New family member

We lost another family member this weekend but in this case neither mourned nor missed. My 13 year old Sony television set finally conked out on Friday. After struggling with ourselves for nearly 24 hours we bit the bullet and purchased a Sony 32″ LCD Flat Panel HDTV. I had hoped to delay this purchase for another year or so since I believe that LCD prices will continue to drop sharply.

The sharpness and clarity of the new set is remarkable. We were blessed that among the very first movies we viewed on the new set were two of the most gorgeous pictures ever made: Michael Powell’s A Matter of Life and Death and Black Narcissus. I hadn’t seen either picture in nearly 40 years and had seen both pictures previously only on broadcast TV so seeing them on cable on an LCD screen was a revelation. Makes me want to track down DVD’s of these great pictures so I can take a real look at the amazing color.

Did any motion picture director ever use color like Michael Powell? The color in his pictures isn’t just there as with so many pictures today but it has a real, living presence almost like a character of its own. Since Powell’s pitch for U. S. entry into World War II, 49th Parallel, and A Matter of Life and Death are two of my very favorite pictures I guess that would make Powell (along with Hitchcock and John Ford) among my very favorite directors.

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