|
By
NICK ZEGARAC
"Breakfast at Tiffanys" is
the vintage Blake Edward's romance based on a
novel by Truman Capote. Providing the elegant
Audrey Hepburn with her quintessentially chic role
as Holly Golightly, the film is an adroit, often
poignant, and uncharacteristically sobering study
of lost souls drowning in the big city, or as
composer Henry Mancini so aptly implied, "two
drifters, off you see the world."
Holly is a gadabout, ingesting the wanton escapism
of a series of suitors, living her life on a
shoestring and dangling just as precariously close
to personal oblivion as Paul Varjack (George
Peppard). He's a would-be writer kept by rich,
married lady 2-E (Patricia Neal). After escaping
the violence of a one-night stand gone wrong,
Holly shimmies up the fire escape to Paul's
apartment, just in time to see his "decorator"
leave a few dollars on the bureau. An instant
kinship develops between Paul and Holly, but
romantic prospects seem complicated to downright
impossible, especially after Paul discovers that
Holly is already married to Doc (Buddy Ebsen).
This is vintage Capote. Even with glaring
omissions made to the text and Mickey Rooney's
garish, over-the-top performance as Holly's
Japanese landlord, Mr. Yunioshi, "Breakfast At
Tiffany's" remains one of the all time great date
flicks. Director Blake Edwards brings an immediacy
and vitality to the proceedings, steering clear of
all cinematic clichés. Henry Mancini's score --
perhaps his best -- provides the film with an
unforgettable orchestral backdrop for this
impossibly perfect motion picture.
Unfortunately, Paramount Home Video hasn't done a
very vintage job on this DVD. They've presented
the film in its original VistaVision widescreen
aspect ratio (anamorphically enhanced) and they
have remixed the sound to 5.1. That's a start. But
the overriding visual characteristic of the
transfer is digital harshness. The DVD suffers
from edge enhancement, aliasing, shimmering fine
details, pixelization and digital grain. Colors
are generally well balanced but there are several
instances where flesh tones appear a little bit on
the yellowish side. Contrast levels are weak with
black levels usually registering a dark gray.
There's an excessive amount of chips and scratches
throughout, some general color fading and
flickering and a decidedly strident characteristic
to the audio. To top off the disappointment,
Paramount has provided us with no extras! |
