Jacob The Liar (1974)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B     Extras: C     Film: B

 

 

It's been a few years since I've seen the 1999 English language remake of this 1974 film, where the title changed from Jacob to Jakob, and I‘ve yet to read the novel from which both works are based.  Even though I did enjoy parts of the Robin Williams version, it came across too much like many of the other dramatic roles he’s taken on as of late.  Both films have a similar feel to them, but Williams lent a warmer feeling to the role of Jacob than the late actor Vlastimil Brodsky.  However, his warmth made the character less believable in the long run.  While the 1999 version didn't really leave much of an impact on me, the original seems to have a little bit more to offer.

Though this is drama is a portrayal of life in a Jewish ghetto under Nazi occupation during World War II, it is by no means a dark movie, and bits of subtle humor are found throughout.  Jacob is an average resident of the ghetto, and one day he happens upon a news broadcast from a Nazi radio concerning the advancement of allied troops.  In light of a friend’s suicidal attempt to steal food, Jacob leaks this news to him in order to give hope for liberation.  However, he expands the truth by telling the friend that the news came from his own secret radio.  Soon everyone in the ghetto has heard this news and pesters Jacob for the latest advancements.  I feel that it’s a good and interesting story to start with, and it was effectively filmed by director Frank Beyer.  The events of the movie are linear, but there are flashbacks that reveal more on how life was before the occupation, as well as dreamlike depictions of the little girl‘s projected imagination.  Other than these sequences, everything is pretty much straightforward.  In this version I felt that Jacob's background is fleshed out a bit better than in the remake, and overall the film feels more realistic.

As an extra feature, there's an hour long documentary on the director conducted mostly in and around his home.  It's interwoven with clips from the various films he's done over the years.  This was a decent featurette and worth watching.  I think that most of the people who purchase this will probably be interested in checking it out.  The most interesting looking of the films shown throughout this documentary seems to be an earlier one, The Trace of Stones.  Unfortunately, I don’t believe it is easily available for sale in the U.S., so it may be a while before I’m able to see how it plays out.

The image quality is decent, but the print utilized seems to be a little dirty.  It may just be the film stock this was originally shot on though, as it may not have been quite as good as what most of the major American film studios were using at the time.  The picture is 4:3 full screen, which I believe preserves the original aspect ratio.  A problem with the DVD that I ran into were short pauses in between chapter stops.  They’re not always noticeable, but there are a few times when the problem is clearly present and it can be a bit annoying.  I’m not sure exactly why these glitches are present, but it isn’t anything terribly bad or jarring enough to detract from the enjoyment of the film.

The audio is pretty much clean and clear, and is the original German track in MPEG 2.0 Mono.  English subtitles are available, as are those in Spanish, French and Hebrew.  Some problems have been mentioned about the audio performance on certain machines due to the audio format being an uncommon one for U.S. DVD releases.  However, on the various DVD players I tested this disc out on I ran into no problems at all.  You can enjoy the fullness of this soundtrack, versus the usually unacceptable Dolby 2.0 or 1.0 Mono equivalents by making sure in the menu of your DVD player, MPEG sound is set for conversion to PCM CD-type sound.  You will find the difference a nice change.

Those who have seen the slightly older release of this title by Wolfe Video should be aware that both editions contain the same disc, only now it’s been reissued by First Run Features.  If you’ve seen the modern remake of this film and liked it enough, you may want to check this one out as well and decide for yourself, which is the better of the two.  If you have yet to see either, I don't think it matters too much which order you see them in - but in my opinion, this version edges the other out just enough to be superior.

 

 

-   David Milchick