1098 The Damned

[L.A.]

CineSavant.

[Orlac]

For once, Svet is not impressed - https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Damn ... creenshots

[tenia]

The usual crusade against this kind of grading, as if such a restoration deserves a 1.75 out of 5.
Interestingly, the caps from the older DVD aren't very convincing either, several of them showing a visible magenta push, as it was often the case with older restorations.

[Stefan Andersson]

The Damned was previewed at 163 mins. as per Variety review:

https://cinefiles.bampfa.berkeley.edu/catalog/23895

Review has brief info about the financing of the film. Reviewer guesses that the screenplay is a direct translation from Italian to English.

[cdnchris]

For once, Svet is not impressed - https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Damn ... creenshots

As tenia mentioned, Svet has recently taken up a crusade against this type of colour-grading after not acknowledging it being an issue for so long, but has seemed to go hard the polar opposite to "make up for it" I guess you can say; he's defended a number of Criterion releases in the past, and it doesn't appear to have been as big a concern for him with Death in Venice, which is quite a ways worse than this one, where shadow detail is completely crushed out. I'm not a fan of the colours, and I feel that they're off (can't back it up, though), but 1.75/5 is hyperbole as other aspects of the restoration and presentation are solid. Honestly, I'd still take this over the Warner DVD.

He also came down on La piscine (and also seemed to finally notice the "noise" that can sneak in to some their releases), but that one has a far different look than the "Ritrovata'd" titles. It sticks out, but I'd say it's probably closer to that warm look tenia mentions that other labs have tried to recreate digitally.

[tenia]

I'd say that La piscine looks rather overly saturated and sun-dried than anything drifting in a specific color or color signature.

But that's part of Svet's hyperbolic crusade against these gradings, even more so since they're European so it can also fuels his political agenda. If La piscine's grading was obtained from a US lab, he probably would have voiced a few concerns but would have never come so hard on it. By lumping it together with stuff from Ritrovata and Eclair, he's just mixing everything up together and putting every concern, small or large, at the same level, which makes no sense practically speaking.

And of course, there are no way these restorations should score so low. 1.75 out of 5, that's closer to score given to SD upscales, which this of course isn't at all.

One can certainly questions these gradings and degrade accordingly the scores, but the final score still requires to overall fit the scale of value. This is just insanely hyperbolic.

Death in Venice was reviewed by Neil Lumbard though, this explaining that. But if you go back enough in time, you'll find older reviews from Svet when he wasn't in this crusade and yes indeed, he certainly wasn't bothered as much by these than now (like Pane e Cioccolata, which he even defended when I questioned the grading). And in some cases, he still give passes to some stuff (mostly from Eclair IIRC), probably because he didn't spot it was from his nemesis.

[cdnchris]

Ah, I keep forgetting he didn't always have exclusivity on Criterion titles there, and seeming to be less so the last little bit.

[tenia]

Ah, I keep forgetting he didn't always have exclusivity on Criterion titles there, and seeming to be less so the last little bit.

It definitely seems like he tried to cover more stuff than he can handle, and ended up with a backlog so big other reviewers had to chime in. Moreover, some of his missing reviews look like titles from labels he didn't want to rant against, so the related titles got to somebody else. Eg : The Tree of Wooden Clogs.

[cdnchris]

I just noticed he also said this has a more digital look as well. While I guess that could play into his grade, it sort of kills me that he refused to acknowledge past encoding problems on some of their other titles, but then calls out the encoding here when it's actually one of their better recent ones. Or is he trying to blame that on the restoration house? I just don't know anymore...

[JakeStewart]

I don’t see how anyone can take him seriously anymore. What with his batshit crazy beliefs, and now his new obsession with trashing almost every restoration coming from Europe. It’s funny that he accuses these restoration houses of “destroying” film history at the same time as he vigilantly tries to discourage people from seeing the actual films.

[tenia]

He's speaking of a digital aspect not related to the encode but how the grading looks like something definitely achieved digitally, especially in its handling of darker flat areas. I see what he means and agree with him, though I find Ritrovata's less of an issue than what Eclair can be doing there, especially when they deal with having to raise black levels (see Le jour et l'heure ou La guerre est finie). I've never seen 35mm showings yielding this kind of stuff.

[cdnchris]

Ah, that makes more sense, like how Memories of Murder had that artificial skip-bleach thing applied, leaving the image with this digital sheen. Didn't look natural.

As much as I'm not a fan of the Ritrovata "look" I can't say I've really had that problem with it, though I see where he's coming from. Still funny that it's an issue now.

[trobrianders]

Back in the 1950s and since it must have seemed a great idea to take compositions that were intentionally framed and shot in 1.33:1 or 1.35:1 and crop them savagely to the ratio of 1.66:1 or further to give audiences the new thrill of a wider screen presentation in theaters equipped to accomodate the new CinemaScope pictures. These days however the great home video labels like Criterion place a high value in returning to the original compositions. The Criterion Blu-ray release of On The Waterfront still contains the only home video presentation of the film in its originally shot aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and it is incredible to see the proper full frame compositions. The film makes much more visual sense in its original ratio.

So it's really regressive to find new 4K restorations of films like Johnny Guitar provided to Olive Signature in the US and Eureka Masters of Cinema in the UK mistakenly return to the widescreen theatrical aspect ratio of the 1950s. Why was that done? Because someone thought it's "authentic"? It isn't. It's repeating the mistake made in the 1950s of moving away from the original, "authentic" 1.33:1 or 1.35:1 image when there is no longer any valid reason to do so. The standard 2012 Olive release of Johnny Guitar on Blu-ray, though inferior in picture quality, is still in 1.35:1 and I'm very happy to own a copy of it despite the arrival of the new 4K restoration releases.

There are many films I own on Blu-ray like The Go-between or Kings G o Forth or The Man With The Golden Arm that are savagely cropped in this way and I still find the older full frame DVD releases of those films make for much better viewing experiences. I own La Caduta Degli Dei on DVD (2001 Italian release of The Damned with English subs) and as the screengrabs on beaver attest the full frame compositions work much better. Here's hoping Criterion start forming a regular habit of restoring full frame restorations as they so wonderfully did with the Kazan classic.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film10/blu-ray ... lu-ray.htm

[tenia]

These weren't necessarily "savagely" cropped and full frame open matte presentations routinely have tons of dead space (notably head-room) that actually tend to go the opposite way in terms of what makes most sense in terms of aspect ratio.
That's the case for On The Waterfront.

And in this movie's case, it's interesting to note that the 1.37 presentation shows less info on both left and right sides of the frame, so it's clear that in any case, a degree of cropping has happened even on the 1.37 versions that we can't exactly measure, so we're not really seeing the Full Frame anyway.

Finally, Full Screen presentations used to be preferred for home videos because they fitted the then newer home equipment, ie 1.33 TVs. Wider presentations thus aren't "coming back" because for many movies, that's actually the first time they're available in these wider ratios since a long time. It's probably been decades since Johnny Guitar was widely shown in a wider format.
Except that since, home equipments have evolved, but so studios and restoration labs' point of views and viewers' expectations too. We're pretty much finally ok with movies not being the same ratios than our screens. But we also now have sources like Bob Furmanek to support the AR choices. And if you look at 3dfilmarchive.com, it explicitly states Johnny Guitar was released on Oct 19th 1954 in 1.66, and that El Paso Stampede, released on April 24th 1953 was Republic's last 1.37 production.

So the question rather is : what is the rationale that should maintain a 1.37 AR and prevent a 1.66 ? Because yes : in this case, 1.66 IS authentic. So except if you want to see the movie NOT as originally intended, the 1.33 version only is an Open Matte alternative one.

[FlickeringWindow]

Back in the 1950s and since it must have seemed a great idea to take compositions that were intentionally framed and shot in 1.33:1 or 1.35:1 and crop them savagely to the ratio of 1.66:1 or further to give audiences the new thrill of a wider screen presentation in theaters equipped to accomodate the new CinemaScope pictures. These days however the great home video labels like Criterion place a high value in returning to the original compositions. The Criterion Blu-ray release of On The Waterfront still contains the only home video presentation of the film in its originally shot aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and it is incredible to see the proper full frame compositions. The film makes much more visual sense in its original ratio.

So it's really regressive to find new 4K restorations of films like Johnny Guitar provided to Olive Signature in the US and Eureka Masters of Cinema in the UK mistakenly return to the widescreen theatrical aspect ratio of the 1950s. Why was that done? Because someone thought it's "authentic"? It isn't. It's repeating the mistake made in the 1950s of moving away from the original, "authentic" 1.33:1 or 1.35:1 image when there is no longer any valid reason to do so. The standard 2012 Olive release of Johnny Guitar on Blu-ray, though inferior in picture quality, is still in 1.35:1 and I'm very happy to own a copy of it despite the arrival of the new 4K restoration releases.

There are many films I own on Blu-ray like The Go-between or Kings G o Forth or The Man With The Golden Arm that are savagely cropped in this way and I still find the older full frame DVD releases of those films make for much better viewing experiences. I own La Caduta Degli Dei on DVD (2001 Italian release of The Damned with English subs) and as the screengrabs on beaver attest the full frame compositions work much better. Here's hoping Criterion start forming a regular habit of restoring full frame restorations as they so wonderfully did with the Kazan classic.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film10/blu-ray ... lu-ray.htm

“Originally shot” is deceptive because the vast majority of 1.85:1 (and 1.66:1/1.75:1)films shot on standard 35mm are anywhere from 1.20:1 to 1.37:1 on the original negatives. I worked at a theater while in high school and was surprised to see films released in 1999-2002 still without hard mattes. Cast Away, released in 2000, is mostly 1.20:1 on theatrical prints except for effect shots. Even digitally animated films were about 1.66:1 on the prints despite being shown at 1.85:1. Normal stuff and Columbia was so fast to switch that there’s Three Stooges shorts from Spring 1953 quite obviously shot for 1.85:1.

[tenia]

I see these discussions about full frame presentations routinely pop up and it always surprises me that even now, the defense of full frame presentations often aren't much more than "there is more shot, so it was supposed to be shown".
See recently about the IMAX Enhanced Marvel movies (which, no, isn't anything close to an OAR).

I'm surprised to learn, though, that copies from the era you're mentioning weren't hard matted.

[trobrianders]

Thanks for the responses. I agree "open matte presentations routinely have tons of dead space (notably head-room) that actually tend to go the opposite way in terms of what makes most sense in terms of aspect ratio." It's hard to believe Kazan and his DP weren't purposely constructing shots for Academy ratio even though they must have been aware it would not be shown in that ratio. Just take the opening shot for example.

Wider screen presentation makes more use of modern tv screen space of course and doubtless most film watchers prefer that. But don't forget a number of brands like Criterion (with On The Waterfront) and Masters of Cinema (with Shane and Touch of Evil) have decided to offer viewers a choice and boasted of it. Why did they do that if they saw no value in it other than giving film watchers 'dead space' to enjoy? What I don't like is when they go the other way and boast of "the film’s originally intended aspect ratio..." As though any other presentation is somehow inauthentic.

I agree "originally shot" can be a deceptive term generally but in the case of On The Waterfront I saw artistry in the academy ratio presentation.

In the end I'm just expressing a preference for more in the frame at the expense of efficient screen space use. I doubt I'm alone. If in doubt I'd recommenda fresh look at screengrab comparisons on beaver for films mentioned above.

[EddieLarkin]

Fritz Lang's The BIg Heat was composed at 1.37:1 but was released well after theatres began changing to offer widscreen presentations. It was shown cropped to widscreen for a great many showings and likely even for its premiere. I can't imagine Lang was particualrly pleased as the film does not look remotely well shot when cropped from 1.37:1.

My question to you is, why would any director after experiencing that continue to compose at 1.37:1, knowing that their film would be greatly compromised once it hit screens? Sure enough, the composition for his next film Human Desire (1954) is entirely changed to obviously take account of widescreen, as was On The Waterfront.

[Orlac]

Heck, even Ed Wood's Plan 9 is supposed to be widescreen!

[trobrianders]

A discussion like this throws open more questions than it answers. I wonder if there's a thorough discussion of these matters by relevant film people on Youtube or elsewhere. Would really appreciate a link if you know of any.

[tenia]

It's hard to believe Kazan and his DP weren't purposely constructing shots for Academy ratio even though they must have been aware it would not be shown in that ratio.

It's very much possible they were composing for widescreen while protecting the 1.37 frame, and there's a difference between composing for 1.37 while ensuring an extract will still look OK and composing for widescreen while ensuring the Full Frame version won't look too weird. In your case, you only seem to imagine the 1st possibility, but On The Waterfront could very well have been composed with the 2nd option in mind.

I doubt I'm alone. If in doubt I'd recommenda fresh look at screengrab comparisons on beaver for films mentioned above.

You're not alone, but in the case of The Damned, 3 out of the 5 Beaver comparisons with the DVD precisely tend to show the extra frame pretty much is dead space/head room, so here you go.

[trobrianders]

If it was composed with the 2nd option in mind I'll take that. All I'm saying is I appreciate when a full or fuller frame version is included. You're not suggesting that a filmmaker go to the trouble of composing with the 2nd option in mind and then not have the version shown are you?

Some of the greatest compositions in the history of film I fear you would discount as dead space. Only kidding. I appreciate your opinion.

[tenia]

Both of these options mean, in the end, that no matter how many versions of a movie exist, there usually still only is ONE artistically legitimate version of it and all the other ones are industrial by-products solely made to accomodate the technical heterogeneity in the exhibition circuits.
So yes, I suggest these alternatives could be skipped now that we don't have to account for this heterogeneity.

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

Both of these options mean, in the end, that no matter how many versions of a movie exist, there usually still only is ONE artistically legitimate version of it and all the other ones are industrial by-products solely made to accomodate the technical heterogeneity in the exhibition circuits.

I kind of agree with this, but on the other hand, would you say the same about color timing? Ritrovata has stated that the intention of their yellowish trademark is to make the films look like they would have cinematically back in the day. So if we are defending 1.37 films cropped for widescreen projection as being the most legimate, why wouldn't that be the case with color timing?

I don't understand the need to view these is such definite cases of either/or. Of course I understand the annoyance of having to always be in doubt about original intention, but to me this poses the same issues as when speculating about color timing. We can almost always track down information about original projection ratios, etc., but we will never know exactly which format the DOP aimed for, not even if he's still alive (say, who knows if he remembers correctly?).

In my discussion with EddieLarkin in the A Hard Day's Night thread was speculating that maybe the DOP was old enough to have been trained to frame the image for academy ratio, and that maybe in some shots but not in others, he did it out of habit or he was simply forgetting that he should be aiming for the wide format. Why is this completely out of the question? If it is indeed true, then I don't think that you could have only ONE artistically legimate version of each movie made in the era when cinemas shifted from academy to wide, simply because some of the film would look as intended in one format while other parts would look as intended in the other format. On the other hand, if legitimate means "signed off by the director or the DOP" then that poses another dilemma, especially when you look at all the Ritrovata restorations which have been approved by directors.

[tenia]

Because the issue with Ritrovata's gradings isn't their reasoning behind what they're doing but how they're doing it in a way too uniformising from movie to movie. I'm also quite certain this doesn't accurately reproduce what they're aiming to reproduce.
Instead, they've just created a trademark, applied on dozens of movies in a uniform and recognizable fashion.

Also, interestingly, claims of "finally getting back to film-based photography and its technical limitations" are what fuels most of the arguments for Eclair's signed gradings, but they're just nothing remotely close to what Ritrovata are doing, so if both goals were to reproduce more faithfully the movies' theatrical photochemical look, there's pretty much no reason for them to be that attributable to Eclair on one side and Ritrovata on the other.

So while I understand your point, the ongoing debate with those labs' gradings is, to me, a different issue altogether. We'll never be able to perfectly reproduce the original grading of a movie, but it's 100% it wasn't what the Ritrovata'd and Eclair'd (or Fox tealed Deluxe gradings or Paramount's current trend) ones are doing, because the final result is the sum of the grading + the lab signature. That's why what Camera Obscura, Shout, Kino or Criterion have done on select titles aren't really re-gradings, as in "this really isn't it", but rather a removal of the labs' signatures, as in "we just need this taken out".

This being written, while we indeed now have more documentations about OAR than in the past, it is true that they might not always reflect what was originally aimed by the DP but rather only how it was aimed to be projected. In such a case though, I'd argue the legitimate version of it IS the one the DP aimed for, and the other ones are the industrial by-products.

Finally, I'm not sure what to make of your example of A Hard Day's Night, since that'd basically mean the movie's compositions aren't rigorously-enough framed so that different shots might work for different formats, but for a movie that won't be shown with variable formats. Which just seems... not a very good job.