- Joined
- Feb 8, 1999
- Messages
- 18,390
- Real Name
- Robert Harris
No.
The Robe is not now, nor will it ever be, the disc that you reach for to show off the wonders of Blu-ray, 1080p or 7.1 audio.
As a 55 year old Eastman color production, and the first to be released in Fox's CinemaScope format, the elements had to sit in Fox's vaults waiting for technology to meet the needs of a major restoration project.
Finally, over the past couple of years with our digital abilities in place, work could proceed.
The result is far better than one might have expected. Anyone familiar with the original DVD of The Robe will know of its sad state.
With this huge restoration effort now complete, both image and audio are back to an "honorable" state -- not perfect, and in many shots far from it -- but never embarrassing, and certainly far more than simply viewable.
Those shots that survived from original elements tend to look very, very good, while dupes (based largely on the quality of the early 5216 stock) now appear far better than what they actually are.
The Robe has an extremely important place in the history of cinema, not as the first wide-screen production -- but as the first modern movement into an expansion of the cinema as it attempted to fend off that enemy of the airwaves, television.
One must look at this Blu-ray of The Robe not in comparison to anything else out there on BD, but as a totally separate entity with all of its various technical problems intact.
In an effort to place things in perspective, I tend to look at film history in terms of dates on either side of the specific production. In that light, travel back 56 years from the release of The Robe and one finds oneself in 1897 --
eleven years before D.W. Griffith's first film and just in time to be able to view an early Lumiere or Edison production.
The Robe is a very special Blu-ray. Just don't go in expecting perfection, which probably wasn't there even in 1953.
Recommended.
RAH
The Robe is not now, nor will it ever be, the disc that you reach for to show off the wonders of Blu-ray, 1080p or 7.1 audio.
As a 55 year old Eastman color production, and the first to be released in Fox's CinemaScope format, the elements had to sit in Fox's vaults waiting for technology to meet the needs of a major restoration project.
Finally, over the past couple of years with our digital abilities in place, work could proceed.
The result is far better than one might have expected. Anyone familiar with the original DVD of The Robe will know of its sad state.
With this huge restoration effort now complete, both image and audio are back to an "honorable" state -- not perfect, and in many shots far from it -- but never embarrassing, and certainly far more than simply viewable.
Those shots that survived from original elements tend to look very, very good, while dupes (based largely on the quality of the early 5216 stock) now appear far better than what they actually are.
The Robe has an extremely important place in the history of cinema, not as the first wide-screen production -- but as the first modern movement into an expansion of the cinema as it attempted to fend off that enemy of the airwaves, television.
One must look at this Blu-ray of The Robe not in comparison to anything else out there on BD, but as a totally separate entity with all of its various technical problems intact.
In an effort to place things in perspective, I tend to look at film history in terms of dates on either side of the specific production. In that light, travel back 56 years from the release of The Robe and one finds oneself in 1897 --
eleven years before D.W. Griffith's first film and just in time to be able to view an early Lumiere or Edison production.
The Robe is a very special Blu-ray. Just don't go in expecting perfection, which probably wasn't there even in 1953.
Recommended.
RAH