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A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Conformist -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Robert Harris

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I love Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist, which in many ways changed some of the ways that film was being viewed when it was released in 1970, in what I felt were dazzlingly beautiful dye transfer Technicolor prints, which brought Vittorio Storaro's imagery to the screen.

The new Blu-ray from Raro Video is purportedly a restoration.  The color and densities mimic what I recall from dye transfer prints.  Grain structure is perfect, as is shadow detail, with lovely rich blacks and pure whites.  

Audio is superb.

But then the problems creep in, and I see them as the basis of a failed restorative effort.

There is an overall lack of image stability, with way too much movement within the frame.  In some instances I'm seeing image distortion, the cause of which I presume can be found in the original scanning, and potentially from movement during scans caused by timing notches.

​Someone during QC really needed to go through this looking at the trees as opposed to the forest, and given failing grades for an imperfectly rendered image.

What is, at least to me, an absolutely gorgeous Blu-ray should go back to the drawing boards, to the original data files, and have imagery handled correctly.

One of the truly great films of the past decades should have been treated with far more respect.

Image - 2.5

Audio - 5

Pass / Fail - Fail

Needs more work before release.

RAH

 

Lord Dalek

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Another botched Italian restoration. Isn't it funny that the only good ones seem to be done by an American organization?
 

Robert Harris

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Lord Dalek said:
Another botched Italian restoration. Isn't it funny that the only good ones seem to be done by an American organization?
I don't believe it works that way. Much high end work going on around the world.

RAH
 

david hare

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Not again! The previous DVD and BD versions are all quite weak on color saturation and black levels, really just pale imitations of the original Tech prints. Raro has developed a lousy reputation for QC prior to this (e.g. Antonioni's I Vinti which is just a waxy DVNR'ed disaster:http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews37/i_vinti.htm.)I would have thought stabilization was a relatively mandatory and straightforward process at the scanning stage these days.
 

Powell&Pressburger

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Been waiting for news on this disc since it was announced. At this point I don't think I will ever buy a Raro BLU again. This could have been a great release for them but instead they squandered it and ruined it for the U.S. I wish Criterion could have received the U.S. rights for this film. Huge mistake for Raro this release is going to hurt them a lot more than help them.
 

Robert Harris

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Powell&Pressburger said:
Been waiting for news on this disc since it was announced. At this point I don't think I will ever buy a Raro BLU again. This could have been a great release for them but instead they squandered it and ruined it for the U.S. I wish Criterion could have received the U.S. rights for this film. Huge mistake for Raro this release is going to hurt them a lot more than help them.
I'd not place the blame totally on Raro, which should have rejected the way the transfer was handled. It goes back to how things began. Huge pity, as this is an extremely important film.RAH
 

EddieLarkin

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Robert, could the image distortion and stability issues be corrected/alleviated on the master if a different label were to get a hold of it, and were willing?
 

FanboyZ

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Raro basicly is garbage dumping bin for rejected would be Blue Underground titles. As in they churn out mainly things that Blue Undergorund thinks were too LVR'ish to release.

It's too bad about the Il Conformista because I was pretty sure that it would be licensed to Raro from a more competant outfit.
 

McCrutchy

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Powell&Pressburger said:
Been waiting for news on this disc since it was announced. At this point I don't think I will ever buy a Raro BLU again. This could have been a great release for them but instead they squandered it and ruined it for the U.S. I wish Criterion could have received the U.S. rights for this film. Huge mistake for Raro this release is going to hurt them a lot more than help them.
I have to agree. I remember Raro's first BD, a near flawless presentation of Fellini's The Clowns, and how optimistic I was that this would be the dawn of a great Blu-ray label for Italian and foreign cinema. Unfortunately, Raro have failed to live up to the promise of their initial offering.

Unfortunately, almost every release after that has been victimized by overzealous digital manipulation. Murder Obsession was the last release I bought without waiting for a review--and the last Raro release I bought. It was promptly re-sold, because the DNR turned the image to paste.

I understand that some releases are damaged before Raro gets access, but aside from that, once they got wind of the issues, at a certain point, they have to take responsibility for the poor high-definition masters that they keep putting out, both in the US and in Italy.

There was a dedicated campaign on Raro's Facebook page to get them to do The Conformist right, and it's a crying shame that they have not.
 

Robert Harris

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EddieLarkin said:
Robert, could the image distortion and stability issues be corrected/alleviated on the master if a different label were to get a hold of it, and were willing?
One should go back to the .dpx files. No problem with color, densities, etc. Looks great.
 

Angelo Colombus

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Was going to buy the Arrow blu-ray but have been reading the reviews and most say there are small stability issues and a soft shaky image so i will keep my Paramount dvd for now and wait for a better blu-ray release...maybe by Criterion?
 

david hare

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Robert Harris said:
One should go back to the .dpx files. No problem with color, densities, etc. Looks great.
Trouble in instances like this where the faults lie in the 2k (or 4k) master is once somebody at Raro signs off on it that's usually the end of the matter. You've done your dough so to speak. This should have been picked up at QC stage but perhaps they don't have anyone doing that function?


Look, if people make enough noise about it somebody will eventually leak the authoring house who were responsible for the master. It worked for us (a band of four people ) when we persuaded Gaumont to withdraw their first 2k of Madame de in October 2013 and completely remaster the 2k at Lab Éclair to allow a corrected 1080p HD encode for the postponed 2014 French BD.

It'aint impossible but on the Madame de case M. Soulet at Gaumont was extremely attentive to what we were saying, and he is the Head of HV for a very large International Film Company, with the clout to match. That's not always the case.
 

bgart13

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I thought that the Italian master they ended up using was supposed to be stunning?
 

Peter Neski

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This is a real Shame , I didn't understand why they got hold of This Important release ,I guess Criterion had there hands full with a whole bunch of lesser
films ,Or Those bozos at Viacom got cash,who knows ,but I doubt they are going to fix the problems ,they don't seem like that big a operation
 

Martin_Teller

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Cancelled my pre-order, glad I hadn't yet sold off my Paramount DVD. I'll wait until someone does it right... or until I get region-free player, whichever comes first.
 

schan1269

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Martin_Teller said:
Cancelled my pre-order, glad I hadn't yet sold off my Paramount DVD. I'll wait until someone does it right... or until I get region-free player, whichever comes first.
What???No multi region BD player???
 

bugsy-pal

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I'd really like to know how this compares to the UK Arrow BD release. I own that disc and it's an improvement over the US DVD, but it doesn't seem that great a transfer to me.
 

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