Still a surprisingly entertaining and informative commentary track. He also questions them on whether they prefer bigger shoots to smaller ones like this film (to which Eigeman states bigger productions usually have more food.) There are laughs to be found and it’s certainly informative but I sort of wished the other two had more to share other than information on Sevigny’s hair and clothes and Eigeman complementing Sevigny on her work in Zodiac. While the other two participants do ring up once in a while they mostly wait until Stillman asks them a question about the production and how it compared to others. He also confirms that, yes, he hates Lady and the Tramp. He goes into influences and talks a lot about the actual disco scene and Studio 54 (plus how he got a girl he liked to pay attention to him,) his work in publishing, and also points out aspects of the film he doesn’t like. Stillman covers his writing process, which sounds to be rather loose though this time around he forced a deadline upon himself. The track covers a lot about its production and where it fits in Stillman’s trilogy of films (which includes Metropolitan and Barcelona, the former also having been released by Criterion.) Though independent at heart Stillman still had to deal with studios (in this case Castle Rock Entertainment) which put some pressure on him, a big one being he had to get his film out before Miramax’s own disco film (the disastrous) 54 (though the director’s cut is supposed to be good.) By the sounds of it his biggest issue wasn’t like other indie features where he was going over budget but it sounds like the studios were upset with him because he wasn’t spending enough. I found it a wholly interesting commentary track, though, and was actually rather surprised by it. Stillman is clearly in charge here with Eigeman and Sevigny disappointingly only acting as a sort of back up to him and only speaking up when addressed by Stillman. The first and probably best feature on here is the audio commentary featuring director Whit Stillman, and actors Chris Eigeman and Chloë Sevigny. It’s a real shame Criterion is really selective on their Blu-ray releases right now because this would look absolutely fabulous on that format (and it’s somewhat frustrating since and it sounds like the commentary participants are watching a high-def version of the film since they comment on how the level of detail in “HD” isn’t always flattering during one sequence.) Looks good but I feel Criterion sort of blew it in not releasing a Blu-ray edition as well.Ĭriterion’s edition also beats out the Polygram edition in the way of supplements (that edition only including a trailer) but I can’t say there’s really anything all that special about what’s on here, which is all, other than maybe one feature, pretty typical material for a DVD release. Other than that it’s an impressive looking transfer. There are some noticeable compression artifacts in sequences and I’m not sure if it’s an attempt at preserving film grain or issues with rendering some of the bright reds and blues, but they’re there and the image can come off fuzzy and noisy here and there. The print is pristine and I don’t recall ever seeing a blemish anywhere throughout the film. The amount of detail is very high, lines are clean and sharp, and there isn’t an instance where the image ever becomes soft. While again I can’ compare I recall the Polygram looking a little dull in this regard. All colours are beautifully saturated and are all bright and vivid. The club scenes present strong blues and reds, and they look nicely rendered. The first thing that struck me was the colours, which look absolutely gorgeous. While Criterion’s transfer has a few issues the image on here is certainly something Polygram would never have been capable of accomplishing.
The last days of disco full#
They had a thing for putting widescreen and full screen versions of a film on the same side of a dual-layer disc effectively meaning you only had one layer to work with for the film (I oddly recall their special features usually had the layer jump in them.) I don’t own the original discontinued Polygram DVD and haven’t seen it since I rented it when it first came out but I recall it being of about the same quality picture wise as other Polygram discs, which isn’t great. The image has of course been enhanced for widescreen televisions. Criterion presents Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1 on this dual-layer disc.
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