Review by Leonard Norwitz
Studio:
Theatrical:
Blu-ray: 20th Century Fox Pictures Home
Entertainment
Disc:
Region: A
Runtime: 110
Chapters: 28
Size: 50 GB
Case: Standard Blu-ray case: 1 disc
Release date: May 13, 2008
Video:
Aspect ratio: 2.35.:1
Resolution: 1080P
Video codec: MPEG2 @ 18 MBPS
Audio:
English DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless; English, Spanish
& French Mono
Subtitles:
English, English SDH, Spanish, Cantonese and Korean
Extras:
• Audio Commentary by the Director George Roy Hill,
Lyricist Ha; David, Documentary Director Robert
Crawford Jr, and Cinematographer Conrad Hall.
• Audio Commentary by Screenwriter William Goldman
• All of What Follows is True – A Making-Of
Documentary
• The Wild Bunch: The True Tale of Butch & Sundance
Featurette
• Deleted Scene with Optional Director's Commentary
• Original Teaser & Trailers
The Film:
The Movie : 9
What can I add to the legend that hasn't been said
and said again? I am, of course, referring to the
film, not the real-life characters who inspired it.
Perhaps only a personal note of dumbstruck awe that
a western that blends romance, comedy – high and low
– modern language (written by the man who would go
on to write The Stepford Wives, All the President's
Men and The Princess Bride) and a song by Burt
Bacharach and Hal David had a hope or a prayer in
hell of making it out of the editing console! But
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid isn't really a
typical western, where people meet the challenge of
transition with courage in the face of greed and
power, so much as it is a comment about the
unwillingness of people to change with the times,
especially if you were good at your work and folks
admired you for it. Add to this the most endearing
couple since William Powell & Myrna Loy and – well,
the rest is Legend.
Image : 5 (5~7/8)
The score of 5 indicates a relative level of
excellence compared to other Blu-ray DVDs on a
ten-point scale. The score in parentheses
represents: first, a value for the image in absolute
terms; and, second, how that image compares to what
I believe is the current best we can expect in the
theatre.
Was this image really this weak when I first saw it
nearly 40 years ago! To be sure, it is heavily
filtered at times, but even in the bright work, it
is less than sparkling. I'm not one of those
knee-jerk critics that adds the qualifier "for a
movie this old" to explain away this or that
weakness of the image. One needs only look at The
King and I (1955) to see that it isn't the age of
the film exactly as much as the film stock and the
way the movie was shot that spells the difference.
There seems to be something about many films shot
around 1970 that results in some pretty awful
looking images later on – and, most likely at the
time as well.
Grousing aside, how does the Blu-ray version stack
up against the 2006 two-disc Collector's Edition SD?
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, not so much
better.
If you compare my captures to those from
Trainspotting
HERE, you might conclude that the
differences are greater with Butch Cassidy pairings
below. But subjectively, I did not find it so. This
is because the image is so compromised on the
earlier film to start with, my mind could not let go
of what improvements do exist on the Blu-ray. It is,
in fact, better on the Blu-ray: the image is
smoother without sacrificing resolution and detail.
The color has a less "colorized" look and it is
marginally sharper. Also note that the SD has even
more blue fringing as the horses leap off the train.
Finally, the Blu-ray image is, in fact, wider, with
more information on the right side of the frame.
SD TOP vs. Blu-ray BOTTOM
SD TOP vs. Blu-ray BOTTOM
SD TOP vs. Blu-ray BOTTOM
More Blu-ray...
Audio & Music : 6/8
Like the 2-disc Collector's Edition, Fox's Blu-ray
offers both a stereo and the original mono, but the
SD's front channel only stereo is here pumped up to
a full DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless. Should we care?
Certainly this was not the filmmakers' intention.
I'm guessing a lot will depend on the excellence of
your surround system. (How am I doing at avoiding
the question? Not so good, eh.)
Operations : 7
As easy to use as falling off a cliff.
Extras : 7
Alas, not all the Extra Features from the 2-disc
Collector's Edition are brought over for the BRD.
Missing are a second "making-of" documentary,
interviews with Katherine Ross, William Goldman, and
Burt Bacharach, Production Notes, "The Films of
Paul
Newman." I leave it to you to decide if what is
retained for the Blu-ray adequately tells the tale.
Bottom line:
Recommendation : 6
This is a hard call. Of course, you should have the
best version possible of this movie, and that would
be the Blu-ray, but don't expect it to not knock
your socks off by any stretch.
Leonard Norwitz
May 13th, 2008