Al Pacino stumbles wide-eyed into Chrisopher Nolan's Alaska-set thriller "Insomnia", which gets a DVD release clever enough to rival that of "Memento".
TECHNICAL FEATURES
Picture Hauntingly shot, the eerily lit cinematography transfers to disc with stunning detail, even during the foggy scenes.
Sound The 5.1 sound mix is a brooding affair that envelops you much like the fog in the film into its claustrophobic clutches.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Audio Commentary As you'd expect from Christopher Nolan, this is no ordinary audio commentary. The neat trick here is that when the commentary option is selected, you watch the film re-cut in the order it was shot in. This allows Nolan to talk us through the entire shoot - problems faced, camera and lighting techniques explored and how the actors were reacting as time went on. Nolan gets to recount events as they happened with him in charge. It means that he doesn’t run out of things to say and can keep his comments relevant to what we're seeing, unlike other directors who lose their way in trying to recall what happened when.
Scene Specific Commentaries Various members of the cast and crew offer short commentaries for selected scenes from the film. Hilary Swank talks about finding herself in the characters she plays, while scriptwriter Hillary Seitz explains how she tried to write about the subtext of the original Norwegian film.
Cinematographer Wally Pfister and production designer Nathan Crowley talk quite a bit about the technical details of making the film, while Dody Dorn has some interesting stories to tell about editing scenes and discovering their true direction.
Conversation with Christopher Nolan and Al Pacino This 17-minute chat between director and actor looks, to begin with, as if it won't work. It is six months since the shoot so both are catching up. Pacino, for a while, is almost interviewing Nolan but as both settle into more of a natural conversation, there's plenty to learn. Pacino starts to let rip with anecdotes from his career including Francis Ford Coppola being reduced to tears when he lost light and Sidney Lumet's insistence on good rehearsal time.
Day for Night: The Making of "Insomnia" This eight-minute insight into the making of the film is a little on the short side. The speedy run time at least means that Robin Williams isn’t allowed to run away with the interviews, although he manages to slip in a rather amusing Peter Lorre impersonation.
In the Fog: Wally Pfister Wally faced some undoubtedly tough challenges on this shoot due to the remote location. He talks us through the scouting process and explains how the smoke used for the fog scenes created a perfect filter for the sunlight, giving him ideal consistent.
In the Fog: Nathan Crowley This uses virtually the same footage as in the Wally Pfister featurette but with the production designer's Nathan Crowley's input. he understandably repeats some of Wally's observations as he watches the same sequence of events but is able to add more about the logistical problems faced on the shoot.
Eyes Wide Open Just as there was a medical featurette on "The Others" DVD, Buena Vista has also provided one here, this time about insomnia. According to medical experts, most of us have an accumulated 'sleep debt' although probably no where near Phillip Lacey who talks about being an insomniac for over 30 years.
Additional Scene Available with optional commentary this is a scene Nolan loved but ended up cutting because it related far more to the original Norwegian film than to his movie.
Promotional Materials An image gallery with publicity and behind-the-scenes shots.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Chapters: 31
Ratio: 2.35:1 (anamorphic)
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Audio Tracks: English and French
Subtitles: English and multiple languages
Captions: English
Menus: Animated, with music
Special Features Subtitles None of the special features come with subtitles.
This DVD was reviewed on a JVC XV-N5 DVD player.
