Werner Herzog Collection

[sir_luke]

My lands, that looks gorgeous. I adore the film, but the old Anchor Bay DVD was painful. So excited to see this as it was meant to be seen.

[David M.]

FYI, for Aguirre, the German and English versions aren't sitting on the disc twice, that would have hurt the quality. It seamlessly branches after the opening credits.

So the DVD Beaver observation is completely correct, they look the same because after the first 8 minutes, they are the same.

[Altair]

Jeffrey Wells, of all people, claims that Aguirre, Wrath of God was shot for widescreen projection:

Herzog’s dp Thomas Mauch obviously framed each shot to allow for 1.66 or 1.85 cleavering,

(http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2014 ... 5-fascism/)

A quick check on IMDb confirms the 1.33:1 framing (not infallible, but merely confirms the BFI's correct choice). Is there any grain in truth of the film being widescreen, at all?

[EddieLarkin]

He's just trying to make another completely nonsense argument to discredit any flat film being shown in widescreen. You only have to look at the other Beaver caps to see he's talking crap. I imagine the shooting conditions and relative inexperience of the crew (it looks like the DP worked mainly in shorts and TV movies before starting his career with Herzog) led to this film being shot 1.33:1.

Herzog's follow up was widescreen, yet Wells would no doubt chastise him for releasing it that way using the same logic he praises him for having Aguirre at 1.33:1. He is an idiot.

[Zot!]

You only have to look at the other Beaver caps to see he's talking crap.

yeah, the famous still of him holding his daughter on the raft would look awful in widescreen.

[EddieLarkin]

I posted these caps from my DVD for him:

[David M.]

I remember that same site using Arrow's THE KILLERS (which has two aspect ratios, for a good reason) as click-bait also.

[zedz]

I just saw the Aguirre restoration on the big screen, and practically every single scene screams Academy. One of the reasons that those opening scenes evoke such awe is because you can see the line of people snaking down the mountainside from the very top of the screen to the bottom foreground. Plus, it was shot for German TV, and was broadcast before it appeared at Cannes.

[FrauBlucher]

Wow. Beaver says the Shout Nosferatu over digitized

My goodness - the Shout! Factory image is terribly over-digitized! (it seems more notable in the English version but is present on both.

I'm glad I ordered the BFI!

[Drucker]

Who was chastising us for assuming that the BFI release would be superior? Own up!

[domino harvey]

You've seen a grand total of one shared film compared so far, don't jump up on the furniture yet

[tenia]

You've seen a grand total of one shared film compared so far, don't jump up on the furniture yet

Absolutely. On the other end, with the reputation of Nosferatu, I'm afraid it might be enough for pre-orders to be hampered, and people to wait more before assuming that the sets will be technically equivalent.

Overall, the differences between the 2 discs are very surprising. It's the Shout ! release which is Director-approved, but this is where one of the biggest selling title gets the worst treatment ? And the sources of BFI and Shout ! might not be identical ?

Without wanting to jump to conclusions, it raises questions that weren't thought about before.

[EddieLarkin]

Maybe a new master was done for the Gothic Season that the BFI has ported over for the BD, whilst Shout used an older master direct from Herzog's company. If so, the rest of the shared titles may be more similar.

[MichaelB]

I'd be very surprised if there were multiple HD masters of most of the titles in the box, so it's probably safe to predict that in most cases the differences will be down to the encode.

[criterion10]

Wow. Beaver says the Shout Nosferatu over digitized

If the rest of the Shout! transfers follow suit, I'll probably end up going with the BFI. This is a bit of a pain for me, since I valued the Shout! exclusives more than the BFI exclusives, but if the picture quality on the Shout! releases isn't going to be up to snuff, I see no reason to indulge.

At least the BFI releases look marvelous so far.

[FrauBlucher]

You've seen a grand total of one shared film compared so far, don't jump up on the furniture yet

Dr Svet will most likely review the BFI blu, but not the Shout version. Too bad.

This is from Ian Jane of DVDTalk on the Shout version.

Video:
Shout! Factory presents both versions of Nosferatu on a 50GB disc in AVC encoded 1080p high definition framed at 1.85.1 widescreen (the packaging states 1.78.1 but the black bars on the top and bottom of the frame say otherwise). The older DVD from Anchor Bay had a bit of a blueish tint to it sometimes and that's pretty much gone on this Blu-ray, which is a good thing. Contrast is pretty much dead on and color reproduction looks quite good. There isn't a whole lot of print damage at all, just a few specks here and there. Unfortunately, there's also some obvious noise reduction evident on both transfers that can occasionally mar fine detail. This doesn't affect the entire duration of the movie and sometimes when the movie is in motion you might not even realize it, but there are certainly spots where it stands out. Faces and skin look a bit waxy and are too smooth and there are spots where even buildings and trees lose the texture they might have otherwise shown had less noise reduction been employed here. Compression artifacts aren't really a big problem here, you might spot some in a few of the darker scenes but they're not particularly distracting but this transfer doesn't ever really get as detailed or film-like as most are probably going to have hoped for.

[MichaelB]

Here's an exclusive (for the moment) sneak preview of the two Herzog steelbooks - the BFI was so proud of them that they asked a professional photographer to shoot them in various alluring poses.

[FrauBlucher]

Oh so lovely. Kudos to BFI. Packaging, PQ and Sound quality makes these a must have. Bodes well for the box.

[MichaelB]

Mondo Digital on Nosferatu:

The boost in detail is immediately appreciable, and it looks much closer to a finely textured 35mm presentation than the other discs. [...] It's pretty much all the reason any film fan without a Region B player would need to spring for one.

[McCrutchy]

Based on the strength of the Aguirre and Nosferatu discs, I have gone ahead and ordered the box set, hoping Amazon drops it a bit again between now and release (it was £46.11, now it is £53.54).

I hope this is not a case where those discs are being released separately because they are far superior technically to the other discs in the set...can someone soothe my nerves? I know it is doubtful that more than one HD master exists for most of these films, but it is likely that any are new or being utilized for the first time in this BFI set?

[MichaelB]

I would be absolutely amazed if there was more than one HD master of the vast majority of these films. But the BFI encoding should be superior based on current form.

[Koukol]

I hate to say this but on some of the pics the skin-tones on the BFI look a little too reddish when compared to the SHOUT!

[Zot!]

I hate to say this but on some of the pics the skin-tones on the BFI look a little too reddish when compared to the SHOUT!

I've heard it mentioned that some question the blue pall being gone...then they quickly forget after seeing the abominable DNR on the Shout.

[David M.]

Both grades were approved by Herzog, in any case.

[FrauBlucher]

So, Herzog approved two versions of Nosferatu that don't look identical. Interesting.