Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood, 2008)

Region 1 Warner (USA)
NTSC, 2.40:1 16x9 enhanced
116 minutes
Audio: DD 5.1 English, DD 5.1 French, DD 5.1 Spanish
Subtitles: Optional English SDH, French, Spanish
Extras: Gran Torino: More Than a Car; Manning the Wheel; Digital Copy code

Released: 9 June 2009

With the exception of a few rapid edits during the first 30 minutes of Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood is basically making movies the way that Hollywood used to make them decades ago. Eastwood’s style may be old-fashioned, though old-fashioned doesn’t have to be boring. At the heart of the matter is the fact that Eastwood actually understands the maxim about putting story first.

Goofballs teaching at or attending film school all talk about “The Story”, but they think that focusing on “The Story” is simply stringing episodic segments together. Unfortunately, that’s just plot summary. Putting story first really means developing a coherent storytelling vision--i.e. it’s not the story but how you tell the story that counts.

When Eastwood’s Mystic River was up against one of Peter Jackson’s LOTR abominations during awards season, Eastwood campaigned for his movie by saying, “It’s not about special effects.” Eastwood was right. Scripts for projects like Jackson’s LOTR cycle are special effects in and of themselves as they’re merely excuses for people to throw up a lot of visual trickery on the screen. True storytelling emphasizes character development, which is true with classical Hollywood cinema (directly motivated character reactions) and art-cinema narration (wherein strict causalities are backgrounded).

Much of Gran Torino invites viewers to absorb the daily routines and feelings of Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) and his Hmong neighbors, who have the usual pre-conceived notions about “outsiders” but develop respect and emotional bonds when dealing with a common threat. Walt is crotchety and unapologetic about his use of salty language, which is tolerable and funny because even though he means all the nasty things that he says about everyone else, his moral convictions are right. In this day and age, such an observation about the human condition is oddly daring given how much attention is paid to being “politically correct”. (“Political correctness” itself can be highly toxic when people hide behind polite euphemisms.)

Eastwood has a genuinely sweet chemistry with Bee Vang and Ahney Her, who play the Hmong brother-sister neighbors. This unlikely trio, along with Walt’s experiences during the Korean War, show how American macro policies have changed the micro details of this country’s undercurrents. What happens to the three main characters is scary, shocking, and profoundly moving.

Clint Eastwood is the greatest living American filmmaker.

Video:
Perhaps due to the reduced number of extras compared to the Blu-ray version, the DVD’s 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen image is pretty good and is not too big of a step down from the Blu-ray’s video transfer. The color palette retains the cinematography’s beautiful auburn glows, though blacks are a bit washed out.

Audio:
The DD 5.1 English audio track is about as no-nonsense and laconic as Eastwood’s persona. The mix is generally front-biased, and there’s not much music (usually diegetic hip-hop songs being played in gangsters’ cars or military-style percussion signifying Walt moving into action). The DVD’s audio sounds a bit less defined than the Blu-ray’s, though the difference will go unnoticed by most people.

Extras:
Upon loading, the disc plays previews for other products.

“Manning the Wheel” and “Gran Torino: More Than a Car” discuss car culture and men in American society.

--Miscellaneous--
You also get a Digital Copy code.