The Conspirator

Universal have put together an engaging set of extras in support of the film, which looks good and is fully subtitled - although sadly the commentry track and extras are not.

Although the Making Of documentary is rather lightweight at just 10 minutes long, a series of Witness History featurettes - The Conspiracy, Production Design, Mary Surratt's Catholicism, Costume Design, Military Trial, Props And Special Effects, Frederick Aiken: Defence Lawyer, Mary Surratt: Guilty Or Innocent, Sentence And Execution - go a long way to making up for it.

The featurettes each run at around three minutes in length and guided along by historians Colonel Fred Borch and Dr Thomas R Turner. They combine historical detail from the period with titbits of information from the production crew concerning the recreation of the look and feel of the times to paint an informative picture of the facts surrounding the case of Mary Surratt.

Robert Redford further fleshes out both the factual detail - and quite a bit of the reasoning behind his direction - in his feature commentary track "I believe in the role of silence in a film," he says, and he does leave quite a bit of silence on this track, too, but it's certainly a worthwhile addition. All in all a decent set of extras that genuinely adds to the film.