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Chimes at Midnight -- Newly Discovered Print and Restoration (1 Viewer)

JoeDoakes

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I saw this years ago on VHS. My recollection is that it was the best of the Welles Shakespeare adaptations so hopefully something comes of this. I have read, somewhere, that there may be legal issues regarding who owns the copyright. Don't know if that's correct.
 

Josh Steinberg

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I'm a little confused... the Film Forum ran an Orson Welles retrospective last month (January 2015) and during that time they showed something that was billed as being a "new restoration" of "Chimes at Midnight" via a new DCP. If a new restoration was already performed in recent years and a new DCP already exists, what's this guy talking about? If a new restoration exists, what's the point in scanning an old print? Even if it is newly discovered, you'd think a new restoration that was just completed would have taken care of whatever needed taking care of.
 

WadeM

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Josh Steinberg said:
I'm a little confused... the Film Forum ran an Orson Welles retrospective last month (January 2015) and during that time they showed something that was billed as being a "new restoration" of "Chimes at Midnight" via a new DCP. If a new restoration was already performed in recent years and a new DCP already exists, what's this guy talking about? If a new restoration exists, what's the point in scanning an old print? Even if it is newly discovered, you'd think a new restoration that was just completed would have taken care of whatever needed taking care of.

I just saw this and edited my first response:

According to Robert Harris here http://www.hometheat...es-at-midnight/


"This film may be in need of a clean-up for dirt, but there is no reason to spend money on a restoration.

Fine quality elements survive."


We need a high quality blu-ray, which to my knowledge, doesn't exist.
 

Josh Steinberg

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WadeM said:
I just saw this and edited my first response:

According to Robert Harris here http://www.hometheat...es-at-midnight/


"This film may be in need of a clean-up for dirt, but there is no reason to spend money on a restoration.

Fine quality elements survive."


We need a high quality blu-ray, which to my knowledge, doesn't exist.

True and agreed, a nice looking Blu-ray would be fantastic. It would seem that if a new restoration was completed, and a new DCP was made, that whatever was used for the DCP could also be used for a Blu-ray. I guess it's more of a question of rights and clearances than elements.


As fascinating as I find the original article posted here, I don't understand what the people who wrote that article are going for. The film apparently doesn't need a restoration, as per both Mr. Harris' comments quoted above and the recent Film Forum presentation of a new restoration just last month. So why are the people in the article spending money to do 4K transfers from a print, for a movie they don't own the rights to, for a movie that isn't in need of restoration? (Even weirder that they mention the Film Forum screening of the restoration and then quickly dismiss it because they didn't attend.) They strike me as well-intentioned but maybe misinformed.
 

david hare

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There was (still is) a very high quality PAL DVD released, but only for a short time by Studio Canal in France back mid 2000s. The source for this print was in prime condition and would have provided a splendid basis for a Blu Ray or DCP. No restoration required. This disc was withdrawn from sale after only a few months on the shelves. The image is razor sharp and there is negligible surface print damage, my only issue was that Canal had matted it to 1.85, which when compared to a far inferior DVD released by Suevia label in Spain the previous year in a frankly better 1.66 ratio looks a little too tight on low angle wide shots which seem routinely composed to include ceilings and roof spaces. (We can all have a civilized discussion about a correct AR for this once we actually get these discs into the open.) The audio as was so much the case with Othello (on all its version including the superior Venice 1952 cut) is a bit all over the place for synch. The reason both these discs are OOP is two words: the energetically litigious Beatrice Welles and her ambitious attorney.


If that print has now been rescued from a black hole for the new DCP I would be very happy. Or is this something else altogether? And is Beatrice still prosecuting her "case"?
 

Josh Steinberg

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Hi David.. unfortunately I wasn't able to attend the Film Forum screening, but here's what was printed in their calendar about it:

"DCP Restoration courtesy Filmoteca Española"
 

david hare

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well, well.....


Who knows what if anything BW is doing about it. She has always been the fly in the ointment. And of course thanks to her intransigence Wildside France was unable to properly curate their Othello last year to include the far superior 52 Venice/Euro cut. There are three cuts of this in fact, but you are talking about back channels to actually see them...


Josh, can you confirm the AR or didn't they advertise it? It can work in 1.85 but I'm not convinced it should. I saw it on first theatrical in Oz 1966 in Academy! I am sure that's wrong but it was an dedicated arthouse theatre and the print was held by a small distributor and almost certainly came without anything remotely like masking instructions, etc.
 

Josh Steinberg

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david hare said:
Josh, can you confirm the AR or didn't they advertise it?

Hi David, I wasn't there and I don't see anything in the text of the calendar - they don't usually note aspect ratios in their publication unless there's some special reason to (for instance, one of the rare films that was shot both scope and flat).


When I saw "Othello" there last spring, the BW "restoration" version on a newly created 4K DCP, that was projected at 1:33.1. But no idea what it would have been for this one, I'm afraid. I'm a little bummed I didn't get to go, it was playing during one of the nights I had to work that week, so I had to miss it. Next time? I know the show must have sold out, because I got an email about a second one being added (still at a time I couldn't go, but I'm just very happy that people still care about Orson Welles films).
 

Angelo Colombus

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Do have the PAL Mr. Bongo dvd release from 2012 and it is a big improvement over the Spanish release and it is framed at 1:85.
 

david hare

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This sounds like a port of the Studio Canal I recall it was described as such.


Josh, yes Othello is Academy Ratio, but I was meaning Chimes in the second para and which exact widescreen ratio was preferred for that.
 

Josh Steinberg

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david hare said:
This sounds like a port of the Studio Canal I recall it was described as such.


Josh, yes Othello is Academy Ratio, but I was meaning Chimes in the second para and which exact widescreen ratio was preferred for that.

Oh totally, that was just all I had to go by.
 

david hare

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I've just heard from someone who's totally reliable on these things and who has handled several 16 and 35 prints of Chimes over the years that they were hard matted to 1.66. That satisfies me, and confirms what I thought about the framing from the Suevia disc (despite the poor image quality.) The 35mm fine grain they apparently used for the DCP has been known about for some time, and there is at least one other in the Cineteca Espanola so I understand this is not really "news". (At least to collectors.) Just as RAH pointed out last year.


So long as they have legal approval to release it , this is however really Good News!
 

ShellOilJunior

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The article talks about how great this print looks but what I'm most interested in is how it sounds.


I've seen this film in two formats: US DVD and a 35 mm print (Owned by a collector). Each presentation offered below average audio - it was often very difficult to discern what characters were saying.


I hope someone can shed light on this.
 

david hare

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I don't know if Cineteca Espagnola did this with their 4k but the audio needs some very sensitively handled restoration and retiming work for the dialogue, some of which is wild track, some post recorded but the majority of which is incorrectly synched to image in shot after shot. This being Shakespeare and all you do tend to see actors' faces every time there's a line reading and it's always been a real drawback. THe clarity was also an issue on the prints I've ever seen. I don't know intimate details but the original post production must have been horribly rushed, with the usual Wellesian financial catastrophes looming over it all.


It would be doubly wonderful if the new DCP addressed this.
 

Robert Harris

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david hare said:
I don't know if Cineteca Espagnola did this with their 4k but the audio needs some very sensitively handled restoration and retiming work for the dialogue, some of which is wild track, some post recorded but the majority of which is incorrectly synched to image in shot after shot. This being Shakespeare and all you do tend to see actors' faces every time there's a line reading and it's always been a real drawback. THe clarity was also an issue on the prints I've ever seen. I don't know intimate details but the original post production must have been horribly rushed, with the usual Wellesian financial catastrophes looming over it all.

It would be doubly wonderful if the new DCP addressed this.
I believe more than some is wild...
 

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