443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de...

[krnash]

I'm even more surprised that this is the second time it's happened. I guess Children of Paradise sold well enough for them not to have second thoughts about releasing another sub-par transfer.

This is what's most disappointing to me. There was (and still is) a pretty large public backlash in regards to Children of Paradise. Criterion isn't stupid, nor are they deaf. They've proven they have an ear to the pavement in regards to their fans and critics before, so the fact that they'd go right back to the same source and produce another such disaster is distressing. As you say, this must be a scenario of "we sold enough copies that we don't need to try harder".

[tenia]

I am also going to hazard a guess the problems are coming from Éclair. There's a commonality between this, the disastrous Carne Les Enfants, and Éclair also had a hand (with Ritrovate Bologna) in the appalling fuckup with the 4k Canal BD of Plein Soleil.

I'd be curious to know this, because I understood Criterion did not use the new Gaumont commissionned restoration.

I also understood that the Plein Soleil new theaters prints are far from the BD look. Can nothing happen between what the lab has restored and what is encoded on the BD ?

Eclair is not working with Gaumont only when they screw up, they only worked with them on the splendid French Cancan, Il generale Della Rovere, Les maudits, La traversée de Paris, Les yeux sans visage, etc etc.
And I'm quite sure they worked on the latest titles which are beautiful : all the Pialat, Alexandre le bienheureux, Conversation Piece, Identification of a Woman (which blu-ray.com said to be superior PQ-wise to the Criterion).

I would have problem backing up that Eclair can't do anything wrong and that they are solely to blame for the issues of these releases.

[rrenault]

There has to be more than one single reason the last 2 years has seen so many really atrocious quality Blu Ray encodes coming out of France. It's not ONLY Gaumont's older 2k scanning machine and the techs running it with the over use of DVNR and filtering, nor the Éclair subcontracting of work like the Carne "Grading" to that fucking American outfit, or Mathieu Demy's hookup with yet another Los Angeles software house which produced the completely unwatchable restoration BD of Lola. And of course virtually ever BluRay encode produced by Pathe since Samourai. I just wish this would all stop and someone would sort it out, but the Gallic Ego problem appears insurmountable.

The Pathe transfer of The Leopard is beautiful.

[andyli]

The Pathe transfer of The Leopard is beautiful.

Then again The Leopard is done by The Film Foundation with Sony's Colorworks. Pathe is merely the distributor. A lot of times it really comes down to the lab that handles the restoration, instead of the company that publishes the disc.

[rrenault]

I was feeling gypped the other day when I noticed this wasn't available to stream in HD on Hulu, but with this news I guess it doesn't really matter. With that said, why are there some films Criterion has released on blu-ray that aren't available to stream in HD on Hulu? Is it a licensing issue? Do they need to separately purchase HD streaming rights rights for each film individually?

[Finch]

Unfortunately I already sold the DVD in anticipating of the Blu-Ray; at least I'll know to wait for reviews for the remaining Ophuels. Couldn't Criterion have done their own resto on Madame de?

[Calvin]

Is the Criterion definitely derived from Gaumont's recent 2K restoration?

[swo17]

With CoP, there was a new restoration that toured and new special features were available. The Criterion release was a foregone conclusion, and it was unfortunately compromised. But here I don't even see the point--no one was anticipating a Blu-ray upgrade, and the only reason for doing it would be to improve the picture quality. If Criterion was presented with a lackluster transfer, why not reject it until something worthwhile comes along?

[cdnchris]

Is the Criterion definitely derived from Gaumont's recent 2K restoration?

yes, according to the notes it is from that restoration.

[cdnchris]

Reminds me of the Mosaic filter in Photoshop

[stagefright50]

Couldn't Criterion have used the older HD master they used for the DVD? We've gotten upgrades from older HD masters before. As Chris says in his review, there's more inherent detail there and that's just judging from a DVD. Does Criterion have some sort of existing agreement with these masters, sight unseen? I'm not buying this, and I don't see how they could expect us to when we know there's better materials available.

[cdnchris]

When I went through taking screen grabs I really tried to get the static shots. As you mention with Ophuls it is hard. But on screen, in motion, I found it a mess. The background and the tree in the foreground in the image I link above is FUBAR and then these scenes just look bizarre, almost photo shopped, in the grabs and in motion on the TV:

Grab 1
Grab 2

[vsski]

Yikes, I was hoping all of this discussion would amount to a strom in water glass when seeing the movie in motion, but looking at these screen grabs from Chris, especially the second one, I almost get sick.
This may well be the first Criterion I will not upgrade to BD - as much as I love collecting them and having a complete set, this simply is not acceptable and I honestly don't understand why Criterion chose to do this, unless it was a contractual obligation.
This may be more disappointing than CoP - utterly unnecessary .

[isakborg]

Indeed it is. I suspect I know the answer already but will ask the question anyway. Is there any chance of a UK (or any source that will include English subtitles) Blu-ray issuance of Madame De that might do it justice? Or is any issuance dependent upon a source that has gone through the Gaumont scrubber?

[rrenault]

Well Criterion's transfer of Le Cercle Rouge certainly left something to be desired, so it's hardly the first time. Likewise Criterion's transfer of The Leopard.

[Calvin]

Gaumont's Jerome Soulet had this to say on the restoration last year

Voici mon point suite au visionnage du master de MADAME DE :

Film de 1953 - Plan II
Restauration 2012 2K d'après négatif nitrate et marron safety.
Fonds neutres en fin de master - Pas de FA.
A noter :
- mauvaise post-synchro sur une séquence à 10 : 35 : 08
- modulation de voix étrange à 10 : 43 : 36 : 14 mais inhérente au matériel d'origine (c'était d'ailleurs également sur la version DVD).
- à 10 : 33 : 07 : passage en langue étrangère mais qui ne nécessite pas de sous-titrage (non sous-titré pour la sortie DVD).
Quelques défauts films résiduels sont à corriger avec un complément de palette mais c'est dans l'ensemble une très belle restauration. Il y a très peu de grain, nous ne ferons donc pas de dégrainage pour ce titre.

The last sentence is of particular interest, "there is very little grain so we will not degrain this title"

[tenia]

The last sentence is of particular interest, "there is very little grain so we will not degrain this title"

So, it would mean that the overall grainy look of the BD means fake grain added afterwards ?

[jsteffe]

So, it would mean that the overall grainy look of the BD means fake grain added afterwards ?

I don't think there's very much that we can deduce concretely from it, except that grain removal is probably part of their regular workflow and that he tends to favor less grain. (Big surprise.) That still leaves open the question of what the actual 2k restoration of MADAME DE... looked like before it wound up on the Blu-ray. Somewhere along the way, someone obviously went overboard with the digital filters. Some of the shots look more like a paint-by-numbers kit than a film.

I'm afraid that I have to pass on this one too! Bitterly disappointing.

[jsteffe]

Well Criterion's transfer of Le Cercle Rouge certainly left something to be desired, so it's hardly the first time. Likewise Criterion's transfer of The Leopard.

Rotunno supervised the transfer of THE LEOPARD, and it looked fine until it was superseded by the new restoration. I think the only problem may have been that they were working from a faded negative, and there were limits to what they could do with the resources at their disposal at that point in time. The kind of full-scale restoration that the Film Foundation conducted is extraordinarily expensive, no doubt well beyond the resources of Criterion. With LE CERCLE ROUGE, the cinematographer Decaë passed away in 1987 and Melville himself passed away in 1973, so pinning down the preferred look of the film could be trickier.

It's true that Criterion has issued some less-than-perfect titles, but that is bound to happen sometimes with the number of titles they put out and the fact they are licensing films and are thus dependent on what they can access for a given title. In contrast, a studio like Warner owns not just the rights but the film elements, so they can control what happens every step of the way. Criterion has to work with companies like Gaumont, who may have their own contractual stipulations.

[Matt]

I thought Criterion's Blu-ray of Le Cercle Rouge was where they finally got it "right." In the thread for that release, I only see a couple of mild complaints about the Blu-ray, people who prefer the color balance of the Studio Canal release. Those people apparently don't seem to mind the very weird and heavily "managed" grain of the Studio Canal release.

[jsteffe]

Honestly, I'm happy with Criterion's LE CERCLE ROUGE too.

I understand the point about the "steely blue" color schemes of Melville's color films, but I still think you have to look at each film on a case-by-case basis and make color timing decisions based on archival print elements and consulting with creative personnel if they are still alive, rather than relying on a generalized notion of what a director's work "should" look like, even if that notion may be generally valid. We know, for instance that both the BFI and Criterion consulted archival prints for their respective Blu-rays of THE RED DESERT, but the transfers have a different look. To me, at least, the differences in color timing between the Criterion and the Studio Canal versions of LE CERCLE ROUGE fall within that spectrum, so I'm not going to worry about it either way.

I think it's a different question from MADAME DE..., where apparently the image on the Blu-ray no longer even looks like film in places. That means some vital visual information has been lost along the way.

[Matt]

I agree. Differences in color balance and contrast are typically similar to the variances in 35mm prints, and I usually don't fuss too much about them (unless something looks terribly wrong, as appears to be the case with Criterion's DVD of L'enfance nue.) Here we have a case of someone taking something essentially film-like and making a digital travesty of it. It's totally unnecessary and unacceptable.

[Finch]

Seeing Chris' caps, I've changed my mind and will sell the BD as soon as my copy arrives, and put in a new order for the DVD. Shame.

[shaky]

Oh, what a goddamn disaster. And what's worse is that we all know this won't be corrected any time soon, if ever, nor will Éclair, Criterion, Gaumont, or any other party involved reply fully to complaints or make it easy to open up any kind of real public discussion with them about it. One of the greatest films of all time butchered to hell. As a cinephile I feel quite powerless here, though I still refuse to give up hope (I've already sent extensive emails to Criterion and Gaumont relating this fiasco to the CHILDREN OF PARADISE mess. I don't fully blame either company, but I do want them both to know how I fee about this). But other than not buying it, what else can one in my position do, you know?

[swo17]

Seeing Chris' caps, I've changed my mind and will sell the BD as soon as my copy arrives

Good luck finding someone to buy it!

I'm torn actually, because I'd rather vote with my wallet against this kind of work, but I'd also kind of like to see it in motion for myself, and as no rental service is carrying it, a purchase is my only option.

Also, the CoP transfer is an abomination, but about half of it actually looks excellent, and on the whole I prefer it to the DVD. Is there anything positive like that to be said in this case, Chris?