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- Robert Harris
The track is on a CD.AstonMartin007 said:That's what I suspect happened as well. It's not really unheard of, just sad to see in a venerated print. I remember a 1997 screening of Titanic where the Captain's line that the ship was going to sink was played twice...rather funny, and I suspect another case of improper cutting across reels.
I don't think the keystoning would account for the whole film being rotated. It was not as noticeable during the film, but during the credits for instance, it was very apparent the words were slightly rotated clockwise, which was strange because as I showed above, the right edge of the image was slanted counter-clockwise. The screen was perfect 1.85; all 3 edges were projected on except the right edge, and that edge never changed shape. During the 2nd half of the film, light from the projection room would show up at times above the top-right corner of the film, very noticeable given the dimness of the image. What they were doing up there, and why that didn't show up during the 1st hour, I have no idea. The whole thing gave a feeling of "What the hell is going on?!"
You're thinking this now, I was thinking this DURING the film. I truly thought there was something wrong with me; why didn't the image look better, why was everything happening faster than all the other times I'd seen Vertigo. There was some slight flickering at times during the first half hour. It was only until the forest scene, where I saw the best cinematic depiction of "50 shades of grey" yet, that I stopped wondering if I'd had a rotten dinner.
I don't think it's possible for Vertigo to become un-synced, isn't the soundtrack printed on the film? Otherwise it'd be easy to play the newer DTS mix instead. The only sync problems I noticed were when the Foley effects didn't match the screen actions.
I deliberately noted the end time because I was sure I was wrong. 24p is an ancient standard by now, there should be 0 discrepancies. For the 128 min film to end at 9:53PM, it had to have started at 7:44-45PM. If you're incredulous at all this, you should be...I'm the last person in the world to want to say these things, I'd love to be totally wrong. I used "seems" because if there was a discrepancy, it would still be >2%, roughly the equivalent of a 59sec minute. That's not a difference one would usually notice.
I compared the image to an cheap LCD screen because the high black levels and low brightness severely hurt the dynamic range of the image. Shots that really should've stood out, like Madeleine at Fort Point, looked sadly muted, the Golden Gate did not look anything like the Bluray, or real life...even the brightest, highest contrast shot of the whole film, the falling man against the white background, looked uninspiring. The one color that seemed to stand out was whiteish-yellow, so that during closeup shots of Kim Novak's face or Madeleine's apartment building, the picture seemed to approach something close to proper illumination.
At this point, I think we're going around in circles...I had a lot of problems with the film that none of you can be expected to understand without seeing it in person. If you don't believe me, fine. I was so ready to come back and exclaim my enthusiasm. Instead it was the most disappointing cinema experience ever.
It has to be done, absolutely ASAP. Even if the picture were absolutely perfect, there is no excuse for the soundtrack anymore.