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Heart of a Dog [Blu-ray]
(Laurie Anderson, 2015)
Review by Gary Tooze
Production: Theatrical: Canal Street Communications Video: Criterion Collection Spine #846
Disc: Region: 'A' (as verified by the Oppo Blu-ray player) Runtime: 1:15:40.536 Disc Size: 36,525,772,733 bytes Feature Size: 21,293,457,408 bytes Video Bitrate: 31.46 Mbps Chapters: 16 Case: Transparent Blu-ray case Release date: December 6th, 2016
Video: Aspect ratio: 1.78:1 Resolution: 1080p / 23.976 fps Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio English 3445 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 3445 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit) Alternate, no music, soundtrack: Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Subtitles: English (SDH), none
Extras: • New conversation between director Laurie Anderson and coproducer Jake Perlin (41:10) • Footage of Anderson’s 2016 Concert for Dogs (6:36) • Two Deleted scenes (1:47 + 1:06) • Lolabelle’s video Christmas card (4:46) • Trailer (1:51) • PLUS: An essay by film critic Glenn Kenny
Bitrate:
Description: Heart of a Dog marks the first feature film in thirty years by multimedia artist Laurie Anderson. A cinematic tone poem that flows from a sustained meditation on death and other forms of absence, the film seamlessly weaves together thoughts on Tibetan Buddhism, reincarnation, the modern surveillance state, and the artistic lives of dogs, with an elegy for the filmmaker’s beloved rat terrier, Lolabelle, at its heart. Narrated by Anderson with her characteristic wry wit, and featuring a plaintive, free-form score by the filmmaker, the tender and provocative Heart of a Dog continues Anderson’s four-and-a-half-decade career of imbuing the everyday with a sense of dreamlike wonder.
The Film:
Atavism can be a powerful thing. Which perhaps explains in part why I
got misty-eyed the other day as the end credits rolled for Laurie
Anderson’s Heart of a Dog. As the title clearly states, it’s
about a pooch in New York’s Greenwich Village, a charmer of a rat
terrier named Lolabelle, who had the very good fortune of being taken in
in the mid-1990s by the famous Laurie Anderson and her even more famous
co-vivant, Lou Reed.
Near the end of her dreamy, drifty and altogether lovely movie “Heart
of a Dog,” Laurie Anderson does what she is so great at doing: She
tells a story. This one is too powerful to ruin here, but the story and
its placement speak to how she makes meaning. Speaking in voice-over, as
she does throughout, with her perfect phrasing and warm, gently wry
tone, she recounts a harrowing episode from her childhood. It’s one that
she had described before, she says. But one day she realized that she
had been omitting some horrifying details. She had “cleaned it up,” as
she puts it, because that’s what we do: “You get your story and you hold
onto it, and every time you tell it, you forget it more.”
Image : NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc. Heart of a Dog looks flawless on Blu-ray from Criterion. It was shot on HD. This is a very artistic and stylish presentation with intentional hazy shots, stills of scratched Polaroids, animation, sequences from old 8mm etc. The visuals are a rich, and the modern landscape and sky shots are impressive. This dual-layered Blu-ray, with very high bitrate, reproduces a very strong 1080P presentation.
CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION
Audio :We gets a strangely dynamic DTS-HD master 5.1 surround track at 3445 kbps (24-bit) - that actually sounds quite buoyant at times via the music; The Lake and "Flow", Beautiful Pea Green Boat, Rhumba Club, Life on a String all performed by Laurie Anderson as well as Turning Time Around written and performed by Lou Reed (her deceased husband.). Narration is clear and audible. There is an optional lossy track devoid of the music - and it is a different viewing experience. There are optional English subtitles and my Oppo has identified it as being a region 'A' disc.
Extras : Heart of a Dog director, Laurie Anderson, and one of the film's co-producers, Jake Perlin, discuss for over 40-minutes the making of the film and its links to past works by Anderson including films like Home of the Brave and Hidden Inside Mountains, the theatrical piece Delusion, and others. The conversation was recorded by the Criterion Collection at Anderson's studio in new York City in 2016. In the first, or two, deleted scenes presented - Laurie Anderson describes some secret wall paintings that illustrate Buddhist concepts of time. In the second, Anderson tells the story of a nun who makes a pilgrimage wearing a bag on her head. On January 4th, 2016, Laurie Anderson performed her Concert for Dogs in new York City's Time Square, for canine handlers and their dogs from the New York Police Department, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and other city agencies, in honor of 9/11 first responders' dogs. The music was transmitted to audience members through headphones and the dogs through low-decibel speakers, while footage from Heart of a Dog played on video billboard screens on the surrounding buildings. This 6.5 minutes of footage of the performance, included in this disc, was shot with a 360-degree camera. There is also a 5-minute Lolabelle’s video Christmas card piece, a trailer and the package has a liner notes booklet with an essay by film critic Glenn Kenny.
BOTTOM LINE: Gary Tooze November 9th, 2016
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About the Reviewer: Hello, fellow Beavers! I have been interested in film since I viewed a Chaplin festival on PBS when I was around 9 years old. I credit DVD with expanding my horizons to fill an almost ravenous desire to seek out new film experiences. I currently own approximately 9500 DVDs and have reviewed over 5000 myself. I appreciate my discussion Listserv for furthering my film education and inspiring me to continue running DVDBeaver. Plus a healthy thanks to those who donate and use our Amazon links.
Although I never wanted to become one of those guys who
focused 'too much' on image and sound quality - I
find HD is swiftly pushing me in that direction. 60-Inch Class (59.58” Diagonal) 1080p Pioneer KURO Plasma Flat Panel HDTV PDP6020-FD
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Gary Tooze
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Thank You!
