A Few Words About A few words about...™ El Cid (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

 

[Robert Crawford]

I agree with that.





Crawdaddy

 

[RickER]

Thats not a saying much. I have seen public domain releases that are better than The Quiet Man. I am hard pressed to think of a movie that is not public domain that is WORSE than The Quiet Man?

 

[Robert Crawford]

Hey, it was 1:30 in the morning so forgive me for not giving you another title.

 

[RickER]

 

[WadeM]

Yep.

Anyways, regardless of the less than perfect (though not bad) element it came from, this movie is way too good of a movie for anyone to pass up-and it may be the best we'll see it for a long time.

 

[willyTass]

this new DVD is a big improvement over the public domain copy I had. Money well spent for now and hopefully it'll get done right one day

 

[Dan M]

I started to rent this from Netflix but it looks like all they have is the older Japanese version (which I understand looks hideous)...

Does anyone know if they are offering the newer Weinstein version for rental?

 

[Jim*Tod]

I think the Weinstein company has an exclusive rental agreement with Blockbuster, so that may well be why we are not seeing the new dvd on Netflix.

 

[TonyD]

thats up to netflix.

they carry most if not all the other exclusives.
netflix or anyone else will have to purchase thier own copies at retail
if they want to rent them.

 

[Vegas 1]

I think I'll hang onto my Criterion ld of El Cid for the time being. Let's see how the HD version looks when it comes out.

 

[Simon Howson]

Any difference will be the difference between blu-ray and SD-DVD. I doubt they will do ANOTHER new transfer, from a different element.

 

[Patrick McCart]

I watched all of it tonight. This is one of the best films I've seen and up there with Lawrence of Arabia in terms of my favorite epics. The ending has to be one of the most powerful. I'm amazed it worked so flawlessly, even though I'm sure a lot of modern audiences would snicker at it.

But the transfer does look odd. Like it's "dupey" and they used some digital work to make it less obvious. Not as good as it should be, but it's not unwatchable.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I watched El Cid over the weekend. It was the first time I'd ever seen this film. As a first time viewer, I was too engrossed in the movie most of the time to notice the quality of the transfer. When I did take notice, the transfer seemed merely "acceptable". It certainly did not blow me away with quality, but it was far from the worst transfer I've seen.

I found the documentaries interesting, too, so IMO this was a worthy purchase, especially for someone like myself who has never experienced El Cid. I cannot believe that this film has flown under my radar for all these years!

 

[OliverK]

Mr. Harris,

for quite some time I would have liked for you to criticize worthy films that I felt did not get the treatment they deserve in a new DVD/HD version. I am very happy to see that you think El Cid is one of them when it comes to picture quality and I would like to thank you for starting this thread.

Hopefully this will be read by the right people so that Fall of the Roman Empire will not be plagued by the same problems this transfer has.

Apparently the original 65mm elements from Fall are still in great shape but the way it looks now they will not be used for creating a new master so we will have to hope for a better picture from 35mm elements. As money seems to be the limiting factor for getting a proper transfer from the large elements I hope that at least the budget that is available will be spent wisely to achieve optimum results from 35mm elements.

Going back to the El Cid DVD here is a comparison of the old French DVD of El Cid with the new Weinstein version, to me it looks like they are from the same master but with different colors and the french (upper) version also has a bit more ringing. Very strange that they would be so similar otherwise considering that there is now a new HD master.

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I corrected the aspect ratio of the captures and upscaled them so that it is easier to see the differences between the two transfers.

Oliver Klohs

 

[OliverK]

Could you please give us a ballpark number as to how much this would cost if the OCN was in good shape ?

You mentioned in another thread that these days it is common procedure to do a 6k scan on horizontal 35mm so I expect this is what you also recommend for El Cid ?

Thanks

Oliver Klohs

 

[Douglas R]

I have the French version as well. It is a bit brighter than the Weinstein but it is obvious that they are from the same master. I find it surprising that some people praise the picture quality of the new Weinstein DVD but I find it very disappointing.

 

[OliverK]

Well, we kind of had the same quality before so we are naturally not so happy to have double dipped in that department

To be fair I think that given the master that was probably used Weinstein did pretty well as the new version is less enhanced looking and more pleasing to the eye. I think the colors will also be perceived as better as they are more saturated but I cannot say they do exactly give us the Todd AO/70 mm look the 70mm prints might have, they just look kind of old/odd.

But I have recommended the disc before and I will do so again as this is still the best this movie has looked on home video and the sound and extras do, in my opinion, rank from very improved to outstanding. In the beginning I had a suspicion that the DVD might not even be from the new HD master as it certainly did not exist for the french DVD. As this is very improbable I have to speculate that the elements used in creating the new master were the same that were used for the old one as the resulting picture is so surprisingly close to the French version.

And to all of us that have the Criterion LD: This is a worthwhile improvement in picture quality even if you have a reference LD player, let alone the very nice extras. For all others it will be even more of an improvement as it is hard to extract optimum quality out of an LD. The LD is still a keeper as it has extras that remain unique to it. I especially remember a few funny things about Anthony Mann that were surprisingly missing from the DVD set.

 

[Robert Harris]

OliverK:

While I don't want to get into actual numbers, the cost to create a new master would not be anything terrible. By that I mean that if I owned the film personally, it would be my pleasure to create new elements and transfers at my own cost. If one is simply doing an HD transfer, it just isn't that big a deal, especially as income would be gained via the investment.

My perception, which may be incorrect, is that the owners of copyright may be leaving it to licensees to pay their own way, rather than simply creating one quality element and either sharing the cost or raising the license fee slightly.

The other alternative is that the owners simply don't care about the films, and treat them only as an investment. This wouldn't be the first time.

In any case, the public, as well as the licensees are left with less than acceptable video to release.

As I've noted before, I don't believe that this is a matter of The Weinstein Company not wanting to do something properly. It's got to go beyond that.

RAH

 

[Douglas R]

I posted the following in a previous thread about EL CID after I had received an advance copy of the DVD but no-one responded. Now that many people have the DVD, would anyone like to comment?


The editing of this film towards the end of Part 1 has always puzzled me. El Cid is leading his army to the convent where he is to take his leave of Chimene. There are four scenes as follows.

1. At the 1.55.22 mark there is a long shot of Charlton Heston beginning to dismount from his horse.

2. At 1.55.15 there is a medium shot of Charlton Heston still ON his horse with his army moving across the screen from left to right.

3. At 1.55.22 there is a shot of the army moving from right to left (in other words looking as if they are going in the opposite direction to the previous scene.

4. At 1.55.31 there is a medium shot of Charlton Heston dismounting from his horse.

Now it seems fairly obvious to me that scene 4 should immediately have followed scene 1 and that scene 2 and 3 were inserted into the final print in error. But I don’t understand how this could have been missed in such a major film. Has anyone got any ideas or have I somehow completed misread those scenes?