theonemacduff
Second Unit
It's nice to hear that the work is going forward, because I remember the vivid colours of the 35mm roadshow edition I saw in 1967, and which are, in many cases, missing from the Ruscico DVD, nice as that copy generally is. On the other hand, I wouldn't hold my breath as to quality of the scans – and do we know they will be 4K? I didn't see that figure in the linked Variety article – as Russian 65mm negative stock of that era, was not always the greatest. As to the overall softness of Soviet produced lenses, I don't have any specific information. When I first saw Andrei Rubilev theatrically, the black and white sections looked pretty crisp and detailed, but that's just the one film. I also, for a number of years, owned a Soviet 35mm SLR, and the coatings on that lens in particular tended to produce very contrasty images, so that in scans of film shot through it, it has proven very difficult to find much shadow detail. Take it fwiw.
