The Southerner Blu-ray - Zachary Scott

(aka "Hold Autumn in Your Heart" )

USA 1945

The Southerner opens, after a brief introduction of the main characters with family photos, on fields of cotton that look the sea or the sky. People work in the hot sun, and you feel the heat, just as you do in Renoir's Toni (1934), you hear the bird sounds and the smell the earth. You are there.

A man collapses—he is the uncle of Zachary Scott's Sam Tucker. Sam and his wife Nona (Betty Field) tend to this man, who is dying. “Grow your own crop,” he counsels before he passes on. This sequence has the powerful sense of life and death that Dovzhenko's Earth (1930) has. Indeed, The Southerner often evokes the Soviet cinema of the twenties, particularly Dovzhenko's. It's clear from the way Renoir shoots the landscape that he knows the earth is eternal and that people are just visitors.

***

"After achieving worldwide acclaim for such films as La Grande Illusion and The Rules of the Game, French filmmaker Jean Renoir briefly worked in the United States, where he wrote and directed this adaptation of George Sessions Perry s novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand. The story follows the struggles of an idealistic farmer (Zachary Scott) trying to raise a family and a crop of cotton in the face of extraordinary challenges, both natural and societal.

Visually influenced by the documentary work of Pare Lorentz and Robert Flaherty, and assisted in the dialogue-writing by William Faulkner, Paris-born Renoir crafted a portrait of rural life that is honest, unsentimental, and filled with the emotional subtleties for which the director is best remembered. The Southerner earned three Academy Award nominations (Best Director, Original Music Score, and Sound). This Kino Classics edition was mastered in HD from a 35mm restoration performed by the UCLA Film and Television Archive."

Posters

Theatrical Release: 30 April 1945

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Comparison:

VCI - Region 0 - NTSC vs. Kino Lorber - Region 'A' - Blu-ray

Big thanks to Gregory Meshman for the DVD Review!

1) VCI - Region 0 - NTSC - LEFT

2) Kino Lorber - Region 'A' - Blu-ray - RIGHT

Box Covers
Distribution	VCI Region 0 - NTSC	Kino Lorber Region 'A' - Blu-ray
Runtime	1:31:51	1:32:31.125
Video	1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.23 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s	1.33:1 - 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 39,755,361,038 bytes Feature: 24,502,990,848 bytes Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video Total Average Bitrate: 31.98 Mbps
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate
Bitrate Blu-ray
Audio	English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono	LPCM Audio English 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit
Subtitles	None	None
Features	Release Information: Studio: VCI Aspect Ratio: Fullscreen - 1.33:1 Edition Details: • Short 'Baby Daze' (15:26) • Bios and Filmographies (Text Screens) DVD Release Date: July 3, 2001 Keepcase Chapters 20	Release Information: Studio: Kino Lorber 1.33:1 - 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 39,755,361,038 bytes Feature: 24,502,990,848 bytes Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video Total Average Bitrate: 31.98 Mbps Edition Details: • A Salute to France (1944, 35:47., dir: Jean Renoir and Garson Kanin) • The River (1938, 31:11., dir: Pare Lorentz) Standard Blu-ray case Blu-ray Release Date: February 8th, 2016 Chapters: 9

Comments

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Kino Lorber - Region 'A' - Blu-ray January 16': Kino's new 1080P is a revelation beside the 2001 interlaced, vertically stretched, VCI SD transfer. Contrast is a gigantic improvement - there is more information in the frame (we can see rounded corners), it is from a superior - 35mm restoration performed by the UCLA Film and Television Archive (no cue blips - see sample) source... the captures speak louder than words. It's dual-layered with a very high bitrate.

The audio, transferred in a DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel track at 1536 kbps, and it's quite strong. But overall it was certainly acceptable despite a couple of instances of weakness - nothing major. Werner Janssen's (Ulmer's Ruthless, Marx Bros' A Night in Casablanca) score benefits from the lossless and plays contently beside the film augmenting the, frequently, serene atmosphere. There are no subtitles and Blu-ray is region 'A'-locked.

Kino add two 1080P supplements - A Salute to France is a 1944 short, running 35:47, and is co-directed by Jean Renoir and Garson Kanin. It stars Burgess Meredith and is a delightful effort that I had never seen before. There is also Pare Lorentz's 1938 The River - a 1/2 hour short Depression-era documentary describing the importance of the Mississippi River to the United States. It laments the environmental destruction committed in the name of progress and looks very impressive in HD.

This is quite an important release - Renoir in 1080P. Thanks to Kino who haven't scrimped - we get a 1080P, dual-layered, very high bitrate, feature and two relevant extras in HD. We give this an extremely high recommendation! I'm very pleased!

***

ON THE DVD: The picture quality is only acceptable for a public domain release. There is heavy interlacing throughout the film, which means the film wasn't transferred progressively and there's some wear and tear - lines, specks, and marks - but overall the image is clear. In fact, in some instances it's better than the captures. The sound is passable, with lots of pops and crackle. A decent DVD for the right price (under $10). You even get an extra comedy short. Let's hope Criterion can do this film some justice (Home Vision released it on VHS at one time).