Customer Reviews

Tis Pity She's a Whore

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It is generally agreed that this film is an extraordinary work of art. A stunning cast with Charlotte Rampling, Oliver Tobias, Fabio Testi, and Antonio Falsi all simply gorgeous. The sets are incredible and the vision is other-worldly. All the beauty, drama, and violence of the Carolinian theatre.

But this edition is dreadful, and utterly misleading. It is not the uncut 106" it promises, nor is it remastered. It is simply a bad copy of the horribly truncated 91" American VHS aversion of this classic. I have made better DVD copies than this from my old VHS tape.

There is a beautiful widescreen version from Asia, in Italian without subtitles in English. If you know the film and love it, you won't care. If you can find it, you will enjoy the feast for the eyes that was intended by the director.

This version is only acceptable if you have never seen the film before and have no access to other, more difficult to find, editions.

Having waited 35 years since I saw this film for it to appear on Video or DVD I was excited to find it finally arrive. I will not review the film with a stunning cast a wonderful soundtrack and sumptuous visuals and absorbing 400 year old story because if you have seen it you will know what a treasure it was. If you have not, please do not watch this edition of the DVD because it is not what was made in 1971.
What a disappointment to find a disgusting piece of rip off sales from New Star Video, whoever they are. Firstly the cover(a lie)states in bold lettering that it is 106 minutes long which is the full film, but I find it is a mere 91 Minutes which is according to IMDB the American 15 minutes cut version which is not what I saw in my youth. Next this film was a stunning piece of art direction, costuming and set design but the cinamascope aspect has been cut to fit a 16x9 screen which destroys some of the sweeping scenes meant for this production. You can see this when it skips from the Cinemascope of the wobbling credits to suddenly fill the screen. The sound is horrendous and flat and apart from skipping and wavering in volume it distorts so often that the sound is hard to hear. The color varies and the beautiful images I recall so clearly are faded, scratched and spotty and the light wobbles in a single scene. The cover states "Full Length Feature Film" but as I said there are 15 minutes missing. I was particularly looking for some scenes which failed to appear. "Digitally Remastered" (I guesss that merely means an old copy was transferred with no restoration onto DVD)
They have destroyed one of my favourite films.

As Barry Stone coments (I do totally agree and fairly recomend to read his review before buying the item (sorrowfully I didn't)) I have waited too long to see this beautiful Piece of Art on DVD. "Tis Pity the most beautiful scenes have been cut off". Two of them could have been maybe eliminated for its nudity or sexual content: an incredibly filmed horse intercourse, and the dead brother execution procession. But also, the most surprising beginning is out: before Film credits and name appear, there is a long landscape scene within a colorless winter dry tree forest you swear the film will be a black and white one, when suddenly the camera falls over the only orange leave lasting in this gray branches web. That is art, I will never forget. That film is quite old and has become yellowish and faded is understandable in some way. Unfortunately,"tis also a pity". We will be waiting for a better copy.

If you are an A level teacher looking for a dramatic production of this play to accompany your teaching of this superb 17th century revenge play, keep looking. This arty, free adaptation of the story reduced my students to howls of derision and boredom. Gone is Ford's meticulously plotted, deliciously complex, multi-layered treatment of jealousy, betrayal and twisted passion. Instead we are offered a turgid series of arty shots in which lustful lovers pine and moon over each other but nothing ever really happens. There are only two good scenes in the film: one is a mildly erotic sex scene which does indicate the type of violently obsessive, corrupt love felt by Soranzo; the other is the ludicrous bloodbath of retribution at the end of the play, which is laughable for its grotesque transmutation of Ford's grisly denouement. By cuttting out all the interesting sub-plots and excising almost the entire cast of original characters, this film succeeds in reducing a classical masterpiece to a piece of tacky,sub-erotic boredom fest. What a pity the director ever got out of bed.

As stated in earlier Reviews, this DVD may have bad picture quality, missing scenes (I've never seen it before so I wouldn't know about this) and be in the ENGLISH language (Italian actors/actreses being 'dubbed') and NOT the Italian language as stated above on Amazon, but I would rather have this than no chance to see any of the film at all.

I had to order this product from the U.K (where European language DVDs are as rare as Hell, and even more expensive when available). If you're American, you should think yourselves lucky ... I'm lead to believe that this film has never been released on DVD in Europe before, and that's where it was made!