By Douglas Pratt Pratt@moviecitynews.com
Downhill Racer
Four decades and umpteen Warren Miller films later, the skiing sequences in Michael Ritchie’s 1969Downhill Racer are still hold-your-breath-and-don’t-blink thrilling. In fact, the whole movie is thrilling. Deftly staged and then masterfully edited, every sequence in the 101-minute feature is exquisitely succinct and yet abundantly rich in conveying the psychologies and emotions of the characters. Robert Redford stars as a hotshot American skier prepping for the Olympics, and Gene Hackman is his coach, with Camilia Sparv as his short-term romantic interest. Redford’s performance is as fearless as whoever was doing his skiing. His character is utterly self-absorbed and yet magnetically charismatic, so that the film, along with everything else, seems to be a primer on how unlikable people can still be heroes-because they channel their souls into what makes them heroic at the expense of everything else. The movie also captures what is now the several generations ago competitive skiing scene in Europe, from the beauty of the landscape to the clutter of the paparazzi. With the proliferation of cable channels, skiing has in essence disappeared from American television except during the Olympics, because there are too many other sporting programs competing with it, and the allure of downhill racing itself has receded in favor of extreme snowboarding events.
For reasons perhaps relating to this generational shift, Paramount never got around to releasing Downhill Racer on DVD and has instead signed the rights over to The Criterion Collection, which is fine by us. Except for the let’s-attract-as-little-attention-as-possible jacket cover, the presentation is outstanding. The film is in letterboxed format only, with an aspect ratio of about 1.85:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The color transfer is terrific. The film does have some grainy sequences as would be expected for its age and the lighting conditions dictated by the outdoor sequences, but the image is solid whenever possible and colors are as fresh as can be, with finely detailed fleshtones. Most importantly, the most challenging aspect of all in the transfer, the white snow, is always clearly delineated and textured. The monophonic sound is crisp and undistorted, except for a brief reverb near the beginning that is likely a flaw in the original recording. There are optional English subtitles, a trailer, a 12-minute promotional featurette from 1969 narrated by Redford with lots of skiing footage, an excellent 34-minute retrospective interview piece with Redford and screenwriterJames Selter (Roman Polanski was involved in the movie’s pre-production and contributed distinctively to its European orientation), another good 30-minute retrospective interview compilation with several members of the crew, and a rewarding audio-only interview with Ritchie from 1977 (he was promoting Semi-Tough) that runs about an hour and covers not only Downhill Racer but much of his career up to that point.
Douglas Pratt’s DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter is published monthly.
For a free sample, call (516)594-9304 or go to his website at www.DVDLaser.com