A Few Words About A few words re: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1 Viewer)

is again on display here, I wouldn't worry (that doesn't mean they'd look the same, and of course they shouldn't, but rather that the same principles of digital restoration/remastering and home video transfer have been applied, based upon any number of factors in the original elements).

If the film is entirely (or even noticeably) retimed (assuming original color matrixes or records of them exist), without oversight by the filmmakers, that's a big , but if color densities and "pop" have been given a polish they never had to begin with, I would give that a based on what I see in Rain. I've never been a big believer in preserving photographic limitations; if there's reasonable evidence that a team was pushing for the best photographic quality possible at the time of their production (cleanest registration, deepest color saturation), but ran up against technological or, as you point out, Peter, studio hurdles, modern day restorations would have to think long and hard, and proceed with great care, but removing those hurdles without intruding on artistic intent might prove a noble endeavor.

I haven't seen the disc yet, and unlike Gone With the Wind (one of its many re-releases) I've never seen Robin Hood in a theatre ... so mine is just an opinion, not the voice of an expert. Still, though, if greens are deeper, reds richer, and highlights sparkle in a way they never did in 1938 ... as long as it's the same shade of red, the same shade of green, and as long as that sparkle comes of pulling more from the film elements and is not additive, I'd offer praise for that effort. If timing is substantively altered (greens become blues, blues become purples, whatever), or if a dark blue becomes a light blue because someone at a computer terminal thinks it looks more natural, that I would harshly criticize.

While it's by no means a definitive means of judging these matters, the sole previous effort from this new technology (UR + LDI digital + DVD transfer, all for WB, presumably with many of the same people working on both), Singin' in the Rain, while yielding a product that reportedly looks "different" than even the best prints of its original release, prompted one of its directors to remark that it had been improved -- "better(ed)," and the tone of the article suggests he was very enthusiastic about that improvement. If it had been retimed, as discussed above, I can't imagine Donen saying that, but if colors took on a detail and depth never before seen, and damage and other anomalies had been removed so as to offer as clear and "perfect" an image as possible, then his comments make sense, and I'd expect the same from UR's next major offering.

Retimed, without director/cinematographer involvement = bad.

Timed appropriately, but with color density and detail photochemically impossible in 1938 = not necessarily bad, and in fact possibly very good, depending on the extent to which this was accomplished, and whether any of the apparent detail was meant to be hidden (such as by grain structure, to hide wires and other such things).

Grain structure is another matter, but one that doesn't worry me as much on home video. I see grain where no one else around here seems to see it (really, look at the shafts of light in the Thatcher Memorial Library on Citizen Kane's DVD, the scene in which a guard removes Thatcher's journal from a safe in the background and the newspaper reporter approaches the table to read it -- am I crazy, or is that not blatant grain? That scene is just one instance), and while I respect grain structure as an artistic choice, if it was a choice made solely to hide specific production detail (wires, etc.), then that detail can be removed along with grain (as LDI did in North by Northwest during the plane crash sequence), and the end result, while not looking like the original, might still please the makers of the original. It might not -- when they're gone, who can say? But Donen was pleased, and according to Peter Bogdanovich, Welles told him the use of deep focus in Kane was strictly an attempt to "mimic the way we see the world" (that's a paraphrase from memory; it's on the PB commentary track) ... now, color was not used, and for specific artistic cause, but just as selective focus obscures the world, so too, in its way, does grain ... I don't think it unreasonable to suggest that the limitation of overt grain in a film (not the complete removal of that grain; as I understand it, LDI generally works with percentages of grain on surviving elements, reducing them to an approximation of the same stock as it might photograph brand new in its era, and of course with client oversight/approval), particularly if that film used the finest resolving 35mm stock of its day (if the appearance of heavy grain was not an obvious choice, such as would be the case if 16mm insert blowups or other such grain-heavy photographic decisions were made), might be artistically justifiable. If an artist expressed a specific use of and love for grain, as did Abel Gance, that's another matter ... there are few sweeping rules in the restoration/remastering game, it seems to me. Every film is its own world.

Well, at any rate, my comments were meant only to suggest that if the timing of the film is correct, a greater depth and clarity to its color pallette (a pallette which would have been achieved with color matrixes in a 3-Strip Technicolor production; the negative is composed of three B&W strips; today that color application would be done digitally, I presume, as digital grading becomes the norm in the industry, and of course any digitally scanned film would naturally be timed digitally) would be something we should perhaps praise, rather than criticize. If those original color matrixes survive, and everyone who made the film seemed happy with them at the time, they should be honored ... but again, if digital technology today allows a depth of detail and color density to come through that printing technology at the time did not, that might be false to a print, but true to the artistic aims recorded on the negative and the color matrixes established by the lab and filmmakers. Just an opinion. I'll of course know more about its visual appeal, and whether it looks "artificially new," when the disc arrives, but I was thrilled with Singin' in the Rain, and again, they should not look alike, but a similar level of color delineation and detail, as imparted by the UR process and LDI's work, would, I think, prove very appealing and, dare I say, appropriate to the spirit of the film. It goes without saying that low light sequences and sequences shot through filters were aiming for a specific low-detail look that must be preserved. I'm sure WB, LDI, and the various groups who've worked on Robin Hood considered all of this and more.

DeeF: I misunderstood -- I thought you had seen vertical stripes of alternating contrast; my mistake (that's what I get for skimming). I do specifically recall noticing something along those lines in one dark scene of Treasure on VHS, but I don't recall any horizontal striping. I'll be able to comment more clearly when my copy arrives, but if it's an encoding error, I trust WB will fix it and offer a replacement.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...