“Body and Soul” Blu-ray Review: KL Studio Classics

As with most recurring images and sensations in cinema, there is no exact “first film” about the maladjusted, dissatisfied, wounded soul (usually a man, a brooding lion with a thorn in his paw), but rather the floodgates about this most serious of guys appeared to have opened shortly after World War II. In the late 1940s and early 1950s there was an infiltration of the New York theater: Marlon Brando, Elia Kazan, Stanley Kramer, Robert Rossen, Abraham Polonsky, Nicholas Ray and so on – directors, screenwriters or actors, whose meal tickets were more common as sold were not reliant on their ability to write the counter-mythology to the V-Day utopia. They asked, amid the fanfare and ticker parades, “Is this all there is?”

Deities like Brando and James Dean were responsible for putting this particular ship into orbit, but John Garfield was something of a pioneer back in the 1938s Four daughterswhere his appearance in such a genteel detail was no less shocking than a Martian invasion. This massive chip on this massive shoulder resurfaced several times later, most memorably with Howard Hawks air forcethe original version of The postman always rings twiceand Jean Negulescos Humoresque. But it was his performance at Rossen body and soullike the soul-stricken prizefighter Charley Davis, who secured him immortality.

The film uses some of the same origin story material as Humoresque. Charley Davis is a New York kid, like Garfield himself, and like his character in Joan Crawford’s Weiner, he has an incredible talent for doing things with his hands – only it involves blowing men away, not playing the violin . Using a flashback structure that no longer confused movie audiences in 1947, body and soul tells a fairly routine melodrama (also from 1947) about a fighter who has to choose between his values ​​and his budget. Or, perhaps more lyrically, his mom or the mob.

Rossen’s direction for Polonsky’s script is decidedly televisual, in the sense that scenes are performed and shot in the style of a live broadcast, with Robert Parrish’s editing a rudimentary tango between cameras A and B. Rossen rarely knows what to do when more than one camera actor is in the frame; At three or more, his compositional sense begins to disintegrate in obvious panic. But various departments do their work honorably. Legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe donned roller skates to film the spectacular fight scenes, and it’s widely acknowledged that if he hadn’t done so, we wouldn’t have any Angry bull.

The film’s strongest legacy, however, is the incomprehensible – and extra-cinematic – sadness that surrounds it. While the cast and crew list includes no fewer than six names of men who would go on to become great or reliable directors in their own right, the HUAC witch hunt took its toll on many of them. It can be argued that the blacklist was fatal for Garfield and his co-star Canada Lee, who both succumbed to heart attacks in May 1952, less than two weeks apart. body and soul may have begun life as a prestige melodrama seeking recognition for its depiction of the moral battles that grown men must fight in peacetime, but it is hard to see it today without the dark cloud of real events that followed it.

Image/sound

Kino’s HD transfer of a new 4K restoration is a real blast. The image details are impeccable, as shown by the textures of all the fine suits and mink coats, as well as the sweat, cuts and bruises on the boxers in the ring. The contrast is also very strong, and the velvety blacks and wide range of grays allow for a fuller appreciation of cinematographer James Wong Howe’s spectacular images. The even grain distribution helps maintain a film-like appearance. The audio presentation is equally impressive, with a nice depth that gives resonance to the increasingly brutal battles, while music and dialogue are neatly inserted into the mix.

Extras

The audio commentary by Alan K. Rode is a real eye-catcher, as the author and film historian goes into almost every aspect body and soulincluding the controversies that would soon surround numerous people involved in its creation. Rode discusses Howe’s groundbreaking cinematography, including his shooting of some boxing scenes with a handheld camera on roller skates, as well as the film’s anti-capitalist themes. In a particularly interesting section, Rode covers the history of Enterprise Pictures, whose meteoric rise to popularity, at least among actors, and rapid decline mirrors the tragic trajectory of one of its founders, John Garfield. The main event, of course, is the HUAC hearings, where Robert Rossen named names and Garfield and Abraham Polonsky ended up on the blacklist.

In total

body and soul deserves a wider release, but the comprehensive audio commentary and top-notch A/V presentation are enough to make Kino’s Blu-ray a real contender.