1261 The Wind Will Carry Us

[denti alligator]

Why no 4K?! (such a missed opportunity)

[What A Disgrace]

I'll stick with the Cohen for the extras.

[Red Screamer]

The documentary here looks substantial, but, yeah, the Cohen has a Rosenbaum/Saeed-Vafa commentary and a long Kiarostami/Richard Peña interview. The poetry feature sounds fun, though!

[nicolas]

Why no 4K?! (such a missed opportunity)

I agree. It’s a ravishing-looking film, and the 4K restoration looks spectacular with lots of detail that’d come through beautifully in 4K as the film has very fine grain due to all the exteriors. I really love where Criterion’s pushing the format with titles like Jo Jo Dancer, Crossing Delancey & Killer of Sheep and this is why I even dare to feel slightly disappointed if another title that’d fall into a similar “niche” remains BD-only but particularly so if the film we’re talking about has more immediate visual appeal that’d make a 4K welcome compared to some of the above titles.

[brundlefly]

A Week with Kiarostami was also in Artificial Eye's DVD release.

[Oedipax]

Very disappointing, and in light of some of the titles that have received 4K releases, kind of insulting. My only hope is there's some future 4K Kiarostami set being worked on and they're saving it for that. Otherwise I really don't get it. I'll be keeping the Cohen release.

[ryannichols7]

this is the most frustrating announcement in some time. I just showed Close-Up (my favorite film of the 1990s) to someone for the first time this week and guessed this film in the guessing thread, and thrillingly we actually got it! but how on earth is it not going to be on 4K? how are they not going to port the Cohen extras? and yet, the edition is indispensable because the Cohen's transfer isn't very good if I remember right, that's a disc I actually sold off when I heard Criterion had the rights, and I usually never do that. now I gotta track one down, but I also have to get Criterion's disappointing edition

I know it'll do nothing but I'm emailing them...

[denti alligator]

I’ve already emailed them. Yes, it is insulting. They should hear from us. Maybe it’s not too late.

[nicolas]

I’ll also email. Doesn’t hurt showing our interest even when chances are slim. Still, they surprised us with a 4K for Uncut Gems shortly after their initial BD-only announcement.

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah but that was because they decided to go into 4K distribution as a company during the window between its announcement and distribution, and was a no-brainer 4K. I'm sure they put thought into this one from a financial standpoint, since they release just about everything 4K these days

[ryannichols7]

given that Close-Up got the bump to Bluray after being initially announced as DVD only, never say never! maybe we can change fortune here too

I'd like to think Kiarostami's films sell. as many of them as they've released, I'm sure they have to be decent. not to mention he's as popular a director as ever, even after his passing - I feel like new audiences are introduced to his films constantly, and have been glad to see Where is the Friend's House? be more in the canon now that Criterion out our their lovely disc of it

[DeprongMori]

FWIW, I wrote in as well. At this point, if something has been remastered in 4K but only being released in Blu-ray, I’m holding off indefinitely to wait for a UHD release. I don’t want to have to re-buy it later. I have enough other titles I need to pick up before picking up something that may soon get a better release from another label.

If nothing else, I hope they at least make it available on UHD as a streaming purchase. Less than ideal but better than the status quo.

[andyli]

Perhaps Becker (does he still own the company?) thinks it’s such a minor Kiarostami that it only deserves a minor format.

[ryannichols7]

Perhaps Becker (does he still own the company?) thinks it’s such a minor Kiarostami that it only deserves a minor format.

actually that's right. Kiarostami has had multiple Criterion release issues! Becker calling Certified Copy a minor Kiarostami and then Criterion's social media team made sure to call it a major Kiarostami when it was announced. wacky!

[black&huge]

Just wanted to say I sent an email inquiring about why no 4k release.

[Matt]

My guess is that this is one of those cases where they decided there would be minimal difference between a well-encoded Blu-ray and a 4K UHD. That is sometimes true, but "a well-encoded Blu-ray" is not always a given with this company.

Years ago, when they had just gotten into the Blu-ray business, they announced A Christmas Tale as DVD-only. I think a bunch of us emailed them saying we would buy a Blu-ray if they released one, then they did. And to punish us, they changed the cover from some perfectly respectable soft-focus Christmas lights to that... cigarette Christmas tree thing.

[dwk]

They've released enough Kiarostami that they probably know what kind of numbers this will do and have concluded that it won't sell enough to justify the added expense of doing a UHD.

[rrenault]

Also, releasing relatively niche foreign films on UHD will always be a high risk proposition, especially when they’ve been readily available on Blu-ray for years. Granted, this is just a rerelease on the same format with a new transfer, but I think the same point applies.

I’m sure Criterion factors in the extent to which upgrade fatigue could impact the sales of a particular title on UHD. This probably explains why a UHD of La Dolce Vita(and that’s obviously a relatively popular film) hasn’t happened yet but why we got UHD releases of Killer of Sheep and Mother and the Whore. I’m sure had M+W been readily available on Blu-ray since the early 2010s we wouldn’t have a 4K of it.

BFI and Criterion are trotting out the UHDs of Kurosawa’s output, but they’re all from much newer masters than the circa 2010 blurays. If I’m being honest, I can’t see a UHD of La Dolce Vita sourced from the same master as the current Blu-rays being a massive upgrade.

Anglo-American canonical classics like The Godfather, Lawrence of Arabia, Taxi Driver, etc will sell no matter how many times they’re reissued.

[ellipsis7]

This basically appears to be the then new 4K restoration released by MK2 on Blu Ray in France in 2020...

[nicolas]

My guess is that this is one of those cases where they decided there would be minimal difference between a well-encoded Blu-ray and a 4K UHD. That is sometimes true, but "a well-encoded Blu-ray" is not always a given with this company.

That’s it. For a Criterion encode to turn out relatively successful a film’s visual characteristics are as important as the amount of extras they cram on their discs. Based on past experiences, films with plenty of exteriors, fine grain and a color grade like The Wind Will Carry Us’ restoration, I’m not too optimistic that it’ll be as successful as a really great one like Nothing But a Man. I already have the Potemkine BD and they also struggled but their encoding parameters are different from what Criterion/ NexSpec use, so it can’t really be compared.

A simple BD-66 4K encode would’ve been perfect for everyone as the master is most likely SDR.

[nicolas]

Also, releasing relatively niche foreign films on UHD will always be a high risk proposition, especially when they’ve been readily available on Blu-ray for years. Granted, this is just a rerelease on the same format with a new transfer, but I think the same point applies.

I’m sure Criterion factors in the extent to which upgrade fatigue could impact the sales of a particular title on UHD. This probably explains why a UHD of La Dolce Vita(and that’s obviously a relatively popular film) hasn’t happened yet but why we got UHD releases of Killer of Sheep and Mother and the Whore. I’m sure had M+W been readily available on Blu-ray since the early 2010s we wouldn’t have a 4K of it.

BFI and Criterion are trotting out the UHDs of Kurosawa’s output, but they’re all from much newer masters than the circa 2010 blurays. If I’m being honest, I can’t see a UHD of La Dolce Vita sourced from the same master as the current Blu-rays being a massive upgrade.

Anglo-American canonical classics like The Godfather, Lawrence of Arabia, Taxi Driver, etc will sell no matter how many times they’re reissued.

If upgrade fatigue were a point for Criterion, they wouldn’t have bothered a second with the MGM titles they got back from Kino and when taking into account how quickly they’re churning them out right now, they’re clearly intending to get these films back into the marketplace asap even if a large part of KL buyers wouldn’t get their reissues.

Their decision of releasing Wong Kar-wai’s films again in 4K even with questionable masters or stuff like The Shape of Water shows me that their philosophy and business decisions about the 4K format are different from other labels.

They wouldn’t even have to make concessions to videophiles when it comes to their encodes, improving their filtered audio mixes etc. but all in all, for them these are still relatively minor adjustments in the greater scheme of things and welcome towards not completely losing the buyers who care about such things most.

(La Dolce Vita will inevitably get an upgrade after they’ve got a Paramount deal again and while it’ll surely be the same SDR master PQ should greatly benefit, see The Mother and the Whore. From ~30 GB on the BD to 90+ in 4K is quite a jump.)

[rrenault]

True, but most of the MGM titles are still essentially "Hollywood films" with a sizable built-in audience that classic "foreign cinema" doesn't quite have. I'm sure eventual Criterion 4Ks of The Great Escape and 12 Angry Men will still move exponentially more units than Killer of Sheep (American film but still an 'arthouse auteur' work) and Mother and the Whore despite not being the premier UHD editions of those films.

And Shape of Water and WKW are still more 'bankable' than Jean Eustache, or Kiarostami for that matter. So I'm not sure it's a fair comparison. That's just me though.

That said, I'm wagering M+W's 4K is still not a massive jump over Carlotta's blu-ray, although I take everyone's word for it that Criterion's blu-ray is shoddily encoded.

All the same, I stand by my premise we wouldn't have gotten a UHD of the Eustache film had it already been readily available on blu-ray for the past decade.

P.S. I'm sure a UHD of La Dolce Vita will happen eventually presuming the physical media market doesn't suddenly dissipate.

I'm not anti-4K, as much as I may sometimes come off as being so. I just think we need to accept it's a niche within a niche within a niche that even many industry professionals aren't too fussed over. So you'll eventually run into a wall in terms of what's financially viable on the format (See CC going blu-ray only with The Wind Will Carry Us and BFI somewhat controversially deciding against releasing High and Low on 4K). But yes, I was admittedly surprised myself BFI didn't put High and Low on 4K.

[CSM126]

The Beaver Will Carry Us

[allyouzombies]

Gave this a watch last night. First of all, the new restoration is stunning. I was worried from some of the screencaps that it might appear too teal, but in motion, that's not the case at all. There's a beautiful late-afternoon golden hue over the whole film - the wheat fields in particular stand out.

Second, I noticed a weird little technical issue. At approx 32:03, when Behzad is talking on his cell phone in the cemetery, the audio briefly goes out of sync. You hear him speak, but his lips don't move until about a second later. The subtitle is "How is she? Better?" I checked the version that's on the Criterion Channel, and it's the same. I haven't had time to check my old Cohen blu to see if it's on that one as well, but I'm wondering if it's an error that's simply there on the original film? Kind of odd either way.