stupid dvd features
We just watched The Red Violin. That's the one that traces a blessed and cursed violin from the Italian Renaissance to the present day by way of Victorian England, Communist China, and a series of gypsies, thieves, children, lovers, prodigies, obsessives, collectors, and the occasional good musician.
The movie itself is wonderful, as is John Corigliano's award-winning score. And the score is more than a score: for minutes at a time we hear the violin played with passion and brio by the various characters, in a way that's masterfully woven into the plot.
But we began to be frustrated with the DVD. The movie is in five languages: French, English, Italian, Chinese, and German. And, it skips around chronologically, with flashbacks and flashforwards galore. Both elements cause problems with the way they prepared the DVD for release. As it stands, you can turn the subtitles on or off. That's it. The subtitles, which often differ slightly from what's being said, are distracting when the characters are speaking English, but utterly necessary when they're not. Even more distracting, they include such stage directions as (loud knocking at door) and (children singing in Chinese). It's as if the only conceivable people who might need subtitles for this five-language film are the deaf, who are for some reason watching a movie whose centerpiece is a ravishing musical score.
Would it have been so hard to include an option for subtitles that show up only when your own language is not being spoken? Ya gotta think about these things.
The movie itself is wonderful, as is John Corigliano's award-winning score. And the score is more than a score: for minutes at a time we hear the violin played with passion and brio by the various characters, in a way that's masterfully woven into the plot.
But we began to be frustrated with the DVD. The movie is in five languages: French, English, Italian, Chinese, and German. And, it skips around chronologically, with flashbacks and flashforwards galore. Both elements cause problems with the way they prepared the DVD for release. As it stands, you can turn the subtitles on or off. That's it. The subtitles, which often differ slightly from what's being said, are distracting when the characters are speaking English, but utterly necessary when they're not. Even more distracting, they include such stage directions as (loud knocking at door) and (children singing in Chinese). It's as if the only conceivable people who might need subtitles for this five-language film are the deaf, who are for some reason watching a movie whose centerpiece is a ravishing musical score.
Would it have been so hard to include an option for subtitles that show up only when your own language is not being spoken? Ya gotta think about these things.
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