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The Henrik Ibsen Collection (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Our Price: £31.17 (subject to change)
Great, but could've been greater. And why no R2 release?
Review date: 2008-04-23 Rating: 8 out of 10
OK....a formidable collection of top-notch productions of plays by the undisputed master of mid-19th century drama. The 'latest' production here is a 1992 'Doll's House' with Trevor Eve and Juliet Stevenson...the earliest is a fifties 'Master Builder' with Donald Wolfit. Inbetween we get Eileen Atkins in 'Lady From The Sea', Hopkins and Rigg superb in a great production of 'Little Eyolf', an 'interesting' (ie, not totally satisfactory) updating o 'Enemy Of The People' to 1970s Scotland and Judi Dench in 'Ghosts'. Also included are a good cross-section of radio plays, the earliest being Ralph Richardson in a war-time 'Peer Gynt' broadcast and included are the rarely seen 'Pretenders' and never-seen 'Emperor And Galilean'.
What more could we want, you might think? Well, 'Hedda Gabler', one of Ibsen's supreme works is represented only by a black and white version featuring a somewhat too old and miscast (but by no means bad) Ingrid Bergman. The BBC possesses stronger versions of this play, particularly the 1972 version with Janet Suzman (though I imagine that Ian McKellen's presence in that probably made it too expensive to licence), but even the 1993 'Oirish' version with Fiona Shaw might have made a more intersting choice (or - better yet - supplement).
Most of these productions are studio-bound and younger viewers may find some of the archive performances a bit 'stagey' - this is not something that bothers me, though. But why hasn't this set has a Region 2 release? The R1 forces you to sit through an interminable ad for 'BBC America', which you can't bypass.
Those caveats aside, though, this is a bargain and one which no fan of Ibsen should pass up!
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Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Judi Dench
Michael Gambon
Natasha Richardson
Kenneth Branagh
Freddie Jones
Creators:
Judi Dench (Primary Contributor)
Michael Gambon (Primary Contributor)
Clive Thomas (Cinematographer)
Graham Taylor (Editor)
Louis Marks (Producer)
Henrik Ibsen (Writer)
Michael Meyer (Writer)
Philip H. Reisman Jr. (Writer)
Director(s):
Recording label: BBC Warner
Manufacturer: BBC Warner
EAN: 0794051297723
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 6
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Colour, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC,
Release date: 2007-07-24
Universal product code (UPC): 794051297723
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Region code: 1
Running time: 967 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1963-09-20
Language: English (Original Language)