The Hills Are Alive And Well
Julie Andrews stars as the nun who was too free-spirited to be contained by an abbey. She’s promptly sent to be the new governess of the house of the Von Trapps, a family with a stern father and seven children, ages five to sixteen. These children have pushed away numerous governess’ before, but Maria is different. She’ll teach the children the balance between having fun and being studious, giving them a childhood that their father doesn’t know how to while simultaneously growing fonder in Captain von Trapp’s (Christopher Plummer) eyes and heart.
This musical is set in Austria in the late 30s as the threat of Nazism begins to creep in during the three hour film. I always thought The Sound Of Music did a great job with adding a darker undertone to an otherwise light-hearted and very positive film. In fact, the movie ends on a sobering note, but I think still for some the movie is too good-natured and light for many viewers. And while I can’t bring myself to watch this movie more than once every few years (it had probably been over a decade since I last saw it actually), I still think this is a classic movie no matter how you look at it.
I would attribute this timeless, classic aurora of The Sound Of Music to everything from the gorgeous Austrian countryside to the memorable melodies to the excellent script and acting. There is frankly very little that I don’t like about this movie, even though it isn’t one I watch very often.
Superb Blu-ray Release
Fox wasn’t messing around with this Blu-ray release. I was mightily impressed with the image and sound quality on this wonderful three disc set. The film is as clean and vibrant as anything I have seen on Blu-ray. The hillsides, the colors, the detailed sets, all come alive in a clear and beautiful 1080p. I didn’t notice any grain or trouble in low-light scenes (the few that there are) or any other technical shortcoming. Older films often look outstanding on Blu-ray when they are ‘done right’ and Fox certainly has put the effort in here with results nothing short of outstanding.
With any musical, the technical audio quality better be up to par, and it certainly is here. A full 7.1 DTS-HD track is provided that captures every vocalization clearly and beautifully. There is also an English 4.0 Dolby track and several foreign language 5.1 tracks. My only issue with the audio presentation is having to adjust the volume between the the singing scenes and the normal, dialogue-driven scenes. Sometimes the difference in volume between the two can be a bit high, but that’s just a minor gripe in an overall very positive experience with the audio on this release.
Excellent movie, excellent presentation — and an excellent set of extra features round out this superb Blu-ray release. This is a three disc set, two discs are Blu-ray and one is the DVD. The first disc contains the film and quite a few extra feature while the second Blu-ray disc is loaded with yet more features. The DVD contains the full movie and several extras as well. The full list is exhaustive and I won’t attempt to go into great detail about the full list (although a reviewer on Amazon has). That said, here is what you can expect:
Disc 1
-Your Favorite Things: An Interactive Celebration – This is a really great feature. With it, you can enable and disable up to four different extras that play as you watch the movie. These extra “modes” if you will, can be toggled with the color buttons on your remote. The “modes” include trivia pop-ups, picture-in-picture with vintage media, sing along, and a quiz mode.
-Music Machine Sing-Along – This allows you to jump right to the numerous songs in the movie and watch them with the lyrics displayed on the bottom.
-Audio Commentaries – There are some audio commentary tracks with Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Charmian Carr, and others. There is also a track with Director Robert Wise.
Disc 2
Disc two is packed with a ton of features. Most of these are short and a lot of them have been previously released, but, for the passionate fan, there is a tremendous amount of material here. An abbreviated list would look like this:
-Musical Stages: Creating The Sound of Music — All-New Interactive “Backlot Tour” with In-Depth Featurettes on the Songs, the Stage Show & Movie, the Film and Sound Restoration and the Real-Life von Trapp Family
-A City of Song — Virtual Map of Filming Locations in Salzburg, Austria
-Vintage Rodgers & Hammerstein and The Sound of Music Programs
-Screen Tests, Rare Treasures, Interviews, Photo Galleries
Disc 3
The only DVD in this three disc set contains the movie, with newly remastered image and sound as well as:
-Optional Sing-Along Track
-Music Machine Sing-Along
-The Sound of Music Tour – A Living Story
It’s rare that any Blu-ray release gets this much attention from a studio. Let’s get to the summary…