- Joined
- Feb 8, 1999
- Messages
- 17,037
- Real Name
- Robert Harris
John Ford's 1962 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is one of the great films.
Beautifully photographed in startling black & white by William Clothier. Decent cast.
Wonderful story.
But while much of the home theater crowd is probably going to love what Paramount has done here, I'm hating everything that I'm seeing.
The image is very clean and stable. Beautiful black & white, and very reminiscent of the way that it looked on film.
And yet, this isn't film, and looks nothing like it, even though with 4k UHD we're able to get closer to and not further away from the real thing.
Mr. Clothier's work has been totally de-grained, making it look like some sort of low-end data, and then smeared with video noise in an apparent nod toward those who desire that "film" look.
But here's the rub.
It's not just that the image has been de-grained, but either somewhere in the de-graining or digital clean-up, swirling patterns of amoebae have been rendered in skies and neutral areas, and they swim about, presumably having fun.
Sometimes the noise appears almost normal. Almost believable.
Sometimes it goes away entirely, and is fully grainless.
Sometimes it turns into them swirling creatures.
The legend is that Paramount is capable of doing beautiful restoration work. I'm thinking back to the work from the likes of Ron Smith.
I no longer believe it, but what the heck...
"Print the legend."
Image – 2.5 (Dolby Vision)
Audio – 5 (Dolby TrueHD 5.1 & Mono)
Pass / Fail – Fail
Plays nicely with projectors - Best not to enlarge it
Upgrade from Blu-ray - Absolutely not
Makes use of and works well in 4k - 1
Unfortunate, except for those who don't like the look of cinema.
I'd like to see this disc recalled and replaced by something respectful of the filmmakers, who are all apparently deemed worthless by the studio.
RAH
Beautifully photographed in startling black & white by William Clothier. Decent cast.
Wonderful story.
But while much of the home theater crowd is probably going to love what Paramount has done here, I'm hating everything that I'm seeing.
The image is very clean and stable. Beautiful black & white, and very reminiscent of the way that it looked on film.
And yet, this isn't film, and looks nothing like it, even though with 4k UHD we're able to get closer to and not further away from the real thing.
Mr. Clothier's work has been totally de-grained, making it look like some sort of low-end data, and then smeared with video noise in an apparent nod toward those who desire that "film" look.
But here's the rub.
It's not just that the image has been de-grained, but either somewhere in the de-graining or digital clean-up, swirling patterns of amoebae have been rendered in skies and neutral areas, and they swim about, presumably having fun.
Sometimes the noise appears almost normal. Almost believable.
Sometimes it goes away entirely, and is fully grainless.
Sometimes it turns into them swirling creatures.
The legend is that Paramount is capable of doing beautiful restoration work. I'm thinking back to the work from the likes of Ron Smith.
I no longer believe it, but what the heck...
"Print the legend."
Image – 2.5 (Dolby Vision)
Audio – 5 (Dolby TrueHD 5.1 & Mono)
Pass / Fail – Fail
Plays nicely with projectors - Best not to enlarge it
Upgrade from Blu-ray - Absolutely not
Makes use of and works well in 4k - 1
Unfortunate, except for those who don't like the look of cinema.
I'd like to see this disc recalled and replaced by something respectful of the filmmakers, who are all apparently deemed worthless by the studio.
RAH
Last edited:
