Raro Video

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Drucker
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Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Raro Video

#301 Post by Drucker » Wed Jun 18, 2014 6:08 pm

ellipsis7 wrote:Raro have done a nice job with the restored I VINTI materials in their new BR package... L'AMORE IN CITTA to follow likewise based on the evidence of the TENTATO SUICIDIO episode included on this disc...
Not according to DVD Beaver, they haven't.

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domino harvey
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Re: Raro Video

#302 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jun 18, 2014 6:10 pm

Holy smokes, the shot of the couple in the tall grass looks like a VHS rip!

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Drucker
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Re: Raro Video

#303 Post by Drucker » Wed Jun 18, 2014 6:16 pm

What happened to that woman's chin on the stairwell?

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jindianajonz
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Re: Raro Video

#304 Post by jindianajonz » Wed Jun 18, 2014 6:33 pm

domino harvey wrote:Holy smokes, the shot of the couple in the tall grass looks like a VHS rip!
It looks like they live in that world from What Dreams May Come where everything is made of smeared paint.

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TMDaines
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Re: Raro Video

#305 Post by TMDaines » Thu Jun 19, 2014 6:58 am

What a disaster. Can't say I'm surprised with Raro. As we keep highlighting, Conversation Piece was a similar scrubbed oil-painting disaster, but it seemingly got very good reviews.

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MichaelB
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Re: Raro Video

#306 Post by MichaelB » Thu Jun 19, 2014 7:12 am

On the other hand, the DVD looks pretty good, so I might well go for that!

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ellipsis7
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Re: Raro Video

#307 Post by ellipsis7 » Thu Jun 19, 2014 8:58 am

The edition to pick up on DVD is the original Italian Minerva Classic, which has all the same material plus a wealth of documents (including scripts, treatments, original Censor's report etc.) on DVD-Rom... Actually the BR in motion is not too bad, granted it could do with less DNR I guess...

The significance of I VINTI can be summarised;
1/. The prologue was imposed by the conservative Catholic Producers & is not the work of Antonioni... Thus a cautionary tale was implied in the face of the far more morally ambiguous attitude of the director to his material...
2/. The French section caused huge controversy and its ban in France due to the illegal portrayal of actual characters on screen. As a result, wary Producers would ensure that Truffaut's treatment of a similar real life crime in his initial outline for BREATHLESS would not see the light of day till Godard got to make it in 1960... As such, in style & content, the French section is seen as a precursor of the French New Wave...
3/. Repeated censorship and cuts at several script stages & then involving a major reshoot would transform the Italian episode from a politically charged story of a young Fascist (based on a true episode) to the rather bland tale of an errant smuggler. In the process Antonioni would learn some valuable lessons on elision...
4/. The English episode, a motiveless murder on a piece of scrub parkland bordered with picket fencing and beside a railway cutting, a crime teased out in dribs and drabs, the section finishing with a shot panning to a tennis match, is an early precursor to the elements of BLOW UP...
Last edited by ellipsis7 on Thu Jun 19, 2014 9:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

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domino harvey
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Re: Raro Video

#308 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jun 19, 2014 9:29 am

ellipsis7 wrote:2/. The French section caused huge controversy and its ban in France due to the illegal portrayal of actual characters on screen. As a result, wary Producers would ensure that Truffaut's treatment of a similar real life crime in his initial outline for BREATHLESS would not see the light of day till Godard got to make it in 1960...
Interesting! I've never heard of this policy, could you (or others who know) share a little more info on its implementation?

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ellipsis7
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Re: Raro Video

#309 Post by ellipsis7 » Thu Jun 19, 2014 9:37 am

See this piece for instance by Richard Brody in the New Yorker reviewing the I VINTI DVD...

Extracts...
In September, 1952, a man identified only as Monsieur I. brought a suit to demand that the French government seize a film then in production. The movie was called “Sans Amour” (“Without Love”), comprising three parts, all based on true stories, one of which was the notorious “affair of the J-3 of Melun,” a 1948 case in which a sixteen-year-old boy shot a classmate to death, ostensibly over a girl. Monsieur I. was the father of the girl, Nicole I. She had been convicted of complicity in the crime, but, because she was a minor, neither her name nor her “identity or personality” could legally be published. Monsieur I. accused the filmmaker, Michelangelo Antonioni, and his assistant director, Alain Cuny, of filming a story in which the girl would be identifiable.

The episode was shot and the three-part film was completed under the title “I Vinti” (“The Vanquished”). But Monsieur I. needn’t have worried: the French government soon took its own stringent measures against the episode. First, the export of the negative to Italy (where Antonioni was based) was banned; then, the export of the negative was permitted, but the episode itself was banned within France, because—as the critic Jean de Baroncelli wrote in Le Monde in 1963—“The Ministry of Justice opposes the realization of any screenplay that evokes a judicial affair that implicates people who are still living.” At the time, a decade after the movie’s completion, the ban was still in place.

~~~~~

In the mid-fifties, a Parisian critic in his early twenties, François Truffaut, was fascinated by a true-crime case from late 1952: a small-time criminal, Michel Portail, who was driving a stolen diplomatic car, shot and killed a motorcycle policeman who pulled him over, and became the object of a massive manhunt. He was captured in Paris. Truffaut witnessed the police roundups in the city, and his attention was piqued by a detail involving Portail’s American girlfriend. Truffaut was enthusiastic about turning the story into his first feature film, and worked it out with the help of his friend Jean-Luc Godard, but the censorship of the French episode of “I Vinti” made French producers worry about making another movie based on a recognizably familiar true-crime story. When, several years later, Truffaut got his chance with a producer, he turned his attention to another story, the quasi-autobiographical “The 400 Blows,” and after its successful screening at Cannes, in 1959, he passed the crime story along to Godard, who turned it into “Breathless.”
This is the original Le Monde story relating to the French episode of I VINTI from the archives (23.09.1952)...
Le père d'un des condamnés de " l'affaire des J 3 " va demander la saisie d'un film qui doit mettre en scène le meurtre d'Alain Guyader

LE MONDE | 23.09.1952 à 00h00 • Mis à jour le 23.09.1952 à 00h00

Le père de Nicole I., qui fut condamnée à trois ans de prison par le tribunal pour enfants de Melun pour complicité dans l'assassinat d'Alain Guyader, vient de demander à Me Jean-Louis Aujol d'introduire une instance en référé afin d'obtenir la saisie d'un film en cours de réalisation, dont une partie du scénario s'inspire directement de " l'affaire des J 3 ". Cette œuvre cinématographique, intitulée Sans amour, est en effet composée de trois sketches, dont l'un retrace les circonstances du crime commis dans le bois de Malnoue. Une actrice doit y tenir le rôle de Nicole I., et la photographie de cette interprète a été publiée a plusieurs reprises dans différents journaux. M. I. a estimé inadmissible une telle publicité, sa fille ayant été jugée à huis clos, ainsi que l'exige la loi quand il s'agit d'accusés âgés de moins de dix-huit ans au moment des faits.

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manicsounds
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Re: Raro Video

#310 Post by manicsounds » Sun Jul 06, 2014 8:45 am

Love in the City BD review at DVDBeaver

Yikes! Look at the kissing capture, her cheek! What happened to her cheek?

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Adam X
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Re: Raro Video

#311 Post by Adam X » Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:03 am

Stubble rash?

I'm really hoping Iguana turns out ok.
Raro seem to be one of those frustrating companies that have access to some interesting films, but sadly seem to lack the necessary technical skill or concern over the final product to continually do them justice.

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TMDaines
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Re: Raro Video

#312 Post by TMDaines » Thu Jul 10, 2014 5:59 am

Holy shit - what a mess.

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Drucker
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Re: Raro Video

#313 Post by Drucker » Fri Jul 25, 2014 12:34 pm

So Kino's Facebook page posted this regarding The Conformist:
We're very excited to be working on this new restoration with RaroVideo!
I replied, asking if it was the same transfer as the Arrow one, and their reply was:
This is based on the most recent restoration by the Cineteca Bologna.
Now I'm waiting to hear back if Kino or Raro are releasing it...

Edit: Raro is releasing it, but I guess that was already confirmed.

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L.A.
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Re: Raro Video

#314 Post by L.A. » Tue Aug 26, 2014 2:55 pm


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Ashirg
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Re: Raro Video

#315 Post by Ashirg » Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:43 pm

No date set yet, but I guess in November.

Image

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Graham
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2011 2:50 pm
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Raro Video

#316 Post by Graham » Thu Aug 28, 2014 1:50 pm

Finger crossed they don't screw up The Conformist. I have the Arrow blu but suspect it could be a lot better.
Last edited by Graham on Thu Aug 28, 2014 1:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AfterTheRain
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Re: Raro Video

#317 Post by AfterTheRain » Thu Aug 28, 2014 6:02 pm

I'm holding on to my DVD until I know for sure if the Blu will be worth the upgrade.

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Ashirg
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Re: Raro Video

#318 Post by Ashirg » Sun Aug 31, 2014 3:17 pm

Slaughter Hotel (announced previously as Asylum Erotica) is finally being released on November 18 on DVD and blu-ray
The Conformist is being released on November 25 on DVD and blu-ray

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L.A.
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Re: Raro Video

#319 Post by L.A. » Fri Oct 10, 2014 3:52 pm

Iguana @ 10K Bullets.

Calvin
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Re: Raro Video

#320 Post by Calvin » Sat Nov 01, 2014 8:27 pm


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captveg
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Re: Raro Video

#321 Post by captveg » Mon Nov 03, 2014 4:27 pm

"The color and densities mimic what I recall from dye transfer prints. Grain structure is perfect, as is shadow detail, with lovely rich blacks and pure whites.
Audio is superb."

"There is an overall lack of image stability, with way too much movement within the frame. In some instances I'm seeing image distortion, the cause of which I presume can be found in the original scanning, and potentially from movement during scans caused by timing notches."

Is he failing it for frame jitter and image stretching? That's what it sounds like at least.

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Drucker
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Re: Raro Video

#322 Post by Drucker » Mon Nov 03, 2014 4:38 pm

Now I really wish I'd gone to the restoration at Film Forum...he's saying the restoration and not just the disc sounds like a flub?

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captveg
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Re: Raro Video

#323 Post by captveg » Mon Nov 03, 2014 4:53 pm

Yeah, he just confirmed my assumption that it's a frame jitter / stretching issue and not a picture quality (colors, grain structure, etc.) issue. Did the Cineteca di Bologna, rather that Raro, screw up here?

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Raro Video

#324 Post by EddieLarkin » Mon Nov 03, 2014 4:55 pm

Check post #21 were he goes into more detail. He's referring to the QC of the scan itself being performed amateurishly, the actual grading of the transfer gets top marks. One should always keep in the mind that the stuff that bothers pre-eminent film preservationists aren't necessarily going to bother a typical consumer. As in some of his other reviews, Harris is railing against someone inexcusably performing a simple job half assedly, resulting in an otherwise perfect presentation no longer being perfect. Does that mean the transfer itself is an unwatchable mess? YMMV.

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captveg
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Re: Raro Video

#325 Post by captveg » Mon Nov 03, 2014 8:34 pm

A poster on HTF has confirmed these issues are present on the Japan release, which means that if someone watched that disc and didn't see it they've already overlooked it. So, Raro is definitely NOT the issue here. RH has now specifically laid blame at the scanning of film elements pre-restoration. So, there it is.

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