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Sony Music
- Cat.no: 501989
- Cert: 15
- Running time: 95 minutes
- Year: 1982
- Pressing: 1999
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 27
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Stereo
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Panavision)
- 16:9-enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: No
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, New Hi Definition film transfer, Previouslyunreleased footage, Remastered 5.1 Dolby Digital and Surround Encoded PCMStereo Soundtracks from the original master tapes, The Other Side Of The Wall- 25-minute documentary, Audio commentary,Retrospective – 45-minute documentary, Original film trailer, production stills,Newly designed interactive menus, Subtitles scene/song selection and secretbuttons, Technical Sound System Set Up, Music videos, Art Cards
Director:
- Alan Parker
(Angel Heart, Birdy, Bugsy Malone, Come See The Paradise, The Commitments, Evita, Fame, Midnight Express, Mississippi Burning, The Road To Wellville)
Animation Director:
- Gerald Scarfe
Producer:
- Alan Marshall
Screenplay:
- Roger Waters
Music:
- Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd: The Wallplaces Bob Geldof in the title role of “Pink Floyd” as a man who letsall his problems get on top of him, each one being a brick in “the wall” ofthe title. Of course, this wouldn’t be a great problem for most sane humanbeings in the world, but Pink isn’t. He’s a burnt-out rock ‘n’ roll performerwhacked out on drink and drugs and holed up in a hotel room somewhere in LosAngeles, watching an old war film and becoming entranced.
The action swaps between this and an earlier time when he was a child whosefather was killed in the war, but now as the demons in his head begin to racearound, he feels it is his turn to lord over everyone else as he pictureshimself as a Hitleresque figure, but as the film draws to a close he imposesa self-trial in which all of those who have contributed to his “wall” to riseup and testify against him.
The film has little in the way of conventional dialogue, opting to tell thestory in a series of songs such as Comfortably Numb, Run Like Helland, of course, Another Brick in the Wall. It also has a number ofcameos including Bob Hoskins as his manager, London’s Burning‘sJames Hazeldine as his mother’s lover, Joanne Whalley-Kilmeras Pink’s groupie, Philip Davis and Gary Olsen as roadiesand an uncredited cameo for Roger Waters in the wedding scene.
As for the group itself, I was introduced to them, as were many, while atUniversity, starting first with the classic Dark Side of the Moon,before moving on to Wish You Were Here, The Final Cut, The Division Belland the live double-album, Delicate Sound of Thunder.
The picture quality is excellent. As the cover states, it is a new hi-definitionfilm transfer struck from the original widescreen interpositive, which in layman’sterms means someone’s gone back to basics and remastered the film to the point whereit is how it was originally meant to be seen.
There are no artifacts on view and the average bitrate is a fine 6.24Mb/s,occasionally peaking over 9Mb/s. The film is presented in its original widescreenratio of 2.35:1 as you’d expect and is anamorphic, which provides an extra 33%of picture resolution.
What can be said of the sound other than options are available in stereo and DolbyDigital 5.1 and all of Pink Floyd’s songs boom out like they’re supposed to. Foroccasional moments when there is only dialogue, even if it’s just quiet, spoken wordsfrom the war film on TV, it has a distinct clarity. Alas, I don’t have a DD5.1 systemso cannot appreciate the full effect, but it’s perfectly impressive in surround sound,which boosts the point that the sound is remastered from the original master tapes.
Extras. : Chapters and trailer :There are 27 chapters which approximates to one per song although there are no tracklistings or chapter titles. The original theatrical trailer is also included. Languages & Subtitles :As stated before, the sound is in Stereo or Dolby Digital 5.1, with lyricsin English, French, Spanish and Italian. And there’s more… :The Retrospective is a 45-minute documentary split into two parts and includes interviews fromRoger Waters, animator Gerald Scarfe, director Alan Parker, producerAlan Marshall, director of photography Peter Bizou and music producerJames Guthrie all discussing the reasoning behind the film and their thoughts onits creation. Added to this is The Other Side Of The Wall, a 25-minute documentaryabout the making of the film, featuring interviews with many of the same people butrecorded at the time.
A feature-length audio commentary is included from Roger Waters and GeraldScarfe, a gallery containing 40 pictures and 25 still photos, Musicvideos for “Hey You” – which was cut from the final print – and “AnotherBrick In The Wall Part 2”, the latter making No.1 in December 1979. Fourdouble-sided art cards featuring Gerald Scarfe’s drawings are included in thepackage as well and if all that’s not enough, there’s an excellent bonus in theform of a Technical Sound System Set Up which provides info on how bestto align your speakers and tests their positioning.
Menu :
The menus are exceptional. There are far too many to count and each one combinesclips from the film with Pink Floyd’s music. The initial menu contains the openingtones of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. Some menus also have ‘secret buttons’that provide more weirdness.
was too much to ask for.
The Wall is such a bizarre film it’s difficult to make sense of it all.Some scenes are more of a fascinating watch than others, while some leave youcompletely clueless as to what’s going on. I understand this is the sort offilm that makes more sense the more you watch it and that it’s not just aseries of promo videos to accompany the album, but how many times before thepenny drops?
It’s taken nearly four months from its originally-scheduled date to finally see a releasebut it’s certainly been worth the wait. In terms of extras, as far as I know this releasecontains all the same ones featured on the Region 1 DVD, which is generally a bonus, butthe sheer quantity to be found here makes it a must-have.
DVD Trivia: Over 60 hours of footage and 10,000 drawings went intothe making of this film.FILM: ***PICTURE QUALITY: *****SOUND QUALITY: *****EXTRAS: *****——————————-OVERALL: ****½
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.