Release Date: June 26, 2007
Film Rating:  /
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci, Justin Timberlake and S. Epatha Merkerson
Produced by: John Singleton and Stephanie Allain
Written and Directed by: Craig Brewer
”Black Snake is evil, Black Snake is all I see,
Woke up this morning, Black Snake moved in on me...”
- Blind Lemon Jefferson
Black Snake Moan is the second of Craig Brewer’s examinations of the musical culture of Tennessee. Here, he follows up the rap-centered Hustle & Flow with a mediation on the people who play and live the blues. While the marketing campaign and publicity have made a lot of hay out of the premise of Samuel L. Jackson keeping a barely-clothed Christina Ricci chained to a radiator, the actual movie here is a much more substantial affair. The film is a sympathetic examination of characters who yearn but cannot heal themselves on their own. For Jackson’s character, it’s a frustration with the wife who abandoned him for his brother. For Ricci’s character, it’s an inability to deal with having been abused as a child. For an understated Justin Timberlake, it’s a panic disorder that can’t be a good thing for a man who wants to be in the military. Through the course of the film, the characters try to heal each other and themselves, and the film presents this journey through the language and music of the blues.
The film has been released on all three DVD formats this week. The Blu-Ray edition includes almost all the extras from the standard edition – everything but some additional trailers for other Paramount releases. The special features include a commentary by Brewer, a trio of standard definition featurettes, about 12 minutes of deleted/extended scenes presented in 1080i HD, and the theatrical trailer in 1080p HD. The film itself is presented in a 1080p AVC transfer that is a true pleasure to watch.
 VIDEO QUALITY: 4 ½ /5 ½
Black Snake Moan is presented in a lovely 1080p MPEG-4 AVC transfer. This is a really crisp presentation, showing details ranging from the leaves in the trees around Jackson’s home to the facial features of the cast. The AVC tranfer shows a healthy variety of flesh tones, as well as an array of colorful and detailed locations. There is a lot of darkness and shadow in the film, and the transfer brings this off quite well – the black levels are solid, but never murky.
AUDIO QUALITY: 4/5
Black Snake Moan is presented in English and French in a 640k 5.1 surround mix that gives the surround channels and the subwoofer a healthy workout. The subwoofer contributes a steady heartbeat to the blues music heard throughout the film, in the same fashion that a solid bass line will help buttress a song. The surround channels are used to fill the area with both directional effects and pronounced atmospheric sounds like the cicadas that are almost as present as the blues music. Of course, the music itself constantly fills all the channels as well. This is the sort of film that is almost as much fun to listen to as it is to watch. (The last time I noticed this in a film was with Blade Runner).
SPECIAL FEATURES: 4/5
The Blu-Ray presentation of Black Snake Moan presents almost all the special features from the standard definition release, less only a couple of additional movie trailers from Paramount. With a commentary by the director, almost 50 minutes of featurettes, 12 minutes of deleted scenes, a photo gallery and the trailer, this is a pretty healthy amount of material to include.
- Commentary with Craig Brewer – Craig Brewer’s commentary from the standard definition release is included here. It’s a scene-specific talk, with Brewer constantly providing information about the actors, the story, the locations, the music, and anything else that comes to mind as the film unspools. It’s actually more of a personal conversation than a technical one, but it’s quite thorough. Some of the discussion is repeated in the featurettes, but there are plenty of gems here.
- Conflicted: The Making of BLACK SNAKE MOAN (27:54) (480p full frame) – This non-anamorphic standard definition featurette examines the making of the film through the usual intercutting of film clips, on-set footage and interviews with the cast and creative staff. There’s some great stuff here. John Singleton discusses the notoriety of the production, which appealed to him in terms of sheer outrageousness. There’s a great fanboy moment where Brewer admits to casting Kim Richards out of a childhood crush started by Escape From Witch Mountain. (Brewer also discusses this in the commentary, but here you get to see Richards’ side of the discussion, albeit briefly.) Brewer discusses and shows Ricci’s selection of her chain as an event along the lines of the cast selecting their lightsabers in one of the Star Wars prequels.
- Rooted in the Blues (12:39) (480p full frame) – This featurette discusses the work that went into the scoring of the film. Craig Brewer and composer Scott Bomar give a pretty thorough overview of the musicians who came in to play on the film, including Cedric Burnside (grandson of the great R.L. Burnside). There is some additional material regarding the training of Samuel L. Jackson in guitar work, and a lot of interesting footage of the musicians working in the studio. If anything, it might have been nice to have had a longer featurette here – or perhaps an unedited tape of the band working through some of the film’s music – but this is admittedly a quibble.
- The Black Snake Moan (9:02) (480p full frame) – This featurette is focused squarely on the title song. Brewer starts by discussing the original writer, Blind Lemon Jefferson, a blind bluesman who sang about the things he could “see” in his room that could hurt him – like a snake, for example. The featurette continues by having Brewer and Bomar discuss the version of the song put together by Jason Freeman for the film, and then shows the crew filming the scene where Jackson plays and sings it for Ricci. There is further discussion of the editing process for the scene with editor Billy Fox and cinematographer Amelia Vincent. This is a brief featurette, to be sure, but it packs a lot of information.
- Deleted Scenes (12:39) (1080i MPEG-2) – Several deleted and extended scenes are included here in 1080i HD. Most are simply additional moments between the characters that are interesting but unnecessary.
- Original Theatrical Trailer (2:29) (1080p MPEG-2) – The theatrical trailer is included here in full 1080p HD. It holds up as entertaining on its own, but once you see the film, it becomes clear that the trailer is not that accurate a depiction of the film. With many films, this is because there usually isn’t much more to show than what you see in the trailer. In this case, there is much more to the film than the trailer can tell.
- Photo Gallery (1080p) – A brief gallery of high definition photos is included, showing scenes from the film and behind-the-scenes shots.
Subtitles are available in English, English SDH, French and Spanish for the film itself as well as for the special features. The usual Blu-Ray pop-up menu is accessible during the film.
IN THE END...
Black Snake Moan is a better film than the trailers or the advertising would have you believe. Yes, you could say that it’s the story of a man, a woman and a radiator – but there is a lot more than that going on here. Craig Brewer has made a heartfelt and sympathetic film about characters that feel a lot more realistic than may be comfortable for many viewers. This Blu-Ray edition presents the film in a solid and thrilling manner. Brewer says that he will be moving on to examinations of country and soul music next. I am interested to see where they will take him.
Kevin Koster
June 29, 2007.
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VIDEO QUALITY: 4 ½ /5 
