Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)

[FrauBlucher]

Simple but concise. That's pretty much why he tried to stop the erasing

[Monterey Jack]

Simple but concise. That's pretty much why he tried to stop the erasing

It's akin to the one good scene in Star Trek V, where Sybok offers to remove Bones' painful memories of his inability to save his ailing father, and Bones refuses, saying, "I need my pain!" Memories - good and bad - are what makes us what we are, and scrubbing painful memories from your mind will only lead you to repeat mistakes from the past, which is illustrated by Kirsten Dunst's character once again making a move on Tom WIlkinson.

[hearthesilence]

Belatedly saw a link that went to this quote by someone at Kino Lorber re: their current Blu-ray and UHD release - posting it just to preserve it here:

Ellen Kuras arranged a private screening at the Academy for us to screen her 35mm show print prior to grading Eternal Sunshine. It’s worth noting that the intended print format is Fuji Eterna-CP 3513 DI. Ellen specifically chose this print stock for its cooler characteristics compared to Kodak stock. Unfortunately Peter Jackson had Fuji change the chemistry of this stock for the Lord of the Rings films, so Ellen had E-Film set aside enough print stock to strike premiere prints on Fuji, while release prints for the general release were struck on Kodak. Viewing her show print was a revelation, with a distinct yellow highlights/cyan shadows color palette. Some of this cyan push is lost in the DVD and prior BluRay transfers but is more accurately emulated here. I encourage anyone in the Los Angeles area to keep an eye out for Academy screenings in the future, as the same print would be screened.

FotoKem transferred the 35mm DI negative in 16 bit 4K resolution on a DFT Scanity. It’s shocking that Focus Features never provided Universal with a copy of the 4K DI files, and only provided the 35mm DI negative as a primary archival source. Universal does have the original negative trims but they are spread out in multiple boxes and it would involve a huge undertaking to create an OCN rebuild for the ~1300 shots in the feature, many of which have visual effects and would need to be sourced from the DI negative. I figure someday Universal may go back and do an OCN rebuild but it won’t be anytime soon. It was certainly cost prohibitive for a boutique label to take on that kind of work.

[nicolas]

Universal did a new 4K restoration of the film in 2024 with supervision by Ellen Kuras. It’ll play at the Cinema Ritrovata festival soon. No info yet if this is a full rebuild from the original negative trims but it seems likely after they only scanned a filmout from the DI for Kino.

[andyli]

Yup noticed that too. Initially thought it was the resto offered to Kino but the year doesn't jibe. Who knows... maybe the filmmakers weren't that satisfied with the Kino presentation after all.

In addition to this and Close Encounters, Five Easy Pieces also received a new 4K restoration, despite having one on Criterion's BBS set years ago.

[hearthesilence]

Yup noticed that too. Initially thought it was the resto offered to Kino but the year doesn't jibe. Who knows... maybe the filmmakers weren't that satisfied with the Kino presentation after all.

In light of the quote I found upthread, it's possible the filmmakers were fine with the Kino disc but took the chance to rebuild the film in true 4K from the OCN when they were given the opportunity to do so. I doubt a cinematographer or even Gondry can get someone like Universal to pay for a costly rebuild as detailed by Kino with little difficulty, so it's very possible this was something Universal themselves decided to do.