962 Death in Venice

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Noodles1984
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Re: Forthcoming: Death in Venice (Visconti)

#26 Post by Noodles1984 » Thu Aug 30, 2018 2:56 pm

Toby Dammit wrote:
Thu Aug 30, 2018 12:43 pm
God! that's terrible
Yes, i don't know the original color palette but i don' like at all this yellowish-sepia coloration...
I will catch a screening of Death in Venice in Bologna on the first days of September... if these are the "official colors" i'm a bit less excited to be honest...but at least it's on the big screen...what do you think about that?
Would you miss a screening if you had the chance?
I hope CC will regrade it...I will also ask detailed info about the 2010 restoration of the Damned...i would like to know if it was a 4k scan

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Fred Holywell
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Re: Forthcoming: Death in Venice (Visconti)

#27 Post by Fred Holywell » Sun Sep 16, 2018 3:55 pm

Noodles1984 wrote:
Thu Aug 30, 2018 2:56 pm
I will catch a screening of Death in Venice in Bologna on the first days of September... if these are the "official colors" i'm a bit less excited to be honest...but at least it's on the big screen...what do you think about that?
Wondering if you got to the Bologna screening of "Death in Venice" and what you thought of it.

Noodles1984
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Re: Forthcoming: Death in Venice (Visconti)

#28 Post by Noodles1984 » Fri Sep 21, 2018 12:16 pm

Fred Holywell wrote:
Sun Sep 16, 2018 3:55 pm
Noodles1984 wrote:
Thu Aug 30, 2018 2:56 pm
I will catch a screening of Death in Venice in Bologna on the first days of September... if these are the "official colors" i'm a bit less excited to be honest...but at least it's on the big screen...what do you think about that?
Wondering if you got to the Bologna screening of "Death in Venice" and what you thought of it.
Please excuse me for the late reply...it was a stunning experience...the restoration was very good imo, the colors were vibrant and fantastic..i watched it two times,as a movie the first viewing let me a bit cold but only one day before it meant a lot more than the first viewing, i realized i was in front of a real masterpiece and a magnificent work of art(i hope that you understand my bad english expressions)
I asked a lot of people from the Cineteca any info on The Damned, finally the archive responsible said to me that the movie was restored in 2010 in a 2k resolution from the original negative and the english audio track.Color correction in collaboration of a collaborator of Dop De Santis
I hope that in 2019 it will be finally released for it's 50th birthday
Finally, i don't know why but the restoration i saw didn't have this horrible yellowish tint , the skin tones where similar to the warner dvd, the blues where a bit less saturated though.

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Fred Holywell
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Re: Forthcoming: Death in Venice (Visconti)

#29 Post by Fred Holywell » Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:54 pm

Noodles1984 wrote:
Fri Sep 21, 2018 12:16 pm
Finally, i don't know why but the restoration i saw didn't have this horrible yellowish tint , the skin tones where similar to the warner dvd, the blues where a bit less saturated though.
Thanks, Noodles, that's encouraging to know. Some hope that the Criterion release won't look anything like the "restoration" clip.

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jsteffe
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Re: Forthcoming: Death in Venice (Visconti)

#30 Post by jsteffe » Sat Sep 22, 2018 10:16 am

Noodles1984 wrote:
Fri Sep 21, 2018 12:16 pm
Please excuse me for the late reply...it was a stunning experience...the restoration was very good imo, the colors were vibrant and fantastic..i watched it two times,as a movie the first viewing let me a bit cold but only one day before it meant a lot more than the first viewing, i realized i was in front of a real masterpiece and a magnificent work of art(i hope that you understand my bad english expressions)
I asked a lot of people from the Cineteca any info on The Damned, finally the archive responsible said to me that the movie was restored in 2010 in a 2k resolution from the original negative and the english audio track.Color correction in collaboration of a collaborator of Dop De Santis
I hope that in 2019 it will be finally released for it's 50th birthday
Finally, i don't know why but the restoration i saw didn't have this horrible yellowish tint , the skin tones where similar to the warner dvd, the blues where a bit less saturated though.
Thanks, that is encouraging to hear!

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swo17
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Re: Forthcoming: Death in Venice (Visconti)

#31 Post by swo17 » Thu Nov 15, 2018 5:28 pm


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domino harvey
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#32 Post by domino harvey » Thu Nov 15, 2018 6:01 pm

Those clips at the bottom answer the color question

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Toby Dammit
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#33 Post by Toby Dammit » Fri Nov 16, 2018 11:45 am

My only critique: Some chapter of discussion addressed especially to the gay community is missing in the special features.
The film has been very relevant for several generations of homosexual men who have lived the experience of the closet. An experience that new generations mostly don't know. So, what relevance have a film about this matter at 2019?
At the same time, I think it is necessary to talk in depth about the thorniest topic of the film and the book: the love of a mature man for a minor. Some people can say the whole stuff is an apology to ephebophilia - what is not

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Big Ben
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#34 Post by Big Ben » Fri Nov 16, 2018 2:29 pm

It is to my understanding that the novel is less blunt about overt sexual attraction and is more metaphorical? This is very obviously a product of it's time as you most certainly couldn't make this film today.

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Big Ben
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#35 Post by Big Ben » Sat Nov 17, 2018 4:34 am

david hare wrote:
Sat Nov 17, 2018 3:38 am
Big Ben wrote:
Fri Nov 16, 2018 2:29 pm
It is to my understanding that the novel is less blunt about overt sexual attraction and is more metaphorical? This is very obviously a product of it's time as you most certainly couldn't make this film today.
Why on earth not?
Let me reiterate. You could make this film today but I don't think it would go over very well. The idea of a much older man leering at a teenaged boy with sexual undertones probably wouldn't instill many modern social media engaged audience with confidence. It's a product of it's time but you cannot look me straight in the face and say that it wouldn't cause a ruckus among the now very vocal, Trump enabled, homophobic Evangelical crowd who would no doubt take it as yet more "proof" that gay people were somehow diseased. I have quite a few gay friends and seeing them suffer openly under the Trump administration causes me a great deal of pain.

I don't have anything against the film but I can't imagine a great many openly malicious and vocal individuals who would attempt to look at this critically at any level. And I don't think that's a controversial statement to make. I'll remind everyone that this is a political reality right now.

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Big Ben
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#36 Post by Big Ben » Sat Nov 17, 2018 4:48 am

david hare wrote:
Sat Nov 17, 2018 4:43 am
i am speechless.
For what reason? I'm very confused at the moment but if I have offended you I apologize. Perhaps I'm not old enough to understand something? I feel I'm the one at fault here.

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colinr0380
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#37 Post by colinr0380 » Sat Nov 17, 2018 5:09 am

It is a very differently toned film without the homosexual dimension but I remember a while back having a real problem with Gregory's Two Girls, Bill Forsyth's follow up to his much acclaimed Gregory's Girl for slightly similar reasons, as it played upon a 'moral dilemma' (which should not really be a dilemma at all, but a breach of trust issue) of a teacher lusting after his teenage pupil and following her around. Not so much with the material itself but for the way that the material was handled for laughs and any worrying aspect rather dismissed for misunderstanding hijinks, and for the overriding idea that the very normal hero was in one of those 'exciting' situations where women in every part of his life are inexplicably coming on to him. It kind of ended up retroactively destroying any affection for Gregory's Girl for me, but it taught me an interesting lesson that while I do not think that any material should be off limits, it is the way that things are handled that cause a positive or negative reaction as much as what is onscreen.

I love the tragic dimension to Death In Venice, the Mahler, the wandering alone through the streets, the yearning. It perhaps does not fit well into any era that wants positive, pro-active representations of relatable characters on the cinema screen, but I have always felt that both the context surrounding a film and the film in isolation as its own piece of art is worth assessing. I respect david hare's opinions on the film, and Mr Sausage's earlier in the thread, and I think that they are fair critiques in many ways, but I just cannot have the same reaction to it as they have had.

I do not think Visconti has ever really been about pro-active positive representation in that sense anyway, more the intractable divides between classes and generations. If anything the tragic element of a Visconti, especially in the later period, feels more directed towards the idea of a refined, mannered, repressed era of propriety and etiquette (whether actually existing or a wildly over romanticised notion in itself) passing away for a new generation who seem a bit boorish, uncouth and lacking in respect for their heritage, as well as overly casual about the privileged positions that they occupy (as if a deadly plague is more something that exists 'out there', not within their luxury hotel and especially not able to fester within), something which the younger generation might not even realise that they are embodying in the eyes of their elders. But there is a desire to be young again and back at at the beginning of one's life too, maybe tied up with a bit of jealousy also. There is an element of lust there undoubtedly, but its more about the shifting between eras and the death of a particular way of looking at the world. The way that the object of desire is less inherently desirable in itself but only becomes that way because of the gaze it is receiving. Once the main character dies at the end, the boy has lost that elevation into almost supernaturally idolised Greek God status (if he was ever aware of it, which the film toys with a bit, and might also be the subject of some controversy now in its slightly too long held ambiguous and/or blank 'come on' looks from Tadzio) and is back to just being a normal boy again.

I think what I'm saying is that Bill Forsyth should have had Mahler on the soundtrack of Gregory's Two Girls and John Gordon Sinclair dying from the plague at the end of that film, and I might have been more positive towards it!

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domino harvey
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#38 Post by domino harvey » Sun Feb 03, 2019 2:13 pm

Not that I was ever going to buy this, but to the surprise of no one Ritrovata did it again

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Big Ben
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#39 Post by Big Ben » Sun Feb 03, 2019 2:47 pm

Holy moly at that shot of the boat on Beaver.

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tenia
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#40 Post by tenia » Sun Feb 03, 2019 3:39 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Sun Feb 03, 2019 2:13 pm
Not that I was ever going to buy this, but to the surprise of no one Ritrovata did it again
All hail to the glorious Pisstavision !
=;

You know... I'm getting really tired of this. Really. This is non sense, pure non sense, and we're years into that, and they're still doing it. How many more movies they're going to leave on their color signature before someone just stop them ? 10 ? 50 ? 100 ?
We used to rant about DNR and EE, about how it was such a shame these movies were getting stuck for years, sometimes decades, in these poorly done restorations (remember Children of Paradise ?). We used to rant about all the magenta-pushed Universal and MGM HD masters, and 10, 15, maybe 20 years later now, nothing has changed. Other movies are going to be stuck in these incorrectly graded restorations, and because they're otherwise good 4K restorations, they're unlikely to get corrected before another 15 years.

The cinephile in me is dying a bit more every time I see this kind of things.

And I'm not over doing this.
I'm just totally torn by those, just like I was torn in front of the DNRed to oblivion new restoration of Terminator 2, or Children of Paradise.
If they think they're respecting the movies to which they're doing this, they're so so so wrong.

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Rayon Vert
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#41 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Feb 03, 2019 4:09 pm

Can't people both in the know and in some position of influence do something about this? Write pieces, etc.? Or does the outrage only happen on internet discussion boards?

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John Cope
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#42 Post by John Cope » Sun Feb 03, 2019 4:14 pm

Why does Tooze act like this is okay? Isn't he supposed to be one of those people?

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Rayon Vert
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#43 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Feb 03, 2019 4:34 pm

His phrasing is ambiguous, in addition to being badly written:

It looks greenish in spots (so it's bad?) and some sequences are extremely textured and heavy. I thought the beautiful cinematography of Pasquale De Santis shone through better than I have ever seen. (OK, so it's good). These are impressionable visuals. (OK, it's really good, but you mean "impressive" right?) While there may be some softness - it seems inherent. I wouldn't use the negative term "Ritrovated" in regards to this restoration but its (sic) is not crisp...(Ok, it's not bad, but maybe not great) and was not meant to be. (What????)

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tenia
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#44 Post by tenia » Sun Feb 03, 2019 4:42 pm

Rayon Vert wrote:
Sun Feb 03, 2019 4:09 pm
Can't people both in the know and in some position of influence do something about this? Write pieces, etc.? Or does the outrage only happen on internet discussion boards?
The issue is that with color gradings, it's so delicate and so easy to manipulate that it's impossible to know exactly how it should look. Which is why I don't know myself, I only strongly suggest it's impossible for all these movies to look so similar to each other, but I can't say how they should look.
And that's one line of defense used even by some in the know : "ooh, but who are you to say it's incorrect ? what is correct then ? which references are you using to say that ? it's Ritrovata they know what they're doing, they don't put the same LUT on all these movies, you just prefer standardised flat color gradings like the American or the British are doing".

So even those people aren't doing stuff about it, and are actually thinking this is right. I myself sent an email to the French branch of Ritrovata, which I was told was forwarded to the direction, but I never heard from them again. I might update it and send it again.

The only piece I've read was James Steffen's about The Colour of Pomegranates. Otherwise, there are a couple of rants from Camera Obscura about Ritrovata. And that's it.
Note that the same could be told about Eclair, except their stuff is blue rather than yellow. But still : I can pretty much guess they're the ones behind a restoration without looking at the credits. That's for instance the case on several Claude Berri movies recently restored for Pathé.

And that's the culprit here : how one can think it's correct when within all the realm of possibles offered by photographies in movies, the one thing you can instantly guess is the lab who graded the restoration ? Before guessing the DP, the stock used, the light bulbs used.

It's so contrary to the mere basis of restoration to leave such a heavy signature : it should look invisible.

Can you imagine looking at a Michelangelo fresque or a Picasso painting and guess "Oh, look at these blues and yellows, this has been restored by Paolo Ritrovata, it's so obvious !" ?
John Cope wrote:
Sun Feb 03, 2019 4:14 pm
Why does Tooze act like this is okay? Isn't he supposed to be one of those people?
He's sadly not, as Rayon Vert emphasised here.
I suspect Svet isn't going to publish a review rather to give a bad score to a Criterion release, just like he did with The Tree of Wooden Clogs.

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tenia
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#45 Post by tenia » Sun Feb 03, 2019 5:02 pm

The issue is that many counter-arguments are fallacies and fail to assess the point being made.
It's not a question of saying "hey, I prefer how things were done before", it's a question of thinking they're different now but still wrong. I don't want magenta-pushed restorations back, but I happen to think this might be our generation yellow-pushed restorations, and I don't think it's much better (well, at least, texture-wise it is).

What I'm also clueless at is that they probably know what's going on outside their places. They know that they're the only ones doing this, and they certainly are getting more and more requests for restorations WITHOUT grading. They also certainly have realised by now (and I mean : I told them in my email) that some of their gradings are getting undone by indie video labels. They're not THAT isolated in the world. So why aren't they at least publicly explaining their workflow to explain their reasoning ?

This is non sense.

All I hope is to be able to attend this year the Lyon Lumière festival and reach out to some technicians and labs and right holders there about this. Since I'm not from the industry, I'll probably get laughed out a bit, but I certainly have a bunch of examples to explain the reasoning and where the doubts stem from.
Actually, I'm wondering if I might not instead get sad nods and looks because I doubt we're alone thinking this.

nitin
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#46 Post by nitin » Sun Feb 03, 2019 6:33 pm

I posted this in the L’Argent thread last year (it may been missed as the discussion had pretty much ended by the time I posted this):

I wasn’t sure where the best place to post this would be but since the last post in this thread was about Ran, and because the preceding posts were about the LUTs applied by Ritrovata and (since 2013) Eclair, the Camera Obsucra insider’s latest comment on the topic is here

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tenia
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#47 Post by tenia » Sun Feb 03, 2019 6:59 pm

That's the kind of Camera Obscura posts I was thinking about. It's a shame Ritrovata don't simply state if that's the case or not, instead of leaving us with the guesses from a label dealing with them.

It's also what makes me very weary of the "approved by" quotes on Ritrovata restorations, since no matter who approves what, in the end, all their gradings look similar. Can be Tovoli on Deep Red, Guarnieri on Marriage Italian Style or Hua Hui-ying on Dragon Inn, they all end up similarly graded.

It makes me wonder if these people are seemingly blind towards these gradings signatures, or if they are approving stuff at a stage before the final grading is applied. Both cases would be appalling : the first because it means they're basically useless people if they can't even get that right, the second because it nullifies getting someone to approve something if it is to deeply modify it later on.

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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#48 Post by Orlac » Sun Feb 03, 2019 7:11 pm

Doesn't fill me with hope for the Criterion Police Story release.

nitin
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#49 Post by nitin » Sun Feb 03, 2019 7:13 pm

It’s probably more likely that they approve the grading pre-LUT application, especially if the LUT application is being done by the lab for the alleged purposes of emulating the correct look for film outs of the DCP.

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tenia
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Re: 962 Death in Venice

#50 Post by tenia » Sun Feb 03, 2019 7:17 pm

nitin wrote:
Sun Feb 03, 2019 7:13 pm
It’s probably more likely that they approve the grading pre-LUT application, especially if the LUT application is being done by the lab for the alleged purposes of emulating the correct look for film outs of the DCP.
This is my guess too.
I suppose they're simply trying to apply an analogue logic to a digital one. The question is : why then outputting digitally the look supposed to serve for analogue purposes ? Why not supplying the grading pre-LUT, since all this is purely in and for the digital realm ?
That's where they're losing me. Somehow, there is something I don't understand and this looks to me like this is where it lies. Why the f are they trying to blend analogue and digital within the same workflow ? It's not as if you can photochemically use a DCP to create new prints !
And why are they not realising this is standardizing the final look of their digital files that are used for video and DCP releases ?
Orlac wrote:
Sun Feb 03, 2019 7:11 pm
Doesn't fill me with hope for the Criterion Police Story release.
There never was any hope to be had there. Criterion never altered a restoration done outside their perimeters. They either have their colorists working on them, or they're taking them as is. That's what happened for Dragon Inn and A Touch of Zen, but also Muriel, Night & Fog, and some of the Olympic Games movies.
However, they seemingly altered Shoah to add the green tint that didn't seem to be on the original new restorations, so I guess it wasn't for the best anyway.

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