Bikey wrote:** Though we have put this disclaimer on the sleeve the film actually looks pretty good for a piece of work that is 47 years old.
I watched it last night, and agree with this. Although the definition is admittedly closer to VHS than DVD, and it was clearly sourced from analogue tape (there are unmistakable onscreen glitches betraying as much), it's all perfectly watchable and I found it very easy to tune out any problems, especially as the film itself is so engrossing. The aspect ratio is 4:3, which I believe to be the original - that's in line with the vast majority of other Czech films of the era, and there were no compositional eccentricities to indicate cropping.
I think the crucial point is that Second Run don't seem to have added any further problems when mastering it to DVD - there were no digital artefacting issues to speak of, and the subtitles are, as ever, clear, idiomatic, well-timed and removable. I can't help contrasting it with Facets' treatment of similar early-1960s Czech titles like
Black Peter and
Pearls of the Deep, where on top of poor source materials, they added a riot of digital noise and hideous, overlarge, typo-ridden, non-removable and (most damagingly) poorly-synchronised yellow subtitles - as a result turning something that was probably quite watchable (if scarcely state of the art) into a complete disaster area.
I'm also inclined to be nicer to Second Run because they've been honest enough to warn customers in advance - on both the website and the back of the box. And I really do sympathise with them re materials, as I've spent the past few months dealing with assorted Eastern European rightsholders myself, and know only too well what it feels like to be sent sub-standard masters and be told that there isn't anything better (or, to cite a genuine excuse I was given, that the original negative is "too fragile" to risk a fresh transfer, even if I was more than happy to pay for one). Even if you don't believe a word of it, if you're operating on tight budgets and deadlines, what can you do?
(Dare I suggest that this might also be why Criterion's Czech New Wave titles are less than stellar, at least in comparison with their usual standards? I haven't seen their
Closely Watched Trains in ages, but I distinctly recall severe tramlining of a kind that could easily have been removed if they'd had access to 35mm originals and could wet-gate them during the telecine. And I notice their website merely says "new digital transfer", which suggests that the master originated elsewhere.)
