Pitchfork

Photo by Natalie Kardos

Starting to think about a little early holiday shopping? Got an indie rockin' uncle or something with one of those Blu-ray players, do you? Well, you won't be giving him a spanking new copy of Sam Jones' 2002 film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, the black-and-white documentary about the testy sessions that produced Wilco's triumphant Yankee Hotel Foxtrot LP. Its planned release on the spiffy newish format hit a snag when, in its recent newsletter, the band balked at the very existence of a Blu-ray version of the movie. As a result, the folks at Plexifilm have shelved the Blu-ray Heart indefinitely.

Here's what it says in the latest Wilco newsletter, sent out on October 28: "Also, we have a CONSUMER ALERT. Without consulting us, the DVD company (not WB/Nonesuch) that released I Am Trying to Break Your Heart is about to issue a Blu-ray edition which, no surprise, costs considerably more (nearly 2x) than the standard DVD. We're unsure as to the rationale for the release, given that the film was shot in beautiful grainy B&W and has a stereo-only audio track... there is, in our opinion, not much to be gained by spending the extra cash. It's your money... and in this case you should probably hang onto it."

On the Wilco website, a post titled "IATTBYH to Blu-ray: You Be the Judge" clarified the band's position:

"In our recent email blast of 10-28 we discussed the impending release of the film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart on Blu-ray DVD. It's due out in mid-November. In expressing our reservations about it, conceptually, it appears from a handful of comments that we may have confused the message and a clarification may be in order. Please note that our comments were not in any way intended to be an indictment of the merits of Blu-ray as a technology. On the contrary, for many projects and with careful preparation it appears to be quite a valid (if slightly expensive) enhancement. That said, we'll reiterate that the band were not involved in any way in remastering or otherwise preparing the film for Blu-ray production. That combined with the facts that the film was shot in 16mm b&w and, to our knowledge, the audio was not remastered makes us continue to question whether the potential incremental increase in audio/video quality is worth the price for THIS PARTICULAR PROJECT. For the time being, we're sticking with our caveat emptor.

"When the new DVD is released, we're going to purchase several copies and ask for a select few volunteers among you, dear readers, to A/B the original DVD release with the Blu Ray to further the discussion. So look for information re: this in the coming weeks. This is one of those rare cases where we'd actually love to be proven wrong."

As it turns out, the point may already be moot. According to a statement on the Plexifilm website [via the L.A. Times' Pop & Hiss blog], the release of the Blu-ray version has been pushed back at least until the folks at Plexifilm can convince Wilco that the new edition is worth people's dough.

"We don't feel comfortable releasing a version of the film that Wilco might have reservations about," they note, "So... we're postponing the Blu-ray release, to give us an opportunity to show the band the differences between the HD and standard definition versions. We hope they agree that fans with HD televisions and Blu-ray players deserve to see the best possible edition of the film."

Plexifilm continues, "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart was shot (beautifully, we might add) on super-16mm film. We had originally done a high-def transfer of the film print, which was then down-converted to standard definition for the DVD release. So we started with a high-def, pristine representation of the film, then had to dumb down its resolution to conform to old DVD technology... it's the closest you can get to actually sitting in a theater and watching the original film. Does it make the film look like Spiderman 3? No, but it's the best possible representation of the movie."

Really, though, if you could make it look like Spiderman 3, that's the kind of special feature I think people would throw down for.

Now might be a good time to round up the boys for a little screening, as they've got a few weeks before their next live engagement, which they'll share with the likes of Neil Young. While they're at it, might we suggest they screen a certain Governator film in honor of the pair of albums Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and his bro Alex will issue off in February.

Wilco:

11-29 Halifax, Nova Scotia - Metro Centre *
12-01 Montreal, Quebec - Bell Centre *
12-02 Ottawa, Ontario - Scotia Bank Place *
12-04 Toronto, Ontario - Air Canada Centre *
12-05 Toronto, Ontario - Air Canada Centre *
12-06 Rochester, NY - Auditorium Theater
12-07 Detroit, MI - Palace of Auburn Hills *
12-12 Philadelphia, PA - Wachovia Spectrum *
12-13 Worcester, MA - DCU Center *
12-14 Baltimore, MD - Lyric Theatre
12-15 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden *
12-16 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden *
01-30 Ann Arbor, MI - Hill Auditorium (Ann Arbor Folk Festival) (Jeff Tweedy solo)

* with Neil Young, Everest