522 Red Desert

[tajmahal]

Wonderful news. I was reading about these early docs only yesterday, after watching Le Amiche. Perhaps we might see more of the early films as they re-visit Antonioni films down the track.

Sold!

[ellipsis7]

These are truly great additions, GENTE DEL PO (although substantial amounts of camera footage were lost because of bad storage, blamed on the political circumstances) is great, and N.U./NETTEZZA URBANA Is remarkable likewise... Perhaps the CC will also publish writings on the two, such as his 1939 piece ‘Per un film sul fiume Po’/’For a film about the River Po’ which imagines GENTE in advance of its production, 1943-1947...

[Sloper]

I've only seen those two shorts on Youtube, but they've tipped this into a no-brainer double-dip for me. Forget how short they are, you could happily spend all day watching them on a loop. Wonderful news.

[TMDaines]

Yep. I'll likely sell my BFI and pick this up.

[Peacock]

According to Criterion via their Facebook page regarding the Blu, the two shorts N.U. and Gente del Po, will be a PAL source (upscaled) and HD master respectively.

[doc mccoy]

Here's the blu-ray.com review - raises some interesting differences in the colour schemes between the CC and the BFI disc:

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Red-Deser ... 94/#Review" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ellipsis7]

The additional extras (rushes, the shorts and the interviews) make this a release to pick up, but it seems the BFI colour palette is more true, and the CC more manipulated...

The color-scheme of this high-definition transfer, however, is not identical to that of BFI's high-definition transfer (please see our review for the Region-B Blu-ray release of Red Desert). I've tried to match at least four different screencaptures from the two releases, and as you could see, the light green-blue tint from the BFI release has been replaced with a much stronger red tint on the Criterion release.... ...Furthermore, sharpness levels appear practically identical, with Criterion's perhaps looking slightly stronger at times. I also noticed some mild contrast boosting, and during a couple of scenes also mild edge-enhancement...

[Oedipax]

Definitely hanging onto the BFI.

[MichaelB]

I think I've already confirmed this elsewhere, but the Criterion and BFI Blu-rays are both sourced from the same HD telecine, created by the BFI at Technicolor in Rome a couple of years ago. Each distributor did their own subsequent digital cleanup - which is why the colours are different.

[andyli]

I wonder if Leopard is the exactly same case, i.e. BFI and CC are from the same HD telecine but with different digital tweaks.

[domino harvey]

Holy shit, what did they do?! No wonder Criterion thinks the cover is representative of the film-- it is of their version of it!

[Jeff]

BFI


Criterion

[domino harvey]

This is the one that really made me go WHA

BFI


CRITERION

[swo17]

Another comparison:

Criterion


BFI

[artfilmfan]

"... the light green-blue tint from the BFI release has been replaced with a much stronger red tint on the Criterion release."

Criterion usually favors the reddish look over the greenish (or "green-blue") look. We've seen past examples of this: Criterion's "Floating Weeds" vs. the Japanese release and Criterion's "Double Life of Veronique" vs. the MK2/French release.

I prefer the greenish look.

[ellipsis7]

As I said the BFI (greenish) colour palette is the correct one, the CC seems to lose detail and present pallid flesh tones... This an image from the original Italian published script of DESERTO ROSSO, showing how right the BFI grading is...



Remember Antonioni painted the grass, the walls, the buildings, the road (this image from the prep for BLOW UP)...

[TMDaines]

The story of Criterion on Blu-ray continues to be underwhelming transfers.

[zitherstrings]

What proof do any of you have that the BFI is correct? That script scan isn't "proof." Is it even a still or just a photograph? Judging by the flesh tones it's clear that painting the walls and streets have nothing to do with the colours on the BFI unless he also painted the actors' faces green. I'm not saying it's right but this seems like defacto anti-Criterion posturing per usual. This release had no chance of a positive reception here the second the art was revealed.

[Peacock]

Damn, I thought the Criterion would be just as good, if not better for some reason. Now i'm going to have to triple dip on this title and replace my dvd with the BFI blu for the PQ and the Criterion for the short films!

[domino harvey]

What proof do any of you have that the BFI is correct?

We've seen the film before

[Titus]

Beaver

[domino harvey]

I, unsurprisingly, disagree with the Beaver's conclusion, as the Criterion doesn't really look like the (most accurate?) SD Madman-- look at the cap with the glass, for instance

[Brian C]

What proof do any of you have that the BFI is correct?

We've seen the film before

I'm sure this is ground that's been covered endlessly in this forum, but what exactly is this supposed to mean? You've seen the film? What did you see? Other DVDs which may or may not be "correct"? And on what basis would you decide if that were the case?

Even if you've seen a 35mm print, and had perfect recall of what it looked like, so what? There can be fairly substantial color differences from print to print or even theater to theater. Just the other day, my wife and I went to see Bicycle Thieves at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago, and the color was radically different from reel to reel. I assume because they were using two different projectors with different light levels, as every other reel had a tint to it that looked sort of purple compared to the preceding reels.

I'm happy to be convinced that the BFI edition is in fact more appropriate, but this is about the least convincing argument I can imagine. Well, other than "look at what the photo on the script cover looks like," which is only slightly more convincing than using poster art for comparison.

[domino harvey]

Well, what it means is that we've seen the film

[Jeff]

While I'm not at all convinced that either one is "right," I think I do have a slight preference for the BFI palette. It's not like the Criterion is atrocious though, and in some of the Beaver caps I actually prefer it. Every time there are two competing Blu-rays released in different regions, the online consensus seems to be that one must be right and the other must be wrong. In reality, it's not that black and white, there are lots of shades of gray (or green in this case). Even two 35mm prints screened in different theaters are going to look different, depending on how many times the print has been projected, what the brightness setting of the bulb is, etc. Naturally, we want these transfers to look like an ideal print projected in an ideal setting, but when you've got a 46-year-old negative, there is plenty of room for debate about what that would look like. I'm sure the Criterion tech staff have seen the film at least as many times as I have, and probably have many resources that I don't when deciding on color correction. I don't think that they're making these decisions on a whim. Even though I might have a different aesthetic preference than Lee Kline & Co., I have great respect for their expertise and am willing to accept their judgment in most cases, including this one. Obviously some will say "this is too far removed from my preferences for me to accept it," and that's okay too.

The story of Criterion on Blu-ray continues to be underwhelming transfers.

My Blu-rays of Repulsion, Last Year at Marienbad, Pierrot le Fou, Days of Heaven, Bigger Than Life, and Vivre Sa Vie beg to differ with you.