Brian De Palma’s Blow Out (1981/Criterion Collection Blu-ray)
Picture:
B Sound: B- Extras: B Film: B+
Though it
is not as discussed as much as it was at the time Brian De Palma’s thrillers
first arrived, comparisons to his films and those of Alfred Hitchcock’s were sometimes
fair, but not always accurate. Instead
of ripping him off, which so many thousands of filmmakers (and other hacks) are
still doing to this day, De Palma was taking his language into new
directions. The thrillers he began
making distinctly and with exceptional talent followed experimental films like Greetings (1968) and Hi Mom! (1970) with the extremely
underrated Sisters (1972, on
Criterion DVD now and hopefully Blu-ray soon).
Following
the comically dark Rock Opera Phantom Of
The Paradise (1974), he began a string of thrillers that are among the most
important run for any filmmaker in history including Obsession, Carrie (both
1976), The Fury (1978), Dressed To Kill (1980) and finally Blow Out (1981), the peak of all of these
remarkable films now issued on Blu-ray and again by Criterion no less.
In one of
his best roles and performances ever, John Travolta plays Jack Terry, an expert
in sound recording who has worked on many B movies before and some work outside
of the business. His boss needs new
audio to replace their tired catalog of sound effects they have used to death
for their exploitation films, so Jack goes out and decides to record some new
sounds. Besides a scream that does now
work in a murder sequence, he wants to start building a catalog of various new
sounds.
Suddenly,
he hears a car going out of control, tapes it and it watches it go into the
lake below. He jumps in and tries to
save anyone who is still alive. The
result is that the male driver is dead, but female passenger (Nancy Allen) is
still very much alive. When they get to
the hospital, it turns out he was a major Senator (married) who could have been
president and she was more than just a friend.
However, Jack is nice to Sally and hopes to meet her again soon. Friends of the Senator want him to not
discuss that she was there and that the blow out he has audiotaped may really
be a gunshot.
From
there, the allusions to real life murder and scandal are touched upon while De
Palma has more than an imitation of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up (1966, about a cameraman who
may have accidentally photographed a murder) and Francis Coppola’s The Conversation (1974, about a sound
expert whose wiretapping may have uncovered a murder plot high up). Instead, he is digging into the dark
underside of society in a way the preceding films simply do not. No matter the glitter or bliss on the surface
(4th Of July celebrations, presidential politics, even the local
news reporter sounds happier than he should) there is the dark side of society
where reality is really happening and even slasher films are decorative escapes
from it.
John
Lithgow is impressive as the menacing, bonkers assassin, Dennis Franz is more
effective than you knight expect as the man who knows too much and the rest of
the well cast actors are very effective, never missing a beat. Using the scope frame as effectively and he
does, De Palma is opening up the world of Hitchcock’s thrillers the way Leone
opened up Westerns with his own five Spaghetti Western classics.
There is
true suspense here throughout, this is an exceptionally intelligent thriller,
it is a rare film since the 1970s that has any authentic sense of Film Noir in
it and De Palma never made an outright thriller as effective again. With few flaws, De Palma (in the analog era,
but as effective as ever) takes us into the way films are made and in effect,
media is produced and how it and we are manipulated, which only adds another
layer of many to the factors of the film that makes this as creepy as it is
suspenseful. Can Jack get the truth out
to the public? Can he figure out who is
behind the potential assassination? Can
his filmmaking knowledge save him? Is he
next?
This is
one of the great films from the MGM catalog that is shockingly and thrillingly
showing up as a Criterion Collection entry; something serious film fans did not
expect as the two companies stopped working together a few years into the DVD
format, but reunited are not wasting time finding gems from that catalog and
issuing them on Blu-ray. Most of those
films above are with MGM (they did Carrie
on 12” LaserDisc together, but MGM did a basic Blu-ray, so we might not see a
newer Blu-ray for a long while though I bet fans would not mind otherwise) and Blow Out is one of those key films long
overdue for this treatment.
So how is
playback?
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image is from a new HD master Criterion made from
the original 35mm camera negative and supervised by De Palma himself. Except for minor flaws, it is very impressive
considering the films age and a big improvement over the widescreen master
(whose many flaws included faded images) used since Image released their basic
12” LaserDisc for Orion many years ago that MGM recycled for their basic
DVD. Director of Photography Vilmos
Zsigmond, A.S.C., whose work here is among his best (with McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The
Long Goodbye, Deer Hunter and Real Genius) delivers some of the most
effective and ironic scope and split screen work you will ever see. Color is as good as it can get with great
Video White, deep Video Black and even Video Red that delivers this very
well. Only a few shots are soft or
smeared, but this was shot in real 35mm anamorphic Panavision and especially if
you have never seen this widescreen, Blu-ray is the way to go.
The DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) lossless 2.0 Stereo soundtrack is transferred at 24 bits from
the 35mm magnetic soundmaster that is encoded with Dolby A-type noise reduction
and offers Pro Logic-type surrounds, which is a change from doing a 5.1 upgrade
mix (as Coppola and Walter Murch did with The
Conversation) and remains one of the best such surround mixes ever
made. Pino Donaggio’s score is also very
effective and it is amazing just how well recorded this film is, with more
character than most 5.1 mixes we hear on a regular basis.
Extras
include the usual booklet dedicated to the film with tech details and two
excellent essays, plus the disc adds Noel Baumbach’s new hour-long interview
with De Palma that covers this film, new video interview with Nancy Allen, new
on-camera interview with Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown and its
groundbreaking use in the film, Louis Goldman’s on set photography, Original
Theatrical Trailer and De Palma’s 1967 film Murder A La Mod that is seen in the film and has not been seen
often.
- Nicholas Sheffo
