• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
  
• Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
  
• Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
  
• Audio Codec: English LPCM 2.0 Mono
  
• Subtitles: English Translation, English HOH
  
• Region: ABC (Region-Free)
  
• Classification: 18
  
• Discs: 2 (1 x Blu-ray + 1 x DVD)
• Studio: BFI
• Blu-ray Release Date: September 19, 2011
  
• RRP: £19.99
  

[amazon-product region=”uk” tracking_id=”bluraydefinit-21″]B0051URX04[/amazon-product]

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Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Film
[Rating:4.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:1.5/5]

Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures

(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG  thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)

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The Film

[Rating:4.5/5]

Barbet Schroeder’s (Single White Female; Barfly; The Valley) 1969 film More may be famous for its soundtrack by Pink Floyd and scenes of heavy drug use, but those things are only what are on the surface of this fascinating work. More is an exploration of passion, obsession, and addiction; showing the journey from naïve love and experimentation to the very depths of hell.

German college graduate Stefan Brückner (Klaus Grünberg) wants to travel Europe and experience life after earning his degree in Mathematics, so he hits the road with no money in his pockets and heads for Paris. There he meets Charlie (Michel Chanderli), an easygoing streetwise hustler who immediately takes to the naïve traveler. With a scheme to make money by robbing a house in the works the quick friends head to a house party where Stefan meets and falls in love with the beautiful American temptress Estelle (Mimsy Farmer). Ignoring Charlie’s advice to avoid Estelle, Stefan embarks on a relationship with the charming, yet dangerous minx, eventually following her all the way to the beautiful southern wonderland of Ibiza, Spain. There, he finds Estelle in an enigmatic relationship with an older German compatriot, Henry Wolf (Henry Wolf). He convinces her to steal away from under Henry’s watchful eyes, and together they enjoy a summer in Spain of lovemaking and drug taking that turns increasingly violent and hostile as the two become victims of their addictions to increasingly drugs.

More is not the usual late-60s celebration of the hippie lifestyle and drug culture that we are used to seeing in films such as Easy Rider or the Swinging Sixties films of Britain. Instead this is an outsider’s look at the darker side of the counterculture movement; a cautionary tale, if you will, of the woes that missteps of experimentation, lust, and unhindered passion can bring. Despite its trippy Pink Floyd soundtrack, you won’t see any psychedelic sequences in More. The experience of fixing, lovemaking, or, really, as it turns out in the often aggressively hostile relationship between Stefan and Estelle, just fucking, is always from a distant third person perspective.

Therefore, we can look at the overall story of More as a personal journey from birth, the state of purity, through the acquiring of knowledge, the inevitable tainting of the soul by “sin,” the ever kinetic push to attain, experience, change, acquire, until finally succumbing to the inevitable, the end of the line where it, where we, all must conclude – death. Death of purity, death of the soul, the mind, the body, and the need to acquire “more,” be it love, sex, money, or drugs.

Video Quality

[Rating:4/5]

More was transferred in high definition from the original 35mm Interpositive. The picture was restored using HD-DVNR and MTI restoration systems, removing dirt, scratches and warps. The transfer was supervised and approved by director Barbet Schroeder.

For a film from the late 1960s, More is looking rather good in this new AVC transfer from the BFI. Sure, source damage can sometimes creep in along the edges in particular, but it looks amazingly clean and crisp with a good grain structure, strong color reproduction and organic appearance. Flesh tones are natural and blacks are deep, although they tend to look just slightly greenish at times.

Audio Quality

[Rating:3.5/5]

Unfortunately, due to the original production, there are some portions of More that are just out of synch, and that’s no fault of this transfer from the BFI. This LPCM 2.0 Mono track of the original mix is about as good as it can get. Hiss and crackle aren’t too bad, although there are still quite a few audible pops, perhaps from splices, that can be picked out from time to time.

Supplemental Materials

[Rating:1.5/5]

This is an unusually slender release from the BFI when it comes to supplements. Apart from the standard, high quality booklet and a DVD-only “making of” featurette, the Blu-ray in this set only contains original theatrical trailers in high definition for More and other classic Barbet Schroeder films.

The supplements included with this release:

• Theatrical Trailers (HD):
  • More
  • The Valley (Obscured by clouds)
  • Maitresse
• Making More (2011; 17 Mins. DVD-Only)
• Booklet: This 27-page booklet contains the essay “The ticking time-bombs of passion and addiction,” an exploration of Schroeder’s film, by Emilie Bickerton, author of A Short History of Cahiers du cinéma; extracts from an interview with Mimsy Farmer by Brian Greene, first published in Shindig Magazine (No. 14, pp. 30 – 35); Studies excess: Pink Floyd’s soundtrack for More by Bella Todd, freelance journalist and music critic for Time Out; bios on Barbet Schroeder and Mimsy Farmer, as well as photos, and information on the transfer.
• DVD – The film presented in standard definition and additional supplements as listed above.

The Definitive Word

Overall:

[Rating:4/5]

More is a superbly crafted document of late-60s self-destruction; the end of the summer of love laid out in a crushing, realistic portrait of violent love and addiction. With a moody and electrifying early post-Syd Barrett soundtrack from Pink Floyd, this is a classic of the era done in the usual high quality BFI way on Blu-ray.

Additional Screen Captures

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[amazon-product region=”uk” tracking_id=”bluraydefinit-21″]B0051URX04[/amazon-product]

Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.co.uk

Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com

Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Film
[Rating:4.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:1.5/5]

–

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