Mark Zimmer
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Jun 30, 1997
- Messages
- 4,318
OK, as promised, I'm reporting back on the R4, though Mark vdH has mostly beaten me on it.
This is a pretty good representation of the Coppola version. Running time is 3h:42m:42s, which differs from the 3h:55m by about the 4% PAL speedup, so as far as can tell it's a complete rendition of the Coppola cut. Much of the time action is visibly sped up, though there is one segment that runs in slow motion and looks very strange indeed; I don't recall this from 1981 but it certainly could have been there and I've just forgotten in the ensuing 22 years.
Video: Bit rate is about 2.5-4 Mbps. The picture is generally soft and contrasty, but on closeups there's good detail, texture and sharpness, so I expect that the issues are those present in the 1981 print. Several difficult-to-compress bits, such as the pillow fight at the boy's school, look pretty good. There's some heavy pixelation as Napoleon is rescued from the sea. Quite a few frames still exhibit printed-in damage. I didn't observe any obvious conversion artifacts, however, so this may be a native PAL transfer. Tinting is generally subtle and does not interfere substantially with the picture while nicely underlining the mood. On the whole, it looks about as good as I remember the 1981 release looking, so if you're tired of waiting for someone to clear the rights for the 5-hour version this isn't a bad choice. I've seen plenty of DVDs of silent films that look substantially worse.
As noted, the picture zooms out for the closing triptych (has anyone heard if Brownlow has ever recovered any of the others that were supposed to be in the film?), and it will read poorly on smaller 4:3 sets. It is about 3:1, as Mark notes, although some bits of the triptych where the sides are dark are again blown up to fill a larger portion of the screen. This is a good demonstration title for folks with the Malata and similar players that feature infinitely variable zoom.
Audio: The Coppola score sounds fairly shrill and thin and is lacking in deep bass presence; the drums are mixed rather too loud. Dennis James' organ score sounds decent but again is missing the gut-rattling bass one expects from a pipe organ. There are brief but distracting audio dropouts at 2h:26m and again 2m before the end.
There are no extras. Chaptering is absurdly thin, with only 19 stops for a movie that runs nearly four hours.
Every time I see this film, my jaw drops. It is an incredible piece of filmmaking, particularly for 1927, and Gance really pulls out the stops of technique here, out-Eisensteining Eisenstein.
This is a pretty good representation of the Coppola version. Running time is 3h:42m:42s, which differs from the 3h:55m by about the 4% PAL speedup, so as far as can tell it's a complete rendition of the Coppola cut. Much of the time action is visibly sped up, though there is one segment that runs in slow motion and looks very strange indeed; I don't recall this from 1981 but it certainly could have been there and I've just forgotten in the ensuing 22 years.
Video: Bit rate is about 2.5-4 Mbps. The picture is generally soft and contrasty, but on closeups there's good detail, texture and sharpness, so I expect that the issues are those present in the 1981 print. Several difficult-to-compress bits, such as the pillow fight at the boy's school, look pretty good. There's some heavy pixelation as Napoleon is rescued from the sea. Quite a few frames still exhibit printed-in damage. I didn't observe any obvious conversion artifacts, however, so this may be a native PAL transfer. Tinting is generally subtle and does not interfere substantially with the picture while nicely underlining the mood. On the whole, it looks about as good as I remember the 1981 release looking, so if you're tired of waiting for someone to clear the rights for the 5-hour version this isn't a bad choice. I've seen plenty of DVDs of silent films that look substantially worse.
As noted, the picture zooms out for the closing triptych (has anyone heard if Brownlow has ever recovered any of the others that were supposed to be in the film?), and it will read poorly on smaller 4:3 sets. It is about 3:1, as Mark notes, although some bits of the triptych where the sides are dark are again blown up to fill a larger portion of the screen. This is a good demonstration title for folks with the Malata and similar players that feature infinitely variable zoom.
Audio: The Coppola score sounds fairly shrill and thin and is lacking in deep bass presence; the drums are mixed rather too loud. Dennis James' organ score sounds decent but again is missing the gut-rattling bass one expects from a pipe organ. There are brief but distracting audio dropouts at 2h:26m and again 2m before the end.
There are no extras. Chaptering is absurdly thin, with only 19 stops for a movie that runs nearly four hours.
Every time I see this film, my jaw drops. It is an incredible piece of filmmaking, particularly for 1927, and Gance really pulls out the stops of technique here, out-Eisensteining Eisenstein.
