The Red Tent
Picture: B
Sound: B Extras: D Film: B
The Red
Tent (1971) was Mikheil Kalatozishvili’s last film, shot after
Yo Soy Cuba, a fantastic film on
just about every level. The Red Tent
also remains one of the last of the great lengthy epic adventure films in a
time Hollywood and foreign investors were willing to back such cinematic
endeavors. Blockbusters with more bang
and less scope would start to take over by decade’s end and people’s attention
span apparently could only last two hours at best once 1980 hit.
Tent was
shot somewhere between Connery’s performance in The Molly Maguires (reviewed on this site) and his legendary return
in Diamonds are Forever (one of my
favorite Bonds still). He plays Roald
Amundensen, who is determined to locate the missing men from a group on an
Artic expedition head up by Umberto Nobile (Peter Finch). The men are surviving after their ship
breaks up during a storm and are now stuck in a red tent, but Amundensen is on
his way, along with a mercenary aviator (Hardy Kruger). The world is watching these events via TV,
as is Claudia Cardinale’s character, but this mission will come to a surprising
resolve.
Shot in Sovscope 70, the film has been transferred to DVD
in a 2.35 X 1 aspect ratio, which is slightly modified from the 2.20 70mm print
aspect ratio and a downtraded to 35mm print in this case. That means some minor cropping occurred, but
nothing drastic. This film is on the
short list of about 20 films to be shot in Sovscope, as the process was
incredibly expensive since it was the Russian 70mm format, which was also used
on Akira Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala. That would be Kurosawa’s first and last film
shot in 70mm as he ran into financial problems post 1975, which he would need
the help of George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola to release films after
that.
Russian cinematographer Leonid Kalashnikov does amazing
work here as does Ennio Morricone’s score, although the Russian version of the
film contains music by Aleksandr Zatsepin.
Oddly enough this film is a combination of an Italian/Russian/American
with Paramount overseeing its release in the U.S. as the case for this DVD
edition. Unfortunately this is the
shortened 121-minute version of the film and is not the full-length 195-minute
version of the film, which the U.S. has yet to see. Even the LaserDisc version issued was the 121-minute version, but
was a pan & scan issue, so at least this DVD is widescreen.
Tragically Paramount really could have capitalized on this
film a bit more given that Sean Connery is in it and that has selling power on
it’s own. Because of that, it would
have been interesting to see a 2-Disc set that included both versions of the
film along with some extras or even the trailer. There has to be someone out there willing to talk about aspects
of this film, especially given the fact that it was shot in Sovscope and was a
co-production.
There are two audio tracks to choose from here, one being
a 5.1 Dolby Digital mix and the other a 2.0 Dolby Digital surround mix that
sounds a bit flat by comparison. The
5.1 mix is preferable and gives a thicker sound that comes closer to the
6-track magnetic stereo of the 70mm print.
There are many instances in which the film sounds really wonderful and
other times it could use a bit more.
Low end is lacking just a bit, which could be due to compression, but is
more likely due to Dolby’s lower bit rate than DTS. Why can’t we get more 70mm films in DTS? The result of this can be incredible as seen
and heard on the Columbia TriStar Superbit release of Lawrence of Arabia. Even
the DTS edition of Akira has some
major sound work happening that gives it a full prominent effect (reviewed
elsewhere on this site). This film will
need more work for HD-DVD.
While the marketing department missed an opportunity here,
instead we get a virtually bare release of this semi-forgotten flick that will
probably attract a few viewers. Whether
this edition is necessary to purchase is the question at hand, which for now
this DVD release will have to do.
- Nate Goss
