‘Big Country’ requires big screen, sharp image

By Christopher P. Jacobs
Movies Editor

Certain movies received widespread critical acclaim when they were first released, but later reappraisals in video guides are much less enthusiastic, if not downright dismissive, of the same films. After watching them on TV for oneself, it can be easy to wonder why the film’s reputation was once so positive. How could critics and audiences have been so overwhelming in their praise for something that now seems relatively tedious, only a few years or perhaps a generation or two later? Have moviegoers’ tastes and standards shifted that drastically in such a short time? Did an otherwise outstanding director just happen suddenly to use bad judgment throughout one production?

Of course great directors sometimes have duds from time to time, and audience tastes change to some degree. But a large part of a film’s success depends on its presentation in the form it was originally intended, and Hollywood movies are created with the assumption that they will be projected onto a large theatre screen, usually with a good-sized audience. Later reviews and viewer reactions, based solely upon watching television broadcasts or home video versions on VHS or DVD, simply cannot evaluate the film that the director expected the audience to see.

While the practice of “letterboxing” can at least allow different image formats to fit within a TV set’s fixed picture shape, the small size and low image quality of standard definition TV’s mean that without frequent close-ups, viewers cannot see actors’ facial expressions that would be clearly visible on a theatre screen running the original film. This explains why so many TV shows rely on numerous close-ups and medium-shots, whereas films made for theatres have many more long shots and extreme long shots, especially films made in the first few decades of widescreen – the 1950s through 1970s.

The Academy-Award-winning “The Big Country” (1958) is a perfect example. The recent Motion Picture Academy restoration of William Wyler and Gregory Peck’s independent production is now on a bargain Blu-ray from Fox/MGM. Peck stars as a retired sea captain in the late 19th century who travels west to marry the daughter (Carroll Baker) of a wealthy and powerful ranch owner (Charles Bickford) who has been feuding for years with a neighboring rancher (Burl Ives) he despises for the family’s rough, “trashy” lifestyle. Charlton Heston plays Bickford’s no-nonsense foreman and Chuck Conners is Ives’ crudely violent son, while Jean Simmons is a schoolteacher who just happens to own the ranch in the middle that supplies water to the two feuding families.

Of course personalities clash, romances ebb and flow, secrets come to light, and tensions gradually build to an exciting climax over the course of this sprawling 165-minute epic. Basically a story of the conflict that results when a strong but deliberate man of peace suddenly finds himself in a culture of knee-jerk violence, it’s a western action film for people who prefer character dramas and a character drama for people who prefer western action. Peck’s character in some ways calls to mind his role in “The Gunfighter,” and the western setting can easily be seen as an allegory about today’s times.

There are times when the pacing might be tightened, but those parts are more likely to seem objectionably slow when the film is viewed on a standard TV set. “The Big Country” is definitely a film designed for the big screen, and while the strong characterizations and fine performances (Ives won the Oscar for Supporting Actor) make for a compelling story, much of its impact comes from the vastness of the rural western environment that can only be appreciated with a picture as large and detailed as possible. Longer takes (with resultant slower pacing) and close attention are required to notice the richness of details crammed into the many long distance shots. Without recognizing those details, one’s evaluation of the movie’s effectiveness might easily drop one or two letter grades or from, say, 8 or 9 out of 10 to 5 or 6 out of 10.

“The Big Country” was filmed in Technirama, a high-resolution horizontal 35mm format comparable to VistaVision but using the 2.35:1 “scope” aspect ratio, with a picture area double the size of standard film so it will look good on extra-large screens. The excellent high-definition transfer on the new Blu-ray restores the details and textures that could never be seen on TV. On a large 1080p screen viewed from less than two screen-widths away, this makes the many long shots and wide-angle views dramatic and involving rather than distancing and dull. The opening credits with their optical work seem a bit soft compared with the rest of the crystal-clear transfer, which would deserve an A+ rather than an A if not for some periodic but pervasive faint color flickering that may be due to original lab work or slight deterioration of the negative over the years.

Oddly for such a big production, the film has only mono sound. It would have been nice if separate magnetic dialogue / effects / music masters or at least original multi-track recordings of Jerome Moross’ impressive Oscar-nominated score had survived. Nevertheless, the sound is certainly adequate, with the Blu-ray’s DTS-HD Master Audio presenting decent but not outstanding frequency range.

Bonus features are sparse but hard to complain about on a bargain $10 Blu-ray. There’s the original trailer in HD, a standard-definition black-and-white TV promo for the ABC Sunday Night Movie presentation, and a peculiar but quaintly fun short promotional film (also black-and-white and standard-definition) with Jean Simmons describing how the cast and crew play cards and chess with each other between scenes. There are also five alternate-language dubbed soundtracks and optional subtitles in ten languages. As usual for recent MGM/Fox Blu-rays, there is unfortunately no main menu, so all features can only be accessed through a pop-up menu.

THE BIG COUNTRY on Blu-ray— Movie: A /  Video: A /  Audio: A-  /  Extras: D

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