My Left Foot – Special Edition

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-     Extras: B-     Film: B+

 

 

Without sounding too harsh let me first begin by saying I am not normally a fan of movies that essentially try to teach us a lesson about people with handicaps.  Basically the movies that I am referring to would be the ones that are made with the intent to 1) win an Oscar and 2) show us how to treat people that are different.  You all know the type… Rain Man, Radio, Forrest Gump, etc.  Usually these movies insult your intelligence more than anything else and manipulate your feelings to the umpteenth degree.  It’s sad.  Then there’s 1989’s My Left Foot, which takes a slightly different approach by showing us that not all handicap people are mentally retarded.

 

It tells the true story of Christy Brown through flashbacks as the Irish-born boy born with cerebral palsy deals with his poor upbringing.  His sufferings are predominately due to him being treated poorly by those closest to him regarding his condition as a means to insult and degrade his very existence.  Those moments of the film are quite difficult to watch.  However, his devoted mother and a few others begin to see the potential in him and while he must wrestle with physical limitations and psychological pains he overcomes through his gifted abilities as a poet and painter.  It’s a feel-good kinda movie when it’s all said and done. 

 

The film has three great things going for it…they are Daniel, Day, and Lewis.  Here he exemplifies an amazing range as an actor and proves his gifts beyond measure.  His performance here deservedly won him an Oscar for best actor and Day-Lewis would team up with director Jim Sheridan again in 1993 with In the Name of the Father, another critical success.  Now just to show you what a year it was for cinema and how much competition Day-Lewis had he beat out Morgan Freeman for Driving Miss Daisy, Tom Cruise for Born on the Fourth of July, Kenneth Branagh for Henry V, and Robin Williams for Dead Poets Society.  What a lineup!  Day-Lewis is not a highly recognized figure on the silver screen as some might initially think only doing a fairly small handful of films over his career, but the films that he does choose are almost all winners.  A Room With a View, The Age of Innocence, The Last of the Mohicans, and Gangs of New York is a quick way to easily see the diversity in such a gifted actor. 

 

Miramax’s much anticipated release of this film is …ok.  I was expecting better results, especially in the quality department.  Titled as a Special Edition we automatically assume loads of extras, which is also not entirely true.  The film was shot closer to a 1.66 X 1 aspect ratio and appears to be slightly adapted here for a 1.78 X 1/16 X 9 presentation.  The biggest drawback is the lack of detail and the overwhelming amount of softness that is present.  Even for the most gracious viewer, this is still unacceptable.  Colors are far too washed out and give the film a drab look.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix sounds more like a bumped up 2.0 Stereo mix that is stretching hard to fill the room with any sense of ambience.  One thing that can be a bit bothersome is the simple fact that since Christy Brown (Day-Lewis) does have Cerebral Palsy it becomes difficult to understand when he does speak.  The question is whether or not this was due to poor sound design/poor mix or if it was intended to sound as indistinguishable.  Obviously the filmmaker wanted the realism of not being able to totally understand the actor, but to what extent?  If you are having a really hard time you can snap on the subtitles, which really help, but dialogue in general here sounds a bit too centered and would probably have worked a tad better in PCM 2.0. 

 

The extras include 2 featurettes, one about the real Christy Brown and the other on the actually making of this film and bringing the true story to the big screen.  Both are equally interesting and will allow for a better appreciation of the film in general and are a welcoming treat for this DVD.  Then we have a stills gallery and some reviews written about the film, so jump for joy! 

 

My Left Foot is a film that reminds us that we should be thankful for the things that we do have and also appreciate those around us.  Not only that, but it reminds us of a time in which cinema was not nearly as manipulative and tried to reach people instead of reach for their money.  Unfortunately this era has long passed and we are stuck with the endless parade of tired scripts that are now designed to mainly advertise, manipulate, and in short…destroy the art form as we know it.  Sure we all have guilty pleasures, but it’s getting to the point that we shut down our brains so much when we watch TV, surf the web, or go the cinema that we forget to turn on our brains again through the remainder of the day.  Miramax seems to believe that this is the best that they can offer for the time being, so if you are dying to see it, this is going to be the way, but if you are looking for top-notch quality you are going to be in the waiting line a long time as this film will need a High-Definition format and a cleaner print to bring that to fruition.

 

 

-   Nate Goss