Synopsis
Taking as its starting point a course offered by Harvard professor Dr. Armand M. Nicholi(and his book of the same name), this is a debate between belief and skepticism. A round tableled by Nicholi bounces of a series of recreations of events from the lives of C.S. Lewis andSigmund Freud, and the two historical figures make their cases for their respective sides of theargument. At 225 minutes, this is a pretty involved undertaking. It attacks its subject withadmirable ambiti…n and seriousness, but there is also something faintly precious about theapproach.
Audio
Audio bells and whistles are naturally completely beside the point with such an undertaking.What counts is that the voices are clear, and there is, unfortunately, a bit of sibilance here. The2.0 track does give some nice little bits of surround environment during the recreations,however.
Video
The black-and-white footage here looks great, but the colour scenes can be a bit on the softside, and there is some pixelation going on too. The aspect ratio looks to be 1.85:1 widescreen,but is not anamorphic. The whole thing is definitely watchable, and you don’t view this disc forthe eye candy, but some of the other recent PBS releases have better images.
Special Features
One special feature, which demonstrates the serious intent of the program: a 14-page PDFdiscussion guide.
Closing Thoughts
Whatever quibbles I might have, it’s always a pleasure to encounter a release that respectsthe intelligence of the viewer.
Special Features List
- Printable Discussion Guide
