UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ - Le Mepris (Contempt) -- in 4k UHD (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

Les Metris (Contempt) falls outside of Jean-Luc Godard's most known works - Breathless, A Woman is a Woman, Alphaville et al, but it remains more accessible than his later political endeavors.

Canal+ has overseen a new restoration of this 60 year-old production, and the results are positive, down to a pleasant organic grain structure.

That noted, this is another in the myriad of 4k UHD releases, for which 4k really doesn't enhance the image - at least not when seated at a proper distance. Eyeballs to the screen, and you'll undoubtedly pick up a few bit of detail. What's nice, however, is that we know nothing will be lost in the mix.

Look for Fritz Lang as the director.

The film is being released via Lionsgate.

A note about packaging. The credit block is in blue agasint a black background, and is totally unreadable. Who designed this, and to what purpose?


Image – 5 (Dolby Vision)

Audio – 5 (DTS-HD MA 2.0)

Pass / Fail – Pass

Plays nicely with projectors - Yes

Makes use of and works well in 4k - 6

Upgrade from Blu-ray - Yes

Worth your attention - 6

Slipcover rating - n/a

Recommended

RAH



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[Keith Cobby]

Thanks for the review, surprised nobody has yet commented on this very fine film, top tier European cinema. There's a lot to like, the combination of American and European stars, the glamorous Mediterranean location, and it's meditation on relationships, and, of course, the great Fritz Lang. I bought the French 4k release earlier in the year.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

My favorite Godard film and have the UK 4K release which is a big improvement over the Criterion dvd and the Lionsgate Blu-ray from 2010. My guess is that this one has the same transfer as the UK disc? By the way i like the art cover more on the UK release.

 

[titch]

My favorite Godard film and have the UK 4K release which is a big improvement over the Criterion dvd and the Lionsgate Blu-ray from 2010. My guess is that this one has the same transfer as the UK disc? By the way i like the art cover more on the UK release.

View attachment 202951

It's the same transfer. And I agree with you about the cover art being way better on the StudioCanal version. One-sheet copies of this are now selling for hundreds of dollars on eBay.

 

[david hare]

Although it’s not yet officially confirmed, the Lionsgate uses the same encode as the Studio Canal, along with DV grading.

So it needs mentioning that while the restoration of this is absolutely superb, can’t be faulted, and it goes back to DP Raoul Coutard’s unsuccessful twelve year old attempt to correct multiple color anomalies in the master and the elements. The restoration and grading work performed by Bologna, Canal and CNC is top shelf.
unfortunately this perfect 5 has been let down by a weirdly inconsistent encode which, for maybe 95% of the time is fine, but in at least half a dozen sequences (all long takes) the compression goes nuts, thus things like background foliage ”shimmer” and large color items go to mush while the bitrate suddenly dives to the 20s and then comes good again in the next shot. Canal keep tripping up these days with their in-house encodes, even while other facilities like FIM give them perfection every time. So….

 

[plektret]

It's a shame this beautiful restoration got ruined by poor compression

Does anyone know if there's a chance of Eagle Pictures/4Kult in Italy releasing this? They've rescued some poorly encoded SC titles before.

 

[Keith Cobby]

I've watched this a couple of times and haven't noticed any egregious problems (Panny OLED 65, Panny 4k player). However, it's not anyone's idea of a reference disc, but it's still very good and I recommend the 4k to fans of the film. I know that I won't need to buy it again. Obviously it's a shame it's not a large format film, but I think Bardot ate much of the budget!

Agree with everyone about the cover art.