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Released by: BFI
Released on: 5/24/2010
Director: Peter Watkins
Cast: Paul Jones, Jean Shrimpton, Mark London, William Job, Max Bacon
Year: 1967
The Movie:
Made in the late sixties by Peter Watkins, Privilege is set in a not too distant future and revolves around a pop singer named Steven Shorter (one time Manfred Mann frontman Paul Jones). Shorter has a sort of David Bowie/early Peter Gabriel thing going on in that his stage shows are rather strange and sometimes quite surreal. Regardless, he's hit a chord with the general public and when we meet him, he's a huge star. His music and concerts, however, are often very politically charged and there's more to his work than just power chords and smooth vocals. His manager and public relations crew are successful in exploiting his work and before you know it both church and state have got a stake in Shorter's commercial viability.
When Shorter meets a beautiful artist named Vanessa (Jean Shrimpton) who is contracted to paint a portrait of him, she falls very quickly and passionately in love with him, seeing in him a more fragile person than his swathe of fans could ever know. The pressure that's mounting on Shorter all comes to a head when his management decides he's going to headline a concert intended to be the centerpiece of a massive festival intended to convert as many of England's youth to Christianity as possible. Shorter's tired of being a puppet and intends to speak his mind…
Almost prophetic in its prediction of how western society would take to creating a brand out of various musical acts over the years, Privilege is an interesting look at how corporations, politicians and religious organizations can use music and celebrity status to brainwash unwitting consumers to blind to actually bother to think about what they're watching and/or listening to. Watkins' choice to frame Privilege as a pseudo-documentary gives at an all too real feeling at time and Jones naturalness on stage only further cements that aspect of the picture. The music is mixed in with the film almost perfectly, complimenting the dialogue to an extent but more accurately accentuating the story and situations that play out in front of us. It also allows Watkins to play around with some impressive imagery, a prime example being the opening scene in which Shorter is dragged out of a burlap sack on stage and beaten bloody by cops with billy clubs. Not only is the sequence visually impressive but it sets the tone for what's to come and works as a nice bit of foreshadowing.
Neither Jones nor the lovely Ms. Shrimpton were professional actors when Watkins made this picture, so there are moments where their performances have a certain awkwardness to them but in the context of the film, this actually works for it rather than against it. The film was distributed by Universal, who quickly pulled it and tossed it into the vaults. It ran into some controversy in its native England where it was dismissed as both poorly made and immoral. By today's standards, it's easy to see how wrong those accusations are and the film stands up well as an intelligent and thought provoking piece of cinema.
In an ironic twist of fate, one of Paul Jones' real life collaborators, Cliff Richards, took Jones to a crusade held by American evangelist Luis Palau where Paul accepted Christianity. He is currently very open about his faith and considers himself born again, which makes the events that play out in the film all the more interesting.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The BFI's 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen 1080p high definition transfer, taken from the film's original negative, is excellent. There's a healthy coat of natural looking film grain present throughout but no real print damage and the color reproduction is very strong and natural looking, without ever looking artificially pumped up. Skin tones, of which there are many on display, also fare quite well and look nice and detailed and lifelike, not pink or waxy at all thought it does look like a bit of DNR has been applied in some shots (you'll occasionally notice this in close up shots), eliminating some fine detail along the way. Shadow detail is also strong, with nice inky black levels staying strong and consistent without smearing the backgrounds or hiding anything from the camera. When DVNR doesn't come into play, the close up shots of the actors are very crisp and even the scenes that take place in darker locales look quite strong.
The English language 48 kHz/24 bit PCM 2.0 Mono track, which comes with optional closed captioning in English only, doesn't have a ton of range and shows the limitations of its source but is otherwise fine. There are no problems with hiss or distortion to complain about nor are there any issues with the levels. The film's soundtrack sounds quite good while the dialogue is always crisp and clear and perfectly balanced.
The BFI once again load up the disc with extras, starting with the first of two interesting short films from Watkins, the first of which his 1959's seventeen minute The Diary of an Unknown Soldier which is a stark look at a soldier getting ready to go to war during The First World War. The second short is the eighteen minute Forgotten Faces, show in 1961, which covers a riot that took place in Hungary. The original theatrical trailer for Privilege is also included alongside some classy menus and standard chapter selection. All of the extras on the Blu-ray are in high definition.
Aside from that, the BFI have also included a nice full color insert booklet containing some essays on the film, some vintage reviews of the picture, a biography for the Walker and short pieces on the bonus features that are included in the supplemental section of the disc.
The Final Word:
Well acted, expertly directed and interesting from social, political and cultural angles, Privilege is a film well worth seeing and the BFI's Blu-ray release presents it completely uncut and in the best shape currently available on home video.