Conspiracy

Starring: Clare Bullus, Stanley Tucci Director: Frank Pierson Original UK Premiere: 2001 Dvd Release: 15th September, 2003 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: PAL, Widescreen, Region 2 Encoding Subtitled In: English

Article Index: [Background Info] [DVD Extras] [DVD Review] [Biographies] [Articles/Resources] [Link To This Article] Looking To Buy? Buy This DVD Here

DVD Extras: Conspiracy comes to DVD with text profiles of the four leading actors & the director & two featurettes, one running two minutes, the other four, neither of which is any more than an electronic press-kit. Sound is clear, perfectly good Dolby Surround, while the picture, though anamorphically enhanced at 16:9, is no more than adequate.

Based on the only surviving record of the infamous 1942 Wannsee Conference, the BBC/HBO produced Conspiracy reconstructs the two-hour meeting during which leading members of the SS & the Nazi government made definitive plans for the genocide of Europes Jews. Sixteen men sit around a table & politely discuss the mechanics & ramifications of murdering millions. As SS General Reinhard Heydrich, overall architect of the Final Solution, Kenneth Branagh is brilliant, charming, manipulative & threatening, a cultured man seemingly without a soul. As his aid, SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann, Stanley Tucci is the incarnation of the banality of evil, an efficient & self-effacing bureaucrat in a fine performance marred only by a hint of the actors American accent. Colin Firth is a powerful foil for Branagh as Dr Wilhelm Stuckart, author of Nazi Germanys race laws & a stickler for the rule of law, no matter how insane the law may have become; while David Threlfall makes a striking impression as the one man who comes closest to taking a moral stand, Dr Wilhelm Kritzinger. Directed in an elegantly controlled style by Frank Pierson, Conspiracy is the Janus face of the 1957 classic 12 Angry Men & a chilling companion to the BBC/HBO Churchill drama The Gathering Storm .

Frank R Pierson is an American screenwriter & film director. Born in Chappaqua, New York, Pierson attended Harvard. He got his break in Hollywood when he penned a script for the television series Naked City in 1958. He went on to write or co-write several notable films, including the breakout Cat Ballou. He helped write Cool Hand Luke & Dog Day Afternoon, which were both nominated for Academy Awards, the latter of which won Pierson his only Oscar statuette. A Star Is Born, which he directed & which he also contributed to the screenplay, led to an Oscar win for Best Original Song. Pierson has directed several notable films produced for television, including Citizen Cohn, Conspiracy & Somebody Has To Shoot the Picture. His direction on Truman & Soldiers Girl both garnered Peabody Awards. He was President of the Writers Guild of America, West from 1981 — 1983 & again from 1993 — 1995 & was President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences from 2001 - 2005. Posters Of Conspiracy

Editors Choice: Conspiracy, View DVDology

©2004-2008 DVDArk.co.uk