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By
NICK ZEGARAC
While most musical stars
quickly fell out of favor with film audiences and
faded into obscurity after the last great swell of
movie musicals in the late 1960s, Barbra Streisand
emerged from this downswing virtually unscathed,
proving once and for all that her talent was far
more extensive than mere musical theater. In "The
Way We Were" Streisand is Katie -- a Jewish,
pro-communist sympathizer who fights against
political propaganda every chance that she gets.
In pre-war America this stance wins her very few
supporters and even fewer friends.
One admirer is Hubble Gardner (Robert Redford), a
whitebread born to WASP privilege -- so Waspish,
in fact, that it hurts. The unlikely romance that
blossoms between these two is essentially what
fuels this well-tailored history lesson that picks
up at the end of the second World War and explores
the HUAC anti-American trials and the McCarthy
witch hunt against suspected communists in
Hollywood that followed.
Though Katie and Hubble argue over nearly
everything, their romance seems strangely and
ideally suited for a long while, though it is
ultimately doomed to a bittersweet end. As with
most romantic movies of the 1970s, getting to the
final fade-out is not so important as the
circumstances one has to go through to get there.
Only in the last half hour does the film's
attention to narrative detail tend to somewhat
fall apart as director Sidney Pollack desperately
tries to cram in way too much in too little
running time -- thereby alienating something of
the carefully crafted romance that began his
story.
For the most part, Columbia has given us "The Way
We Were" the way we remember it. Colors can be
rich and bold at times, though somewhat washed out
during night scenes. There's also an excessive
amount of film grain and aliasing, shimmering and
edge enhancement in specific scenes, particularly
the one where Katie and Hubble have their first
serious discussion at an outdoor pub after he
confides in her that he has sold his first story.
Overall, inconsistencies in image quality are
sporadic. The audio has been remixed but continues
to sound strident and unnatural. There are even
several cases where it sounds dubbed over. Extras
include a generally self-congratulatory making-of
featurette that is rather weak on details and full
of praise for cast and crew and a theatrical
trailer. |
