[The News Bot]

Reviewed by Alan Paterson, 5th October 2009
‘The Elephant Man’ comes to Blu-ray with a very good looking Region Free 1080p AVC/Mpeg-4 transfer framed in the theatrically correct 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The black and white photography looks superb with deep blacks and a fine contrast range, taken from a crisp looking print. A few, very occasional, tiny scratches are surprisingly present to catch our eye.
The DTS-HD MA 5.1 sound mix is strangely enveloping for a film of this vintage as the surrounds and subwoofer are used to create an ambient rumble. Dialogue is clear and centre locked while the front stereo pair gently reveal the music score including Barber’s Adagio for Strings.
The extras provide us with interviews with director David Lynch and actor John Hurt, while there’s also a nice featurette on the real life Elephant Man. This is an ultimately very touching movie about a gentle soul trapped in a twisted body, given credibility by a fine cast including John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins, Sir John Gielgud and Hannah Gordon. This is a very noble, handsome picture. Watch it to find out how stories should be told.


Read the full review...

[Jim Di Griz]

Great review

Im a big Lynch fan but this one is a difficult watch and not one that I personally watch very often (only have DVD at present). Great film of course though. I notice the reviewer mentioned the ambient background humming on the surrounds - this doesnt surprise me at all as Lynch likes his strange background noises...its there on practically all his films!

[Eitzel]

Instead of being encoded correctly at 1080p/23.976Hz the transfer is 1080p/24Hz and thus accounts for the dropped frames. I have to output at 1080i/60Hz from my Oppo, otherwise it drives me up the wall. Why can't they get it right?

[roman-r]

Originally Posted by Eitzel

Instead of being encoded correctly at 1080p/23.97Hz the transfer is 1080p/24Hz and thus accounts for the dropped frames. I have to output at 1080i/60Hz from my Oppo, otherwise it drives me up the wall. Why can't they get it right?

Is it definately 2.35 ratio as the pictures used in the review are much less than that.

[Simon Crust]

Originally Posted by roman-r

Is it definately 2.35 ratio as the pictures used in the review are much less than that.

Alan, as yet, doesn't have the capability to take actual screen grabs.

Pictures used in the review are pr stills from Optimum and are, as such, not representative of the actual picture

All the best

Simon