Salo - BFI Blu-ray 09/22/2008 (1 Viewer)

[Jean-Michel]

I didn't buy that explanation when it first surfaced after the original BFI release, and I don't buy it now: the use of the Gottfried Benn poem (which amounts to all of three lines) is more than defensible as fair use, other copyrighted works (e.g. Pound's Canto XCIX) still appear in the Criterion version, and Godard's films -- which are positively loaded with quotations, to the extent that it's not always easy to tell where the quoting ends and the "original" dialogue begins! -- have never posed any difficulty for Criterion. If the scene only appears in a single mysterious UK print, which seems to be the case, then it's perfectly plausible that there was an elements issue, with Criterion being unable to use the BFI's print (the clip on the website looks like it was sourced from the old BFI disc).

 

[Robert Harris]

After reading this entire thread I'm still attempting to understand precisely what has occurred with the new BFI BD of Salo.

From checking on line and reading this thread, this is what appears to be the situation, and I invite anyone with more actual knowledge (not opinion) to take this further.

Salo appears to have been restored photo-chemically in Rome on 35mm films from the finest surviving elements, which did not include a single short deleted scene.

It then appears that a film element was either shipped to the BFI, or was accessed by the BFI and that an image was transferred in HD -- not harvested as data in 2k or 4k -- and the resultant HD master was then affected by two digital processes, DVNR (used to degrain and clean) and MTI (used to remove damage such as scratches, tears and other detritus.)

I have not seen the resultant R2 Blu-ray disc.

I have seen the Beaver frames grabs, which may or may not tell an accurate story. From those grabs, the image appears to be degrained, shapened and regrained. I do not know this to be fact.

Two members of this forum, whose opinions I would tend to trust have taken opposite sides, which tells me that there may be more going on with the image than a simple case of Gangs or Pattonitis, and that the disc is neither a travesty nor perfection.

Can anyone with first hand knowledge regarding the transfer to HD and resultant clean-up come forth with facts regarding precisely what steps were taken, how far the DVNR knob was turned, how and if sharpening occurred and whether regraining took place?

MTI would not have affected the image in any negative way.

RAH