BFI: 32 Ozu Films

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Yes, AUTUMN AFTERNOON & LATE AUTUMN on Blu should be not too far away, hopefully...

I agree that these are probably the front runners for the next batch as they were part of the BFI Ozu touring package earlier this year and spectacular they looked too. I am really hoping that Tokyo Twilight gets a good buffing too.

[Svevan]

I'm concerned, though, that if Criterion is supplying BFI with their masters for Equinox Flower (or Floating Weeds, fingers crossed), will the colors still be as wrong as ever? It'd be like BFI taking Criterion's Melville color schemes and adopting them wholesale, which would be obviously out-of-character for them.

[MichaelB]

I'm concerned, though, that if Criterion is supplying BFI with their masters for Equinox Flower (or Floating Weeds, fingers crossed), will the colors still be as wrong as ever?

Not if the BFI does its own grading, which I assume would be the case. Remember Red Desert? Same basic source, but different colour schemes between the BFI and Criterion editions, largely because they used different 35mm prints for reference.

I can assure you that the technical producer of the Ozu DVDs reads this thread and is fully aware of these issues. We've already seen that mistakes on Criterion editions (the erroneous reference to Audrey Hepburn in the subtitles) have been fixed.

[Svevan]

Good to hear; my concern is more paranoid than based on any precedent from BFI.

[movielocke]

based on my experience with working in a cinema library and browsing foreign directors sections of various thorough video houses Mizoguchi had a larger video presence than Ozu for most of the video era. Though--thanks to eclipse--ozu has outstripped Mizo's video presence in recent years. Still it's pretty easy to see almost all the 1940s and beyond not on R1 DVD mizoguchi films, the same can't be said of ozu, as films like brothers and sisters of the toda family, flavor of green tea over rice, munekata sisters etc are just not available. at the moment, the only ozu film on vhs not on r1 dvd is record of a tenement gentleman, and there've been far more dvd releases of Ozu than there ever were of vhs releases, at least in terms of what I can find.

[kekid]

Any idea when we can expect the next batch of Ozu's?

[Stefan Andersson]

Will the BFI Ozu discs contain extant fragments of lost titles and/or the 2-hour docu (on Criterion´s TOKYO STORY disc 2)? One of the French boxsets had some fragment from an early 30s title.

I´ve discussed this before, but Michael, have you seen the Arte French DVDs of Ozu´s color films? I haven´t, but I´m guessing Agfacolor might translate totally different and/or better to PAL than to NTSC, also depending on source, grading and reference prints. Just interested, no big deal. I read somewhere the Arte discs have color schemes totally different from Criterion´s.

[Michael Kerpan]

By my count, there were 9 English-subbed videos of Ozu films. There were around a dozen English-subbed Mizoguchi videos. There were a couple of French-subbed Ozu videos of films not subbed in English (Tokyo Twilight and Munekata Sisters) -- and several extra Mizoguchi films available with French subs.

As to Naruse, there was a very early video (from Sony) of Mother. After this went out of print (so far as I can tell), World Artists released Woman Ascending the Stairs and Late Chrysanthemums. There were also some French-subbed Naruse films (Repast and Older Brother, Younger Sister and -- I believe -- Summer Clouds).

[MichaelB]

Thanks to the BBFC website, I can be reasonably sure that there were no Mizoguchi videos released in Britain prior to 1995, five released between then and 2003, and finally the MoC blowout in 2007-08.

With Ozu, there was just one prior to 2003 (the inevitable Tokyo Story), and then Tartan's survey.

But in the 1990s there were markedly more Ozu films available in theatrical distribution than ones by Mizoguchi - we'd certainly have played both regularly if we'd had the option.

Unsurprisingly, there's no record of any Naruse releases prior to MoC's box - I daresay one or two might have popped up in places like the National Film Theatre, but I'm pretty sure there weren't any commercial releases.

[Michael Kerpan]

I just watched BFI's Late Spring -- and then selected portions of the Shochiku DVD. While the BFI has more detail, the Shochiku looks a lot more pleasing -- when my plasma TV is set to its normal settings. Fortunately, when I cut the contrast by half (and set sharpness at 0), the BRD looks about as good as the Shochiku release in terms of contrast.

The overly contrasty nature of the BFI/Criterion transfer is quite apparent in the scene set at Ryōan-ji, where the patterns in the raked gravel of the garden bed are blown out in the BRD -- unless one slashes the contrast level. At least one can fix the problem by manual intervention.

[Finch]

Finished watching the Late Spring BD just now and have to agree with Michael about the blown-out whites (somewhat surprised that the BFI didn't seem to have attempted to adjust this; I hope for the same reason that Criterion redo their HD master of High & Low when they revisit that film for the Blu). Because of that and the inherent print damage (especially noticeable in the second half), it's "merely" good to very good for a high definition release. But it's hard to see how Criterion could further improve on their own master for their BD, and the image on this BFI disc is almost certainly as good as it's going to look on this format. Needless to say that it's head and shoulders above the DVDs and that, similar to CC's Blu of Red Shoes, it's deepened my appreciation of Late Spring even if I still think that it's only a great film by half.

[ellipsis7]

I'm reminded by Elisabeth Kobler Ross' 5 stages of grief, everytime a BFI, MoC, or CC release appears, first anticipation, excitement, acclaim, then gradually...

...denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance...

...The truth is somewhere in between... ...The idealised image we hold in our mind is never fully realised...

[Michael Kerpan]

Unless one is allergic to adjusting the contrast on one's equipment, all (or almost all) of the contrat problem with BFI's release can be ameliorated.

[accatone]

...The idealised image we hold in our mind is never fully realised...

“The image will come in the time of the Resurrection”

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

...The idealised image we hold in our mind is never fully realised...

“The image will come in the time of the Resurrection”

I'm quite happy treading water in Rapture at present.

[Michael Kerpan]

The test scene is the rock garden scene towards the end of the Kyoto interlude, if your projector shows you the fine raked lines in the gravel at the beginning of this scene, then perhaps you have no trouble in your viewing situation. If you cannot see them, then you are not seeing the film as it was shot and intended to be seen. (Ozu would never have shot in this location in a way that obliterated a distinctive feature).

All I can say is that on my plasma, the contrast setting that works for 99 percent of DVDs and BRDs do NOT work for this one. While cutting contrast (to 50 percent or so) restores details that are supposed to be seen (and takes away the often harsh look of the BRD).

[ellipsis7]

Can clearly see the fine raked lines of gravel at the beginning of this rock garden scene on my HD projector at normal contrast level, Blu Ray player video setting @ optimal 'Theatre room'...

[Michael Kerpan]

elipsis -- interesting. Perhaps Late Spring (and Tokyo Story?) were optimized for projector viewing -- while Early Summer was not? All I can say is that the contrast setting that provided mind-bogglingly wonderful results for Profound Desire of the Gods yielded disapppointing ones for Late Spring. But I am a firm believer in play-it-by-ear contrast recalibration (whenever I feel it helps), so as long as I can do this with satisfactory results, I don't really worry too much.

[Peacock]

Michael, perhaps you have your contrast settings too high? I was always under the impression that contrast should stay below 50?

[Michael Kerpan]

Michael, perhaps you have your contrast settings too high? I was always under the impression that contrast should stay below 50?

That doesn't match any of the (seemingly) expert recommendations I have found for my particular TV.

[MichaelB]

The Digital Fix on Late Spring.

[Tommaso]

I received my set recently and only had a very brief look at "Late Spring". While I can also clearly the see the raked lines of gravel in the scene described above, this assessment from The Digital Fix probably confirms some contrast fiddling by the BFI:

"Most prominent is the difference in contrast, with the BFI opting for a bolder image that shows both brighter whites and deeper blacks. Detail is understandably improved on the 1080p offering. Grain too is prevalent and increased to a pleasing extent. Overwhelmingly, the BFI has made Late Spring look more natural and filmlike than the Criterion DVD."

I haven't seen the Crit, but as usually all their Japanese b&w films seem to be contrast-boosted I'm a bit surprised to hear that the BFI even increased the contrast, especially after the Naruse set, which doesn't seem to have undergone any such treatment. True, the disc of "Late Chrysanthemums" in that set could have used some more contrast (it was far too dark), but in general I much prefer the more 'greyish' look that Japanese films of that era seem to have, as former discussions here and releases like the MoC Mizoguchis and Naruses seem to clearly indicate. So I'm a bit disappointed that the BFI seems to have chosen the Criterion path with the Ozus. All with the caveat that I haven't watched the entire disc yet.

[MichaelB]

OK, just to clear a few things up before speculation goes into overdrive, I checked with the technical supervisor of the Ozu releases, and he confirms that no "contrast fiddling" or any other digital manipulation was done to the Criterion masters of Late Spring, Early Summer and Tokyo Story.

Given the issues with the original materials, it was decided that any digital interference would almost certainly make matters worse - so the BFI went for the Vampyr/City Girl approach and left well alone.

The only exception to that rule is The Only Son, which had a small amount of additional video and audio clean-up over and above what was on the Criterion master.

[Michael Kerpan]

MichaelB -- what, if anything, could Criterion have done in making its masters that vastly increased the contrast levels compared to the Shochiku sources (as reflected by Shochiku's own DVD releases)?

[MichaelB]

You'll have to ask them, I'm afraid.