Complex and Compelling, but I'm Tired of American Censorship.

Rating: 10/10 (20 July 2007)

The older Kubrick grew, the more he tired of the limitations imposed by traditional story-telling, as the complexity of the structures of his last two films, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut, clearly reveal. Had he lived, I'm of the opinion his films would have reflected a combination of his old, traditional eastern European values merged with some hybrid form of David Lynchian narrative structureless, creating a result I cannot even imagine. Debate on future Kubrick films, assuming he lived, would have been most interesting. But, this is not my point. It's those damn little digitalized images which intrude upon the orgy scene in Eyes Wide Shut which have my attention, because, in the United States, those brief little computer-made creatures followed the film to DVD. I was determined to find a way to remove them, so I could enjoy Kubrick's final film in its purest form just like our brothers and sisters across the ocean. I'm sure most persons could care less, but there does exist a small number of film buffs willing to go a little farther in order to eliminate problems of this sort, because there are solutions out there, you just gotta find out what they are. DVD players and the DVDs also are manufactured to be compatible according to its region. The almighty powers of the DVD empire have divided the world into twelve regions, and, for example, since the U.S. is coded region 1, only DVD players manufactured for that region will play DVDs also with region 1 coding. How do you ascertain the region of a DVD? On the back side of most DVD cases, if you will look carefully towards the bottom of it, you will find an image of the globe, sometimes encased in a rectangular little box, others shaped like a global football, and in the middle of that little globe is a number, which in our case is always a number 1. It's not always easy to spot this small globe and number, but believe me, it's usually there. Now, if you were to come across a European DVD in its case, you'll find that same globe but the number in its middle will be a 2, rather than a 1. That's because most European DVD players and discs are manufactured for each other, and in Europe's case, that's region 2. Now, put a region 1 DVD (U.S.) into a European DVD player, and what happens? Nothing happens. You get no picture. The player and disc are very simply not compatible. Very often, when you're on a movie site, looking to buy or rent a foreign film that you've read about, etc., when examining the DVD's specifications, you'll reach a point where it warns you about region compatibility, or the possible lack thereof. Major foreign films, those that have gained a certain level of notoriety among film enthusiasts, very often are available in region 1 format. However, that's not the case for a far greater number of films from other countries. Surprisingly, certain American films are available only through some foreign distributor, in, say, a region 4 format for example. Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons can be purchased only as a region 6 DVD. David Lynch's Lost Highways, until recently, was available for purchase only as a region 2 disc, and this still is the only region in which you can obtain the film in its theater aspect ratio. In addition to this region compatibility problem, the DVDS of films from other countries often have video signals in the PAL format while many American televisions come only in the NTSC system, which basically means your colors will not match and, hence, lousy picture. I'm not very comfortable addressing the contradictions of mixing PAL and NTSC DVD other than to say, it will not work. With all these different regions for different foreign and domestic movies on DVD and PAL encoding for American DVD players designed to handle region 1, NTSC DVDs, is there a way to make it all work? Absolutely. With the region-free or multi-region or all region DVD player, all these problems promptly disappear, and any DVD will perform nicely in a DVD player of this nature. At a price no higher than a regular DVD player bought at the local chain electronics store. Don't look for a region free DVD player there, however. It only sells regular region 1 DVD players for those region 1 DVDs which it also sells. So, where do you go to buy one of these region-free players? The answer is on line. There are many, many sites which offer these type players. I don't know whether you can mention products or stores on here, so I will not do so, but you can email me and I'll refer you to the place where I bought mine, which has operated smoothly for about two years without any trouble, and many, many films have run through it over the course of that time. With this region-free DVD player, I purchased a region 2 version of Eyes Wide Shut on DVD, and watched the film without the insertion of those damned digital images in the orgy scene. It was a little thing, but it mattered to me, as do all the other foreign (and some domestic) films I've purchased and watched several times. With all this hoopla about the coming of high-definition DVD, a battle for supremacy between two competitors and the eventual winner an unknown for several years to come, you're better off with a much, much less expensive region-free player which will greatly expand the diversity of your collection. One other thing about the high-definition competition: the eventual loser will fade at about the same rate as VHS has to DVD, and its products are not compatible with those of its competitor and visa versa. I can be emailed at: jvincent1@bellsouth.net. By the way, I don't sell the things, I just promote the international bonding resulting from film.