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The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum



When a young woman spends the night with an alleged terrorist, her quiet, ordered life falls into ruins. The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum portrays an anxious era in West Germany amid a crumbling postwar political consensus. Katharina, though apparently innocent, suddenly becomes a suspect, falling prey to a vicious smear campaign by the police and a ruthless tabloid journalist that tests the limits of her dignity and her sanity. Crafting one of the most accessible and direct works of 1970s political filmmaking, Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta deliver a powerful adaptation of Heinrich Böll's novel, a stinging commentary on state power, individual freedom, and media manipulation that is as relevant today as when it was released.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Blu-ray: New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Volker Schlöndorff and producer Eberhard Junkersdorf, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• DVD: Digital transfer, enhanced for 16x9 televisions
• Interview from 2002 with directors Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta
• Interview from 2002 with director of photography Jost Vacano
• Excerpts from a 1977 documentary on author Heinrich Böll
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Amy Taubin (Blu-ray only)

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Did anyone else who saw this lose some empathy for Katahrina when it was revealed that she witheld information? I don't want to give it away so it's hard for me to describe, but we find out about it at her Aunt's house.

Maybe a bit ridiculous to reply to a decade-old post, but why not-

oldsheperd wrote:Did anyone else who saw this lose some empathy for Katahrina when it was revealed that she witheld information? I don't want to give it away so it's hard for me to describe, but we find out about it at her Aunt's house.

I could see how some might feel that way at first but not by the time the movie finishes. It might take repeat viewings to catch it- late in the movie one of the supporting characters reveals in a brief aside that Jürgen Prochnow's character (Ludwig Götter)

Spoiler

isn't even a terrorist or bank robber. Merely a deserter who stole money from his military unit.

Maybe it was wrong for Katherina to withhold information. But as a lonely innocent housemaid, oblivious to politics but not saintly, her loyalties lie with one of the few men to have treated her decently in the recent past- the accused terrorist. The state, the media and the segment of the general public influenced by that media rob her dignity. The only ones acting monstrously are the ones doing the accusing.

Was struck by a brief passage in the Heinrich Böll documentary where he states how paralyzed he felt from writing as the German government was cracking down on civil liberties during that time period. Once again one can find strong echoes to the current situation with our writers in this side of the pond.

Not to say that early seventies West Germany exactly matches up with over here today. We may not have Bild-Zeitung, but we do have a nationalist propaganda TV channel and we have an all-right wing secret court. Considering Guantanamo and other situations, it shouldn't be a stretch to say that there've been various Katharina Blums over the last decade in this country.

That new cover...yeesh.

The cover looks like a seventh-grader was hired for it. I mean, I get what they were going for, but it just looks so cheap.

The film always left me cold despite the great novel it's based on.

The sell sheets indicate this was licensed from Studio Canal, though I don't believe that was the case with the DVD.

I wonder if this was put to the front of the queue of upgrades due to the recent passing of Dieter Laser?

I imagine it was pushed up because it required no on-disc work for extras (like some of their other Blu-ray non-reissue upgrades, the only thing new here is an essay for the leaflet despite the new cover). This has been out from SC on Blu-ray for what feels like forever, so I'm not sure who was waiting for Criterion to upgrade anyways...

domino harvey wrote: Fri May 15, 2020 9:58 pm I imagine it was pushed up because it required no on-disc work for extras (like some of their other Blu-ray non-reissue upgrades, the only thing new here is an essay for the leaflet despite the new cover). This has been out from SC on Blu-ray for what feels like forever, so I'm not sure who was waiting for Criterion to upgrade anyways...

Only the german SC release from May 2019 has the 4k restoration.

nitin wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 9:39 am

domino harvey wrote: Fri May 15, 2020 9:58 pm I imagine it was pushed up because it required no on-disc work for extras (like some of their other Blu-ray non-reissue upgrades, the only thing new here is an essay for the leaflet despite the new cover). This has been out from SC on Blu-ray for what feels like forever, so I'm not sure who was waiting for Criterion to upgrade anyways...

Only the german SC release from May 2019 has the 4k restoration.

Thanks. I'll probably get the German release. It has English subtitles too.

Turns out it's not from "new 4K digital restoration", but rather the old master with some different color grading. https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=14526 ... 1&go=0&l=1

I wonder what's going on here because this seems to be a problem across labels with misinformation regarding restored transfers lately. Well, the only other one I can think of is MoC's 5 graves to Cairo thread on here where it turns out they were told and double checked it was a 4k restoration. I hear also the the Pierrot le fou re-release is apparently not a new transfer as has been stated but much like the case here: old master with different color grading.

Pierrot is from SC's previous restoration which I do believe was 2k, the "new" however is slightly misleading.

The issue here is that Criterion specs claim a brand new 4k digital restoration, which I highly doubt the older SC disc was sourced from. So it's not a "new" as in "new for the US" like Pierrot le fou, but more likely a material mistake like Sony and Indicator for Sinbad.
Either this or Criterion is flat out lying like Shout and Kino on some releases about what they're using.
Or caps-a-holic is wrong ? That'd be exceptionnal.

But if the caps are right, then I guess Svet's caps should show it too and it then makes me wonder what he thinks he saw (especially since he reviewed the older SC disc).

Svet also rated SC's Pierrot disc a 4 and the new Criterion a 4.5 ,despite being virtually identical. He only compares the new Criterion with the old Criterion despite reviewing all 3.

It makes more sense to me to compare it with a former US release since blu-ray.com remains US-centric than when he compared Fire Walk With Me with the Region B locked with forced French subs MK2 version rather than to the CBS boxset disc.

Yes but he did also review the UK disc and still score it lower!

Yes, in this regard, it's still good ol' Svet and his bias for Criterion, but as far as a worthy comparison goes for US consumers, I can understand focusing on US past releases than on international ones.

In any case, I'm still puzzled by what happened there, because the technical details state it's "from a 4K resolution wet-gate scan made on an ARRISCAN film scanner from the 35mm original camera negative", but I don't think this was the usual workflow (and scanner) in use in 2009 (or before) when the former SC disc was released, and this is also a workflow much more in line with the visuals of the new 4K restoration than of the older disc (which, if done in 4K, would probably have been done on a Spirit DataCine instead at the time, like Paris Texas, a workflow which would be in line with the thicker grain pattern of the older disc).

I still think this was supposed to be based on the newer SC 4K restoration, and that these details actually relate to that, but that for whatever reason they got the older master instead.

Ah! This makes so much sense. I just got through the disc and I really didn't know what to make of the picture. It looks OK (not great) in the end but it threw me off because it didn't look like a typical, new 4K restoration because 1.) the colours looked more normal (though this was by StudioCanal so I probably shouldn't have been expecting a yellow tint) and 2.) the grain looked "chunky" as hell and blocky. I was trying to figure if it was just a source thing or what but if it's an older master that would make more sense.

If you compare it to the SC new 4k-sourced BD (for instance through caps-a-holic), you can see how this newer German disc looks so much more typical of a 4k / OCN / Arriscan restoration.

Yeah this is clearly a stuff up and right now they are not selling what is advertised.

Yep, I have both discs here and just compared the transfers... the German one is clearly from the advertised new 4K restoration and the Criterion disc isn't (it may be another 4K master, but it is clearly older). The differences are significant, especially in motion but also on stills.
I wonder if anyone has told Criterion and what they'd do... would admit to the screw-up (and start an exchange program) or not?

So new SC > older SC = Criterion?

Exactly.