Cheap English Patient (Video) (Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas) (Anthony Minghella) Price

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Customer Reviews of English Patient

DISMAL DVD EXPERIENCE!
I want someone to explain to me why so many Oscar-winning Best Pictures have gotten such terrible treatment on DVD. See the bottom of this review for a complete list of discs 'Not' to get! "The English Patient" concerns itself with the identity of a downed pilot, so badly burned that he is unrecognizable to the allies who temporarily save him from death. Ralph Fiennes is the man of mystery, Juliette Binoche, his faithful nurse and William DaFoe the stranger out to discover the truth. This is a sweeping, grand epic that is quite interesting in its own right, though if you've read the book on which the film was based, you will be disappointed with the handling of some of the aspects of the story. There's also some gratuitous nudity that really has no point being included. It did nothing for my admiration of Kristin Scott Thomas' acting abilities.
"The English Patient" is widescreen but not anamorphically enhanced. The feature is also split in half on a 'flipper' disc, a real pain. There's a goodly amount of edge enhancement, pixelization and shimmering of fine details that distract throughout the movie. Colors are also not well balanced. Some digital grit and a lot of film grain also present. If this is what Miramax calls a "Special Collector's Edition" I'm not sure I want to see what their regular DVD releases look like. THERE ARE NO EXTRAS. Not even a theatrical trailer and no audio commentary or "making-of" to accompany this epic story of tragic love. BOTTOM LINE: DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!

P.S. Here's that list of other Oscar Winning Best Pictures currently available on DVD but in painful-looking transfers: GOING MY WAY, THE DEER HUNTER, THE STING, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, THE LAST EMPEROR, THE GODFATHER, THE GODFATHER PART II, YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, CHARIOTS OF FIRE, THE APARTMENT, TOM JONES. All represent a low in image quality and mastering efforts. Many are not anamorphic and some are not even in widescreen - COME ON! GET WITH THE PROGRAM!!!

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In some ways superior to the book
This is a beautiful film, reminiscent of something by David Lean, and in some ways superior to the book, which more closely concentrated on Kip, the sapper and Hana, the nurse, whereas the film likes the story of Katherine, the spoiled, and Count Almásy, the bitter, better. I think the film is right for a popular audience. But essentially they are similar works done in different genres.

Although The English Patient won a number of Academy Awards, including best picture and best direction by Anthony Minghella, the public was not entirely pleased. There are two problems: One, the central love story is not appealing to many people because Katherine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas) is committing adultery and Count Almásy (Ralph Fiennes) is not a sympathetic character. Two, the structure of the movie with its flashbacks and temporal ambiguities is very demanding on the audience. Because of this some people found the movie boring. However, the structure is very well thought out and works well to convey the sense of time during war in which events sometimes happen so quickly that time flies, and at other times the slow pace of days is unbearable. Additionally the Academy Award winning cinematography by John Seale makes vibrant the expanse and feel of the vast desert setting and the sense of timelessness that the desert can evoke. And of course the cast was excellent, right down to the supporting players including Naveen Andrews as Kip and Jürgen Prochnow, whom you may recall as the captain of the Unterseeboot in Das Boot (1981), as Major Muller, and especially Juliette Binoche who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as Hana, the nurse.

There is some irony here, because had Minghella followed the story and structure of the novel by Michael Ondaatje more closely, the movie would have focused on Hana, and Binoche would have had to win the award for best actress; and Kristin Scott Thomas's part, for which she was nominated, but did not win, for Best Actress, would have been a supporting role. Also note that in the novel there is a similar disjointedness in the time structure. Ondaatje worked as though painting in layers, going back to a point and elaborating on it, coming back to a "present" and then going back again and again, and then finally moving forward to the end. Minghella tried to convey a sense of that structure because it was an important part of the novel, a statement about the subjective nature of our experience of time.

By the way, the book disappoints with its phony PC notions about how Kip and some others might have reacted to the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities, the author imagining that Kip would be offended that the bomb was dropped on "brown people" and not on Europeans; but in truth, few at the time really comprehended or cared about anything other than ending the horror of the worst war in human history. Director Minghella, wisely, I believe, does not bring Kip's notions to the screen. I was more horrified by the booby trap bombs left behind by the Axis soldiers that Kip had to disarm because they were left specifically to murder people whereas the atomic bombs had at least one clear and laudable purpose: to end the war and to end it as quickly as possible with a minimum of lost life. It should be added that the firebombing by both sides, in particular the firebombing of Dresden by the Allies, was worse in terms of damage and lives lost than the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities. It is cliche, but a profoundly true one, to consider once again that war really is hell.

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PASSION SWEPT UNDER BY THE CHANGING WINDS OF WAR
Based on Michael Ondaatje's sweeping WWII novel, "The English Patient" is the story of a young Allied nurse, Hana (Juliette Binoche) who finds herself alone in an abandoned Italian monastery and tending to a mysterious burn victim (Ralph Fiennes). Like David Lean's Dr. Zhivago, this mystical and epic film is told through a series of flash backs integrated with a subplot that is supposedly taking place in the present. During the flash backs we learn of the tragic circumstances that have led to the current state of the stranger. Fiennes is Count Laszlo, an archaeologist - and assumed Nazi sympathizer - who is in love with Katherine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas). She, unfortunately, is married to the long suffering, dispassionate, Geoffrey (Colin Firth). The two are off gallivanting through the dessert in search of artifacts when the passionate relationship between the Count and Kate ignites. The resulting, all consuming, lust that overtakes these lovers is intricately balanced and compared to Hana's burgeoning romance with an East Indian soldier who defuses bombs, Lt. Kip Singh (Naveen Andrews). Willem Dafoe is brilliantly cast as Caravaggio - a man whose association with the allies (in a flash back) was exposed to the Nazis, the result being that Caravaggio had his thumbs brutally amputated with a switch blade. Caravaggio is determined to brutalize the man he believe is responsible for exposing his secret, the man he suspects is the burn victim lying helpless and dying in the monastery. Winner of nine Academy Awards "The English Patient" is a bittersweet love story between four people (two couples) who meet with untimely and destructive forces that ultimately alter the course of their lives forever.

THE TRANSFER:This disc was previously released as a flipper from Miramax in a non-anamorphic and somewhat grainy transfer. The previous disc suffered greatly from the intrusion of pixelization and edge enhancement. It also lacked anything in the way of extras. For the most part, these oversights have been corrected on this newly remastered 2-disc special edtion. The picture quality exhibits marginal improvements in both clarity and fidelity, due in large part to the fact that this time around the disc has been enhanced for widescreen televisions. Colors are rich, bold, vibrant but at times tend to be garishly unbalanced. Occasionally flesh tones may appear slightly on the pasty side. Otherwise, there is a deep, textured look to the visual presentation that is thoroughly in keeping with the subject matter. Contrast and black levels are bang on. Fine details are nicely realized. Pixelization still exists and sometimes breaks up finer background information. Also, certain scenes tend to look as though some edge effects have been added. Again, all these shortcomings are relatively minor for a picture that will surely not disappoint! The audio has been remastered to 5.1 and exhibits a very visceral and thrilling sonic experience. The sound of Count Laszlo's plane flying over the dunes is both aggressive and stirring and the musical score is wonderfully spread across all 5 channels.

EXTRAS: include a very comprehensive commentary by writer-director Anthony Minghella, producer Saul Zaentz and author, Michael Ondaatje. Minghella has more to say than the other two but all contribute fascinating tidbits to the production of the film and the inspiration for the novel. The deleted scenes segment is presented in a unique way - I won't ruin it for anyone but needless to say it's more refreshing than the treatment usually afforded deleted scenes. The CBC's documentary on the making of the film is somewhat of a disappointment, relying heavily on trailer junkets and very little but sound bytes from cast and crew. A series of featurettes round out the involvement of Zaentz, Minghella and production designer Stuart Craig. There's also a nice series of interviews with the cast and crew and a great featurette on Phil Brady, the stills photographer.

BOTTOM LINE:The culmination of all this extra material and the rather impressive quality of the film transfer lead me to recommend "The English Patient" to all who love a good story and a thoroughly engrossing, great film.