UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ - American Graffiti -- in 4k UHD (1 Viewer)

[titch]

But there’s a purpose, and the other side of the coin, in that I believe the filmmaker desired a certain look - either for himself or “Joe sixpack,” and that has been achieved to perfection.

The uplifting part of this issue, is that ten or twelve years ago, the majority would be praising the removal of all that "nasty" film grain. Remember Universal's initial blu-rays? Take a look a some of those titles: Buck Privates, Out Of Africa, Brokeback Mountain. Anyone popping those into their player today would be aghast. The irony is, the 12 year old blu ray of American Graffiti looks better now, than the shiny new 4K UHD. So the fact that just about everyone has panned this release, is really cause for celebration!

 

[BornOfAJackal]

To get properly preserved grain, after cleanup, I think it helps to be a cinema gorehound.

These Lucio Fulci spaghetti horror films (Zombie, The House by the Cemetery, The City of the Living Dead), all scanned, corrected, graded and released by boutique labels, have nicely resolved, unobtrusive grain that really puts you in the 1981 grindhouse with a print right out of the lab.

This serves a middle-aged Fangoria reader well. New hi-res releases for a truly mass market must exclude the gore-loving purist and instead cater to fast-aging Baby Boomers and Millenial women who expect everything they stream to look like it's done by a Ridley Scott-wannabe with a Sony CineAlta.

 

[Robert Harris]

This thread reminds me of a discussion I had with Gordon Willis in 2007, when someone at a lab doing a test scan called me and explained that the negative was screwed up. I recall asking how, and was told the all the dark scenes are ******* underexposed!

I went to Gordon for advise. He simply said to tell the tech they didn’t know what they were looking at. That every shot in the film was Perfectly exposed. Precisely where he wanted them.

Try explaining that to a tech that wants to set a scanner as if the negative in the gate is a CBS Movie of the Week.

We may not always agree with a filmmaker’s desires. I absolutely did with Mr. Willis’, as he was working toward a very specific end result, and we replicated that specific look.

We may not agree with the filmmaker (or his techs) here, as the final result more than wanders from original prints, but it’s still their film, and I’ll support their rights as the filmmaker.

I may not like it - I absolutely don’t here - and can be vocal in disagreeing. I’d probably push for a different 2-disc set.

The film in 4k as re-imagined 50 years later per the filmmaker’s wishes, and a second 4k representing the look and textures of the original film - even with the few minutes added. I’d love that release!

 

[Malcolm R]

The uplifting part of this issue, is that ten or twelve years ago, the majority would be praising the removal of all that "nasty" film grain. Remember Universal's initial blu-rays? Take a look a some of those titles: Buck Privates, Out Of Africa, Brokeback Mountain. Anyone popping those into their player today would be aghast. The irony is, the 12 year old blu ray of American Graffiti looks better now, than the shiny new 4K UHD. So the fact that just about everyone has panned this release, is really cause for celebration!

Most of the masses don't understand grain (as I didn't for many years). What I've come to understand now as grain, for years I thought was some sort of video defect and couldn't understand why it wasn't called out as a failing in reviews.

I don't really have strong feelings one way or another about grain. I find heavy grain to be a distraction, so I guess I'm all for some "smoothing", but also don't really enjoy when the processing goes so far that everything looks like some smeary watercolor picture.

I also find it sort of ironic that in this age of digital filming, I sometimes see a credit on modern films for something like "grain management", where presumably they're actually adding grain effects to a digitally-captured movie to make it more like "film".

 

[nyguy2046]

For anyone confused by the double rating on this release, it’s based upon the fact that the look and textures are very much not aimed at the cognescenti.

Viewers who love cinema are going to hate this.

But there’s a purpose, and the other side of the coin, in that I believe the filmmaker desired a certain look - either for himself or “Joe sixpack,” and that has been achieved to perfection.

Run this disc on vibrant, through the least expense 85” LCD panel one can find at Costco, and it’s happy overload!

The fact that the same final result - and probably better - could have been achieved with a new standard issue Blu-ray, is irrelevant. Joe needs 4k ‘cause it’s cool.

So…

The actual disc is perfect, and represents precisely what was desired. The problem is that folks who love film, and are also saddled with knowledge of what they’re actually seeing are, well, I’ll use a tech term here - screwed.

It feels like you strongly believe that Lucas himself personally supervised this new release and directed the removal of grain/waxy appearance that everyone's talking about -- is that right?

I don't see why there should be handwringing either way about his intentions or whether we, as the audience, have the right to express displeasure.

When the 2009 blu ray release of French Connection (supervised by the director) was widely criticized or the flaws in the 2011 release of West Side Story or the first batch of 2012 Hitchcock titles were met with disappointment, I don't remember effort being made to defend those releases. When a physical media release either significantly alters a film's appearance or the release comes with errors or mistakes (is it fair to include "excessive use of DNR" in the list of things we consider mistakes? I would imagine you would say yes), are we now saying we should not push back -- even if the director approved the disc? I don't understand this logic, with all due respect. If there hadn't been push back, we would not have gotten that improved 2011 French Connection release and we'd all be poorer for it.

This thread also hasn't dealt with the new foley effects and the audio levels (dialogue and music) which apparently have been altered for this new release. Again -- I'm sure these changes were made at the behest of someone (some are saying Walter Murch had a hand in it) but it's pure revisionism and deserves to be mentioned.

 

[Lord Dalek]

If I can see the aggresive DNR on Terminator 2 from the other side of my house on a 55" television, I doubt this release's will be any less perceptible.

 

[SD_Brian]

Lucas has demonstrated over the years that he has no real love of cinema, film, or tradition.

A very odd thing to say, given his and his George Lucas Family Foundation's financial support of film preservation over the years...

 

[Malcolm R]

A very odd thing to say, given his and his George Lucas Family Foundation's financial support of film preservation over the years...

He doesn't seem to extend the same care and consideration to his own films.

 

[Robert Crawford]

He doesn't seem to extend the same care and consideration to his own films.

He believes in preserving his films according to his vision as a filmmaker.

 

[Malcolm R]

You're right, the masses aren't buying 4K and never will. It's a small part of the physical market.

True that the masses don't seem to be buying this on 4K. According to Amazon, they've only sold just over 600 copies in the past month. Catalog 4K's usually manage to sell at least a couple thousand in the pre-order period.

 

[Worth]

He believes in preserving his films according to his vision as a filmmaker.

Which is not preserving them, but altering them to suit his latest whims and play with his latest toys.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Which is not preserving them, but altering them to suit his latest whims and play with his latest toys.

They’re his films!

 

[Worth]

They’re his films!

Yes, to fiddle with endlessly. Of course, he also screwed with Return of the Jedi, which he didn't direct. Now you can argue that Lucas is the main creative force behind that film, but Richard Marquand was no longer around to either object to or sign off on all those changes. And I bet if other producers like Jerry Bruckheimer or Joel Silver starting making wholesale changes to Beverly Hills Cop or Die Hard, there would be an uproar about that, too.

 

[Robert Harris]

It feels like you strongly believe that Lucas himself personally supervised this new release and directed the removal of grain/waxy appearance that everyone's talking about -- is that right?

I don't see why there should be handwringing either way about his intentions or whether we, as the audience, have the right to express displeasure.

When the 2009 blu ray release of French Connection (supervised by the director) was widely criticized or the flaws in the 2011 release of West Side Story or the first batch of 2012 Hitchcock titles were met with disappointment, I don't remember effort being made to defend those releases. When a physical media release either significantly alters a film's appearance or the release comes with errors or mistakes (is it fair to include "excessive use of DNR" in the list of things we consider mistakes? I would imagine you would say yes), are we now saying we should not push back -- even if the director approved the disc? I don't understand this logic, with all due respect. If there hadn't been push back, we would not have gotten that improved 2011 French Connection release and we'd all be poorer for it.

This thread also hasn't dealt with the new foley effects and the audio levels (dialogue and music) which apparently have been altered for this new release. Again -- I'm sure these changes were made at the behest of someone (some are saying Walter Murch had a hand in it) but it's pure revisionism and deserves to be mentioned.

WSS was not Director approved, and was in error

 

[nyguy2046]

WSS was not Director approved, and was in error

The French Connection, winner of the Best Picture Academy Award finally makes an appearance on Blu-ray.

I'm one of those people who believes that if a film wins important awards for Best Picture, Cinematography, Screenplay, et al, that when it is released on Blu-ray that it should come as close to that original theatrical experience as possible.

By that I mean, if a film is cut or re-edited, and the modified version arrives on Blu-ray, that it is not the actual film that won awards, and I question whether it should be promoted as such. And I'm not referring here to simply Academy Awards.

It is my personal opinion, that the experimental Blu-ray of The French Connection, which is based upon Mr. Friedkin's alternate version fits into this concept. And I found the experiment interesting.

While I would have preferred that both versions arrive simultaneously, if the filmmaker is experimenting with his work, I couldn't be more pleased that both Mr. Friedkin and cinematographer, Mr. Roizman, have come together to offer The Academy Award-winning Best Picture of 1971 on Blu-ray.

What does the new version look like?

Totally different from the Blu-ray released just over three years ago.

New York Gritty.

Mr. Roizman's brilliant work on this film is finally on display via this Blu-ray, and in many ways, it set the stage for other productions. Black blacks, a color palette sometimes vivid, other times muted along with shadow detail, and an in-your-face hand-held approach that has been mimicked, but seldom duplicated. In terms of color accuracy, I'm willing to bet that a cinematographer will get the transfer correct.

One of the things that I don't recall is if the film's logo began in black & white in 1971. Bad memory.

This is a gorgeous Blu-ray, which should have Mr. Roizman signature on the cover alongside Mr. Friedkin's.

One of the greatest films ever made.

Image - 5

Audio - 5

Highly Recommended...

and odd that it arrives as a Best Buy Exclusive.

RAH

I think this is maybe more relevant. From your review of the second release of French Connection...

"I'm one of those people who believes that if a film wins important awards for Best Picture, Cinematography, Screenplay, et al, that when it is released on Blu-ray that it should come as close to that original theatrical experience as possible."

 

[JoeDoakes]

An interesting (and honest) YouTube review. This gent gets it:

Ok. I'm ordering the old blu. Too bad that this great film falls victim to a Force who's name must not be uttered

 

[Stephen_J_H]

I still have the old Blu, and my iTunes copy updated to the new 4K master. It doesn’t look even close to right. Pleasant, but not right.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Lucas has demonstrated over the years that he has no real love of cinema, film, or tradition. He's a technological innovator who likes to see how many different ways he can use his box of toys to change and "improve" (in his opinion) his films. He seems to not be able to resist making changes for the sake of change, rather than just preserving things the way people remember them, and enjoyed them, from the past.

He should just make something new, rather than changing everything he's done before.

I guess we should consider ourselves fortunate that Lucas didn't also add some CGI critters scurrying across the screen at the beginning of scenes in this one.

 

[albert_m2]

Whatever the reason, I don't think "the masses" are going to be picking apart the quality of the video presentation, whether disc-based or streaming, so what's the point of trying to appeal to them? I doubt they care one way or the other.

Yes and no. I think it's just (outside of specific Lucas influence) studios wanting to make old similar to new. If that means less grain (aka general Hulu viewer going "eww" as it conflicts with their digital world) then "so be it")

 

[Kirk76]

Fold down of the new track and not the 1978 Dolby Stereo mix and definitely not the original 1973 mono.

Was the 2011 blu-ray the 1978 Dolby Stereo mix?