England, My England (1995/Kultur)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: D Film: B
Tony
Palmer’s 1995 production of England, My
England is the long, but surprisingly engaging tale of the English composer
Henry (Harry) Purcell (Michael Ball) and how he became an important composer
and how Charles II (Simon Callow, Amadeus)
figured into this. The John
Osborne/Charles Wood screenplay is always lively, smart, detailed, interesting,
flowing and does a good job (like the costumes, production design and locations)
of bringing the 16th to 17th Centuries to life.
That is
not easy, as so many such productions seem to be clueless, drag and often feel
like they were made before Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975) with their pretentiousness. Though this film is not up to the Kubrick
film, it does not try to imitate either and the result with the mostly unknown
actors is a nice surprise finally out on DVD and deserving of rediscovery.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is nicely shot by Director of Photography
Nicholas D. Knowland, but the image quality suffers in detail, dept and some
Video Black issues. Worse, this looks
like it was shot 1.66 X 1 and cut off slightly to fit the HDTV frame. At least color can look good. The PCM 2.0 Stereo sound shows its age, but
is clear enough to enjoy and richer than it would be in Dolby’s compressed
Digital format, which helps the Purcell music conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. There are no extras, but this film deserves
them.
- Nicholas Sheffo
