Andrew reviews the technical aspects of this week's blu-ray release, Inherent Vice.
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| "I'm so sad." |
Paul
Thomas Anderson’s Inland Empire,
excuse me, adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent
Vice is at once a dedicated literary exercise intensely committed to the
written word as well as a throwback to the writer-director’s earlier ensemble
pieces such as Boogie Nights and Magnolia. Falling somewhere between the Coens’ The Big Lebowski and Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man!, Anderson’s seventh feature
film is determined to make you the viewer wear the sandals and sunglasses of
stoner private investigator Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) in that the
hazier and more incoherent the situations become, the closer the film is to
ascertaining Doc’s foggy perspective.
Unpredictable, confounding, hilarious and largely hallucinatory, this
could well be the most difficult and trying literal adaptation of an unfilmable
novel by a major director since David Cronenberg took on William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. While not as accessible as what’s come before
from Anderson, fans of the great director will be enormously pleased and
entertained by this surreal and occasionally frustrating odyssey.
The Video
Paul
Thomas Anderson’s films are always exciting to look at given his innovation
with cinematography as well as cutting directly onto film, giving the images a
warmth and texture not unlike the aural warmth of a vinyl record. After a brief detour with cinematographer
Mihai Malaimare for the 70mm footage in the director’s previous film The Master, Anderson reunites with his
regular cinematographer Robert Elswit for Inherent
Vice. Going back to 35mm film
(though blown up to 70mm theatrical in some states), the heavy grains and
saturated colors are rendered beautifully on this Blu-Ray edition. Much like The
Master, Inherent Vice marks the
director’s second film to be framed in the aspect ratio of 1.85:1, as opposed
to his usual 2.35:1 widescreen panoramas which won his cinematographer an
Academy Award for There Will Be Blood. Having seen Inherent Vice twice theatrically, the Blu-Ray looks exactly as I
had remembered it and is pretty flawless across the board.
The Audio
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| "We're SOOOOO wasted!!!" |
While
sound is typically as important for Anderson as the vistas, the sonic
innovation present in his previous films takes a backseat to the dialogue. That’s not to say it’s still a terrific
listening experience with Jonny Greenwood’s surreal, jazzy score is a perfect
counterpoint to the visuals and does a great job giving viewers a sense of
Doc’s paranoia and confused fear. There
are some occasions where the sound design does manage to pack a punch, but
those expecting the deep bass thuds of a well explosion from There Will Be Blood, the frog rain from Magnolia and the car crash opening Punch-Drunk Love aren’t going to get
that kind of an aural workout from their home theaters here. Overall it’s a pleasing rendering and the
songs by Can and Neil Young sound fantastic in DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound. Just don’t expect this one to be demo
material for your systems.
The Extras
As
Anderson has moved away completely from doing audio commentaries (Boogie Nights being his last) and
refraining from making-of extras, the Blu-Ray of Inherent Vice probably sports the fewest extras since the DVD
release of his first film Hard Eight. Where some footage of Anderson directing
would have been nice, as Magnolia provided
an in-depth feature-length making-of documentary, we get a few trailers and a
reel of deleted shots not unlike the Scopitones included on Punch-Drunk Love. They’re neat to see but we could have got a
lot more supplements included on this disc than we did. Given just how many cameos and unique
character actors show up in Inherent Vice,
seeing the cast’s thoughts on the experience of working with Anderson would
have been nicer than having to resort to looking up videos on YouTube. It’s a disappointment but oh well. At least the BD sleeve has reversible art
included.
-Andrew Kotwicki