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Press Release Criterion Press Release: Mildred Pierce (1945) (4k UHD Combo) (1 Viewer)

RobertMG

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I have the old dvd can this be considered film noir?
 
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benbess

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Based on the good but not great overall quality of the earlier Criterion blu-ray, I think the original negative of this film is no longer in existence. And a few scenes in the previous Criterion blu-ray are really rather weak. Although this movie is a key film noir, I don't right now see how there's a need for a 4k without the OCN to provide something like 4k of picture quality. But I will read the reviews and keep an open mind.
 

Derrick King

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Most of the film was from the OCN. From the Blu-ray insert:
This new digital transfer was created in 4K resolution on a Lasergraphics Director film scanner at Motion Pictures Imaging in Burbank, California, primarily from the 35mm original nitrate camera negative. Some sequences, including the entire last reel of the film, were scanned from a 35mm nitrate fine-grain master held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and a 35mm safety fine-grain master. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, and warps were manually removed using MTI Film's DRS, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for jitter, flicker, small dirt, grain, and noise management.
 

Nick*Z

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If it equals "Casablanca" then it's worth it to me. With that said, it's a 4K title I can wait for B&N or Criterion sales.
The standard Criterion, while solid, had a few digital anomalies unlikely to be corrected in the 4K as Criterion has NOT advertised this as being derived from a new native 4K scan, as Warner's did with their newly minted Casablanca, which was from a new 4K scan derived from a new master.

Criterion's been steadily losing my respect. They've pretty much been hit or miss on extras for classics. Leave Her To Heaven was just a bare bones reissue. Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet just had a pair of vintage interviews (that pretty much debunk the recent sexual harassment claims made by its costars) and a trailer.

This latter release in particular ought to have been a deluxe edition with extensive new content provided by Criterion (which is what they used to do, provide video essays home grown under their own label that were comprehensive and well worth the coin). I mean, they didn't even include anything better than an excerpt from the feature-length Zefferelli documentary. Why? Dumb.

Criterion also persists in marketing new releases derived from 2K scans when pretty much 4K scans (even if they get dumbed down to 1080p) are the norm. They just seem like a distributor too eager to get their hands on content which may be of questionable quality and then aggressively market it as part of their 'indie/arthouse' following. Le cercle rouge from Criterion in 4K was a disaster!

Mildred Pierce is a much beloved at my house. But like The Philadelphia Story, and, Now Voyager, Criterion was cribbing from a master that was considerably older than this disc's release date, provided to them by Warners. While all the masters were solid, they also contained minute digital anomalies that ought to have been corrected by WB before being ported over to Criterion.

At the time, I suspect the agreement between WB and Criterion was something along the lines of how can we get more vintage product out to the public without doing any of the necessary heavy lifting to upgrade the masters first. WB has some solid masters still kicking about, like Alice Adams and Little Women (Hepburn version - neither still not available in hi-def).

But if you're expecting Mildred Pierce in 4K to look as good as WB's Casablanca, think again. Not with the master currently licensed to Criterion!
 
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Patrick McCart

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I don't get why Criterion is expected to re-do a 4K restoration from 2017. There's stellar UHDs using 4K masters created back in 2009-2012 worked on by the same crew. The Blu-ray looks fantastic, but Mildred Pierce has quite a lot of opticals that are probably being perceived as being lower quality.
 

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