Nice DVD Presentation of an Engaging Dickens Adaptation
Others here have done a good job of reviewing this excellent mini-series adaptation of Bleak House, so I will focus briefly on the DVD from BBC/Warner. Bleak House is conveniently divided into eight episodes of about 50 min. each. Four episodes appear on each side of a two-sided disc. Each episode is in turn divided into chapters that can be accessed quickly from the menu. The 4:3 (fullscreen) presentation looks pretty good for the most part, and I didn't notice any problems with dust or scratches on the source print. The picture does, however, vary somewhat in sharpness from scene to scene. Colors and contrast, for the most part, look very good. For a made-for-TV production, the overall video quality is quite watchable. The audio is also nice and clear. Though there are no subtitles, this DVD is closed-captioned, which comes in very handy when certain characters with strong accents speak. No extras of any kind are included (personally, I place little value on DVD extras anyway). This DVD will likely please those who love this nearly seven-hour Dickens feast. Highly recommended for Dickens fans and fans of period dramas in general.
Waiting in Chancery
I saw this many years ago on TV and am enjoying it again. The videos do a wonderful job of portraying the lost hopes of the people who are waiting for the Jarndyce inheritance.Miss Myte, the elderly lady who is still hoping to win her case is very moving. Also,the contrast is constantly being shown between wealth and poverty. The viewer sees the slums of London and then is shown the beautiful homes of the wealthy. Dickens makes you aware of the poverty in the background, more than many Victorian authors. Diana Rigg is excellent in her role as Lady Deadlock. The scenes with the orphan boy,Joe,are heartbreaking but probably very realistic for those times. This is great but it can be rather depressing also. I thought this was an excellent drama.
Compelling and Faithful
It isn't easy, bringing the range of a Dickens work to any screen. Characters have to be sacrificed, and the brilliant descriptive powers of CD must be, somehow, translated to the visual. But BLEAK HOUSE succeeds. The early scene of Lawyer Tulkinghorn in the Dedlock drawing room, the fuse to the smoldering fire of the novel's plot, is as stunningly set forth here as it is on paper. Rigg is the best Lady Dedlock I could hope for: haughty, she nonetheless conveys the anguish of her life. The other players are uniformly very fine, with special praise for the gentleman portraying Mr. Guppy. This is gripping drama, from start to finish. Bravo to the BBC for it.
One of Charles Dickens' darkest yet also most romantic novels gets a lavish treatment in this BBC mini-series of Our Mutual Friend. The heir to a great fortune made from the garbage business is drowned--and his death affects everyone. His father's manager, Noddy Boffin (Peter Vaughan, Brazil), gets the money, to the alarm of snooty society. The man who pulled the heir's body out of the Thames is accused of his murder; his daughter, Lizzie Hexam (Keeley Hawes, Tipping the Velvet), finds herself pursued by both an idle gentleman (Paul McGann, Withnail & I) and an obsessed, violent schoolteacher (David Morrissey, Basic Instinct 2). The heir's intended bride, Bella Wilfer (Anna Friel, Me Without You, gets socially adopted by the Boffins, where she... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Paul McGann - Keeley Hawes Director(s): Julian Farino DVD Release Date: Released the 06 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Greed, selfishness, and hypocrisy drive another rollicking story from Charles Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit features two Martin Chuzzlewits: An elderly and extremely wealthy one (the magnificent Paul Scofield, A Man for All Seasons), who loathes the sleazy, grasping relatives that hope to profit from his death; and his grandson (Ben Walden), a well-intentioned but self-absorbed young man who has fallen in love with his grandfather's ward, Mary Graham (Pauline Turner)--and because the elder Martin disapproves, the younger Martin has been disowned. In the gap between these two are a host of schemers, crooks, and even one or two good people--but at the center of it all is the pompous and oily Seth Pecksniff (Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom, Eternal Sunshine of the... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Pedr James DVD Release Date: Released the 06 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The BBC has raised the mini-series to an astonishing creative peak. A prime example is the 1994 production of Middlemarch, based on the classic novel by George Eliot, which juxtaposes morals and money, grand ambitions with petty jealousies, and pursuits of the mind with bodily needs. A handsome young doctor named Lydgate (Douglas Hodge, Vanity Fair) comes to the provincial town of Middlemarch to start a new hospital; a headstrong young woman named Dorothea (Juliet Aubrey, The Mayor of Casterbridge) yearns to contribute to the greater good of the world. These idealists enter into marriages that derail all their intentions and lead them into lives they never imagined. The network of characters in this six-episode program, ranging up and down the societal ladder, create... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Anthony Page DVD Release Date: Released the 19 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The first two episodes of this BBC miniseries only hint at the delights to come. A lawsuit aimed at church reform in the town of Barchester forces a decent middle-aged clergyman (the august Donald Pleasence, best known in the U.S. for the Halloween movies) into a moral crisis and a conflict with his son-in-law, a pompous archdeacon (Nigel Hawthorne, The Madness of King George). The gracefully written and acted narrative shows glimpses of dry wit--but in episode 3, the arrival of a new bishop (Clive Swift, Keeping Up Appearances), his imperious wife (Geraldine McEwan, The Magdalene Sisters), and his devious chaplain (Alan Rickman, Truly Madly Deeply, the Harry Potter movies) launches The Barchester Chronicles into a satirical power... More Info about this DVD Director(s): David Giles (III) DVD Release Date: Released the 25 January 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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