a popular item on TV, HDTV and home video, but that does not
mean they are all good. Here are three
new releases you need to consider if you have the time to watch them or not…
MGM made Ben-Hur a classic motion picture
twice. The 1925 Ramon Navarro silent
version helped establish the company as the #1 studio in Hollywood and
eventually the world (after WWII brought down Germany’s Ufa Studios) then they
remade it in Technicolor and the large-frame ultra-widescreen MGM Camera 65
format with Charlton Heston in 1959 with more spectacular results (see the
Warner Blu-ray box set, unreviewed but recommended; it even includes an
standard of version of the 1925 film) that brought a new naturalism to the
Biblical Epic that would help it last into the late 1960s when it was finished.
With a
new cycle of Biblical productions, TV Mini-Series like The Bible (see the Fox Blu-ray set elsewhere on this site) have
emerged and have been hits. A 2010 TV
Mini-Series version of Ben Hur now
arrives on DVD and a few changes have noticeably been made. The birth of Christ has been removed, he is
even less seen than ever, the scenes have been sexed up (sometimes literally),
the backstory of young Ben (et al) plays like a bad 1980s drama and the chariot
scene is anti-climactic, badly done, foreshadowed in the opening credits and between
bad editing and goofy slow motion, a bad Music Video mentality has been added.
To the
producer’s credit, they have shot this one on 35mm film, yet stylized choices
make it duller and unknown Joseph Morgan is a bit too compact in statue for the
title role. The multi-country production
is not officially British, but most of the actors are. Despite some brief work from known actors
like Hugh Bonneville, this was a weak, unnecessary retelling (another remake
might be on the way as of this posting) and everything is flat despite some of
the money landing up on the screen.
Even if
you had never seen the older films, it makes no difference. Shorter than the 1959 film when all is said
and done, this Ben Hur never picks
up, remains dull, sometimes plays like the Penthouse Caligula meets 300 and just does not stay with the viewer when all
is said and done.
A Making Of featurette is the only extra.
On the
other hand, Alan Cooke’s Parade’s End
from 1964 (from the BBC series Theater
625), based on the Ford Madox Ford novel about a high British official
(Ronald Hines of the U.K. series Mogul,
We’ll Meet Again and Jackanory among many classic works)
gets involved in a love affair between his wife (Jeanne Moody) and mistress (a
young Judi Dench in great form) as England approaches the advent of The Great
War aka WWI.
Shot
mostly on black and white videotape, this is one of the earliest signs of what
was to be the great U.K. TV dramas to follow in look, fell, approach, literacy
and pace that made everything from costume dramas and historical dramas to
British TV making the Mini-Series its own possible. Cooke handles the helming of the adaptation
well, the actors are very kinetic, the writing by John Hopkins (The Offence, Thunderball, Murder By
Decree) top rate and all three installments end as they start: interesting
and involving.
For being
produced in a format long gone, the images have some form and are not just a
series of static shots. There is
something almost cinematic about the approach and with a great cast that also
includes Ronald Leigh-Hunt (Trials Of
Oscar Wilde, Le Mans), Sylvia
Kay (Wake In Fright, Rapture, That Kind Of Girl), Fulton Mackay (Gumshoe, Britannia Hospital)
and Shane Rimmer, this was even more of an event than anyone could have
imagined at the time and makes for a DVD set worth going out of your way for.
Yes, this
is the same book HBO just turned into their own Mini-Series and we look forward
to comparing the two, but this Parade more than holds up on its own and is the
best of the titles here.
There are
no extras.
Finally
we have a new 2011 version of D.H. Lawrence’s Women In Love, which was turned into a famous feature film by the
late, great Ken Russell. To its
advantage, the tale of women interested in men they are battling with, et al,
has Rosamund Pike (in the Glenda Jackson role), Rachel Stirling (in the Jennie
Linden role) and Rory Kinnear (in the Alan Bates role) and we do get some sex
and nudity.
However,
it seems sometimes too run of the mill and like Ben Hur above, not well integrated
into the script, while the Russell film from 1969 (his second-ever feature
film) is all out about the nudity, sexuality and any madness between the
characters, so despite some good work here, this seems more limited as well as
longer than it needed to be. I thought
it had some good moments and potential, but it ends oddly, never adds up and
seems restrained even if you have never seen the superior Russell version.
There are
no extras.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Hur
is a tad better than the same on Women,
but Hur is a 35mm shoot and is not
as soft on the edges (style choices not withstanding) versus Women in HD and Hur should get a Blu-ray.
Both would look better, but Hur
would benefit a bit more. The 1.33 X 1
black and white image on End is a
little soft and has its share of image flaws, but it is old PAL analog
videotape in its early days, so flaws are to be expected and I cannot expect
this to look any better than it does now.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 on Hur should be
the sonic champ over the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Women, but the soundfield is weak and too much in the front
channels, even in the chariot race.
Other sounds are problematically restricted to the center channel, not
even able to outdo the DTS-HD 5.1 upgrade on the 1959 film’s Blu-ray. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on End shows its age with some harmonic
distortion and compression, but I doubt it could sound much better, yet it is a
bit weak, so be careful of volume switching and remember the disc has subtitles
if need be.
- Nicholas Sheffo
