I Remember Nelson (1982/British TV Mini-Series/Acorn Media DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C- Episodes:
B
Vice-Admiral
Horatio Nelson is one of the great military figures, but he becomes less
discussed despite his importance to military history. Back in 1982, Director Simon Langton (Roald Dahl’s Tales Of The Unexpected, Danger UXB, The Duchess Of Duke Street, Supernatural,
Smiley’s People, Nancherrow and Upstairs, Downstairs among many others) delivered an exceptional TV
Mini-Series on the man and this impressive character study is entitled I Remember Nelson.
Kenneth
Colley (Monty Python’s Life Of Brian,
reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) is the tile character, who is
having an affair with another woman and when his wife (Anna Massey) confronts
him with it, he devises a generous separation that includes no more
communication with her at a time when he is a hero. Then the four hour-long parts deconstruct the
myth and are brutally honest of the lives lived and the time period without
fail. The chapter/episodes are:
1)
Love
2)
Passion
3)
Duty
4)
War
This is
highly literate television the likes of which we rarely see anymore, but is a
very welcome arrival on DVD. Some money
was spent on this production, shot on analog PAL video and 16mm film, looking
good for its age. It also has an
outstanding cast, including Vernon Dobtcheff, Phil Daniels, Laurence Naismith,
Tim Pigott-Smith and Raf Vallone. Series
like I Remember Nelson are the
reason why British TV was so great.
The 1.33
X 1 image is soft throughout, shot on a combination of PAL analog video and
16mm film, but these copies are a generation down and were lucky the show
survives in this form. If the 16mm could
be recovered, a semi-HD version could be made, but many such shows lost their
film sides long ago, sadly. Still, this
is very watchable for its age and Acorn has done it s bets to make it look good. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is boosted and
cleaned up a bit, which helps and that make the fine music and dialogue as
clean as can be expected. Extras include
text filmographies on DVD 1 and stills on DVD 2.
Very
impressive indeed!
- Nicholas Sheffo
