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 S E A R C H    D V D B e a v e r

Directed by Robert Altman
USA 1985

 

From Robert Altman, the legendary director of M*A*S*H, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Images, The Long Goodbye, Nashville and The Player, comes this classic drama based on a play by Sam Shepard (Paris, Texas). Stars Sam Shepard (Country, The Right Stuff, Raggedy Man) and Kim Basinger (L.A. Confidential, Hard Country, 9 ˝ Weeks) ignite a sexual bonfire whose embers will haunt you in this explosive tale of doomed love and loss in the barren, unforgiving West. Cowboy drifter Eddie (Shepard) reconnects with May (Basinger), the love of his life, in a seedy desert motel even though she's taken up with a new boyfriend (Randy Quaid, The Long Riders). But that's not the only threat to their rekindled passion. A mysterious old man (Harry Dean Stanton, Wild at Heart) also harbors a secret so dark and forbidden, it could destroy Eddie and May's love forever.

***

Sam Shepard's play was a short, Strindbergian chamber piece, in which a semi-incestuous affair between half-brother and sister was enacted largely by them hurling each other off the walls of their small motel room. While maintaining the claustrophobia, Altman's adaptation is much more leisurely in approach, allowing a good half-hour for the arrival of Eddie (Shepard himself) at the motel in the Mojave desert, before getting down to the hurting match between the two obsessive would-be lovers. The play had a ghostly figure, the Old Man, who hovered in the wings, breaking into occasional monologue to comment on the affair, in which it was revealed that he was in fact their father. The film successfully weaves him into the action, still standing slightly apart as a Greek chorus, but nonetheless integrated: Stanton is his usual excellent self as the man who may be a spirit from the past. Shepard is perfect as the dumb hick in cowboy gear who likes lassoing the bedpost; and Basinger, as the faded girl in a red dress, brings a curious, tatty dignity to the role, and proves at last that she can act when not required to pout in her underwear. It's the best of Altman's series of theatre adaptations, capturing the original's dreamlike musings on the nature of inherited guilt; what one misses is the sexual ferocity.

Excerpt from TimeOut located HERE

Posters

Theatrical Release: December 6th, 1985

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Review: Scorpion / Kino - Region 'A' - Blu-ray

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Bonus Captures:
Distribution Scorpion / Kino - Region 'A' - Blu-ray
Runtime 1:47:09.047        
Video

2.35:1 1080P Single-layered Blu-ray

Disc Size: 24,750,961,279 bytes

Feature: 23,225,303,040 bytes

Video Bitrate: 25.26 Mbps

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate Blu-ray:

Audio

DTS-HD Master Audio English 2082 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 2082 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitles English, None
Features Release Information:
Studio: Scorpion / Kino

 

2.35:1 1080P Single-layered Blu-ray

Disc Size: 24,750,961,279 bytes

Feature: 23,225,303,040 bytes

Video Bitrate: 25.26 Mbps

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

 

Edition Details:

• Robert Altman: Art and Soul - Featurette (19:47)
 • Theatrical Trailer (2:50)


 Blu-ray Release Date: June 8th, 2021
 Standard Blu-ray Case

Chapters 12

 

 

Comments:

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

ADDITION: Scorpion / Kino Blu-ray (June 2021): Scorpion / Kino have transferred Robert Altman's Fool For Love to Blu-ray. It is on a single-layered disc with a middling bitrate. Typically Altman, the image has a rough-hewn appearance perhaps advancing a vérité expression. It's heavy and soft, textures are clunky which would tend to support an authentic image. I don't see compression artifacts nor digitization but the 1080P visuals are almost expressionist - low lighting dominates and the infrequent close-ups show the disparity with pleasing detail. I have a feeling this is exactly how Altman's film was meant to look.  

NOTE: We have added 50 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Scorpion / Kino use a DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel track (24-bit) in the original English language. The film doesn't export much in terms of aggression - some trucks in the dust, fist-a-cuffs and a subtle score by George Burt (The Curse of the Living Corpse), with ten Sandy Rogers songs and two by Waylon Jennings adding to the countrified trailer-park milieu. It can sound scattered at times - another Altman signature - but dialogue is audible and cleanly exported. Scorpion / Kino offer optional English subtitles, in a small white font (see below,) on their Region 'A' Blu-ray.

The Scorpion / Kino Blu-ray offers Robert Altman: Art and Soul - a 20-minute featurette with comments from the director and brief scenes from Fool For Love. It's good! A commentary would have been appreciated - further exposing the film's layers, but with the interview we only get a trailer. 

Fans of Robert Altman will want to indulge in Fool For Love. It's filled with his telltale, naturalistic, style but a difficult task to adapt the Sam Shepard play that feels best suited to the stage. Dialogue can be less convincing although excellent performance from Kim Basinger, and underplayed Shepard, all-knowing Harry Dean Stanton and confused Randy Quaid to carry the film. Damaged characters, incest, a lonely night etc. set expertly in a dusty backwater that exudes Americana. There is so much here to love and great to see a Scorpion / Kino Blu-ray surface. Absolutely recommended!

Gary Tooze

 

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Distribution Scorpion / Kino - Region 'A' - Blu-ray


 


 

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