WILD AT HEART (consolidated thread) (1 Viewer)

[Felix Martinez]

so MGM agreed to have a brand-new fine-grain master made directly off the negative, and the transfer was started again from scratch. I'm starting to wonder if the inclusion of the altered Bobby Peru death (when it's been showing up all over cable, in both letterboxed and pan-sand-scan transfers, unaltered) in this DVD is a result of that new film element having been made. I'm wondering if when MGM made that new element, the R-rated Bobby Peru footage was included as opposed to the uncut...

And this is where I'm getting confused...

If Lynch is correct that MGM went back to the *negative* to strike a new print, then the optical alteration was in the orig. negative? Or was another optical re-done for the new print? That doesn't seem likely...

Could it actually be that the new print was done from an altered inter-neg, while the other stuff floating around cable, etc. is from an unaltered inter-neg that doesn't look so good?

Just some thoughts...

and if that's the case, I'd rather go for a spankin' new print with the Peru death altered than an unaltered print with night scenes that look as bad as Lynch stated on that nice feature on the DVD.

And I'm also in pleasant shock that he did a new interview for an older work he doesn't own, and he has some nice insights. His comment that laura Dern is "the greatest actress" he's ever worked with is huge, beautiful compliment. And I hope it helps Laura, professionally! She is truly wonderful.

 

[Vincent_P]

And Marcus:

You're forgetting that I saw the unaltered Bobby Peru death on U.S. CABLE TELEVSION, not a foreign DVD release. The fact is, the Bobby Peru-death alteration was done SOLELY to appease the MPAA. Maybe Lynch doesn't particularily mind that change, but it wasn't made because of some artistic reason on his part- it was done back in 1990 in order for WILD AT HEART to get an R-rating as opposed to an X or NC-17 by the MPAA.

I think the MGM dvd is mostly great, but find it odd that Bobby Peru's death is uncut when I watch WILD AT HEART on cable, but censored on the DVD I went to a store and bought. That's all I'm saying...

And Felix, re: this:

"If Lynch is correct that MGM went back to the *negative* to strike a new print, then the optical alteration was in the orig. negative? Or was another optical re-done for the new print? That doesn't seem likely..."

Opticals (fades, dissolves, effects, etc.) are usually cut into the O-Neg. In the case of WILD AT HEART, I can see where IPs for foreign territories were made from the Original Negative before the MPAA rating issue came up, and then after the MPAA gave the film an X or NC-17, the Bobby Peru death was optically altered, and the altered shot was then recut into the original negative, replacing the original footage. This could be why when MGM went back to the O-Neg to make a new IP for the DVD, the altered shot would've been in place of the original footage. As an example, I recall reading an interview with Wes Craven where he said that the unrated director's cut of SCREAM was preserved on IP, but the Original Negative was recut to conform to the R-rated U.S. theatrical release.

Vincent

 

[Felix Martinez]

Thanks Vincent - great comments (as always)!

 

[MarcusUdeh]

RE: Vincent, I will go out on a limb here and assume that the US cable channel you are referring to is the Independent Film Channel (IFC).

 

[Felix Martinez]

Just saw this tonite - haven't seen WAH in a looong time...

Wonderful film, and ahead of its time...may have inspired a bit of the ultraviolent non-linear pulp, hip dialog, and music montages in Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers, etc.

The overall DVD value is quite high - great interviews, nice special features, as has been discussed here.

The 5.1 sound re-mix by John Neff and David Lynch is very good, and adheres to DL's 80/20 rule: 80% of the soundstage is up front, with no more than 20% coming out of the surrounds. For best impact, raise volume until dialogue levels are nice and fat - then look out for those dynamic sequences!

I see a beautiful transfer somewhere beyond that digital, filtered fabric of MPEG-2 encoding. This should have been a 2-disc set. Lots of filtering, some EE - almost looks like a Miramax release. This should look ok on smaller to medium-size monitors; larger screens will see some probs. High def can't get here fast enough!

 

[MarcusUdeh]

Wonderful film, and ahead of its time...may have inspired a bit of the ultraviolent non-linear pulp, hip dialog, and music montages in Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers, etc.

Biggest Bullshit Credit in American Film History? "Written & Directed By Quentin Tarantino"...how about COMPILED by? What he said ..

 

[WarrenM]

I see a beautiful transfer somewhere beyond that digital, filtered fabric of MPEG-2 encoding. This should have been a 2-disc set. Lots of filtering, some EE - almost looks like a Miramax release. This should look ok on smaller to medium-size monitors; larger screens will see some probs. High def can't get here fast enough!

Dunno what you watched, but the transfer looked pretty damn good to me on my 16x9!

Where does everybody see all this "edge enhancement", anyway? It seems like even the most perfect of transfers has it, according to somebody. I only seem to notice it when it's obvious.

 

[WarrenM]

NOBODY in this thread has argued that every scrap of footage ever shot for a film be reinstated. What we are arguing about is a particular scene that's been shown EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD one way, but here in the U.S. a diffferent way, and only because of the MPAA, not because of an artistic choice by the director.

It's not the MPAA's fault, it's the distributors fault. After all, the MPAA aren't a censor board; WAH could've been released completely uncut but the distributor didn't want an X or NC-17 so they chose to edit for an R. I know the MPAA's criteria for ratings is kind of stupid to say the least, but they aren't the ones who wanted cuts.

 

[Felix Martinez]

Dunno what you watched, but the transfer looked pretty damn good to me on my 16x9!

Where does everybody see all this "edge enhancement", anyway? It seems like even the most perfect of transfers has it, according to somebody. I only seem to notice it when it's obvious.

I'm watching on a FP, 92in 16:9 screen. The transfer looks stellar; it's the encoding I have a prob with - smeared hi-freq. detail, particularly in dimmer scenes. There are 2 or 3 shots which are quite grainy, and the noise reduction is most evident on these scenes (but it appears to have been applied to the entire film to some degree).

EE, which may be a factor of the noise reduction compounded by artificial sharpening, is most evident on the titles, text, etc., but it's not too distracting on hard-edged objects in the film (because it's been softened by either noise reduction, or low-pass filtering).

By no means is this a poor presentation, just flawed and could have been better. The remastered Blue Velvet looks better IMHO - even tho that's a little soft as well.

But...

This is light years ahead of the long OOP WS laserdisc (which was the last time I saw WAH), and judging from the screenshot comparisons at dvdbeaver, the MGM release looks to be the best of all available DVD releases (even tho they prefer the Universal - Region 2, 4, 5 release).