Warner's long awaited DVD of Nicolas Roeg's PERFORMANCE has been briefly reviewed by Video Watchdog editor Tim Lucas over at his blog - and there's good news, and bad news...
The good news is that the disc is as uncut as it's ever been (rumours to a longer Donald Cammell print being in the posession of his widow notwithstanding), and the transfer is reportedly outstanding. The soundtrack has also been remastered (though it's not 5.1, so don't get your hopes up there) and the all-important music score is crisp and punchy. There's also a nice doco included.
The bad news is that the audio of a line of dialogue spoken by Mick Jagger during his central MEMO FROM TURNER performance is completely missing, even though the shot remains, and you see his lips move, and other dialogue by him from the same scene is there, and that same line of dialogue has been present and correct and easily heard in every other theatrical or home video version of the film that's ever been released. Not here. It's a very visible goof. Maybe someone at Warner bumped the 'mute' button for a few seconds when cleaning up the mix, or something. Oops..
It's a shame, and since the disc is out within a fortnight I'd have to wonder if Warner will correct it, but fans of PERFORMANCE might like to be pre-warned of this defect before they decide to shell out for the disc. I suppose PERFORMANCE can go in the pile with some of the Bonds, the MPI TEXAS CHAINSAW remaster (which had similar audio screw-ups), and other releases which are almost there, except for unnecessary technical mishaps. So close, and yet so far...
The Lucas blog with his comments on PERFORMANCE is here.
http://videowatchdog.blogspot.com/20...rformance.html
The good news is that the disc is as uncut as it's ever been (rumours to a longer Donald Cammell print being in the posession of his widow notwithstanding), and the transfer is reportedly outstanding. The soundtrack has also been remastered (though it's not 5.1, so don't get your hopes up there) and the all-important music score is crisp and punchy. There's also a nice doco included.
The bad news is that the audio of a line of dialogue spoken by Mick Jagger during his central MEMO FROM TURNER performance is completely missing, even though the shot remains, and you see his lips move, and other dialogue by him from the same scene is there, and that same line of dialogue has been present and correct and easily heard in every other theatrical or home video version of the film that's ever been released. Not here. It's a very visible goof. Maybe someone at Warner bumped the 'mute' button for a few seconds when cleaning up the mix, or something. Oops..
It's a shame, and since the disc is out within a fortnight I'd have to wonder if Warner will correct it, but fans of PERFORMANCE might like to be pre-warned of this defect before they decide to shell out for the disc. I suppose PERFORMANCE can go in the pile with some of the Bonds, the MPI TEXAS CHAINSAW remaster (which had similar audio screw-ups), and other releases which are almost there, except for unnecessary technical mishaps. So close, and yet so far...
The Lucas blog with his comments on PERFORMANCE is here.
http://videowatchdog.blogspot.com/20...rformance.html
