854 The Tree of Wooden Clogs

[Self]

Also added:

New introduction by filmmaker Mike Leigh

[Never Cursed]

Just saw the restoration at Film Forum. Those with fears of color-related or technical problems can (mostly) rest assured: the restoration looks fantastic. Despite the presence of a note at the start in which it is stated that "a new color pallette" was chosen for the film by Olmi, the colors for the film are extremely natural.

Snow is a brilliant white, grass is green instead of the ugly aquamarine seen in the trailer, and the film as a whole is clear, crisp, and detailed. The film was shot almost entirely with natural light, and as a result, some darker scenes can look odd, but I'm fairly certain that this is a result of the lighting.

The only problem with the look of the film is how some scenes are pretty clearly unfocused. This happens sporadically throughout the movie, but it is most noticeable on the boat trip towards the end of the film-several shots in the sequence are out of focus. This isn't that big a problem, and the vast majority of shots are in focus. Overall, it looks phenomenal.

[Never Cursed]

Beaver, looking a bit bluer (and more compressed) than I remember.

[tenia]

So, they heavily delayed the release to get the restoration fine tuned, and it still basically looks like any other yellowish cold Bologna restoration.

[domino harvey]

Jesus Christ it looks awful. What do restorers have against colors?

[tenia]

I think this has been our new magenta push for quite some years now (sadly).

(This and incorrect RGB range. I had again the case with the recent French BD release of Duvivier's Un carnet de bal. I thought I was going crazy, so I just screencapped the opening Gaumont logo and checked : the black background is at 15 and white font hovers around 239.)

What's more surprising here, however, is that when Criterion had an internal input on restorations, they were immune to that yellowish cold flat bias that too many Ritrovata restorations have. But it seems all good things come to an end.

[Michael Kerpan]

Jesus Christ it looks awful. What do restorers have against colors?

The Nouveaux DVD looks a LOT better. I'd rank acceptable color balance over resolution any day (maybe if I had a giant projector I'd feel differently).

[Minkin]

• New 4K restoration .... supervised by director Ermanno Olmi

Well, if you can't trust the director, then who can your trust? The other DVDs that didn't have any director input?

[domino harvey]

That's an intriguing defense of William Friedkin

[tenia]

• New 4K restoration .... supervised by director Ermanno Olmi

Well, if you can't trust the director, then who can your trust? The other DVDs that didn't have any director input?

It's all independant. In some absolute ways, I never saw any catalog movies (including through restorations that were deemed relatively faithful - I mean, not all restorations are MGM-pink decade old stuff -) before That Man from Rio in 2013. And now, all these flat yellow color-gradings are pouring from specific restoration houses. Why ?

So it's not a question of comparing with older DVDs, but how the new restoration intrinsequially look.

In some ways, when it comes to restorations coming from Bologna, I actually really do trust Lee Kline than the restorers and whoever supervised the restoration.

I believe that Wooden Clogs is the first Bologna 4K color-movie restoration where Criterion had an input and which yet has this "same as every other Bologna restoration" look. Or maybe Lee Kline actually had no input, and it's basically the same situation than for A Touch of Zen ? That would explain it.

As a more general point, I think we're all over the world way too indulgent with these yellower color timings. We're still very prompt to point out a magenta push, but I have yet to read a higher authoritative person (or, on the other end of the scope, a more global forum backlash) discuss in-depth why suddenly, since 2013, we're suddenly getting all these cold flat yellow movies (which seemingly don't have anything technical in common), mostly from Bologna and Eclair, and why this doesn't happen when label colorists or technical responsibles chime in (only when the lab colorists are doing the gradings).

I'm really afraid something absolutely wrong have been going on for about 3 years, and nothing really made anything to stop it, and we're now having our modern magenta push.

[Costa]

I was just looking at the screenshots of DVDbeaver without reading anything..
And i said : "Yeap! More likely Ritrovata" (or Eclair if it wasn't the first).
Then i read it...

When you know the studio that did the restoration just by looking at screenshots, you know the restoration is possibly not accurate!

(waiting patiently for the bluray.com moderators to suspend/ban a few that will dare to say that this is teal or possibly not true to the original colors)

Not sad, since I don't care for this film (yet, since I haven't seen it), but extremely sad about Indochine, which also has the same look and guess what.. Ritrovata again!!!

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/188799
(saw screenshots from the BLuray and they are the same with the trailer)

[Costa]

• New 4K restoration .... supervised by director Ermanno Olmi

Well, if you can't trust the director, then who can your trust? The other DVDs that didn't have any director input?

Something supervised by the director or another involved in the film crew member, isn't proof of the film's accuracy to its original look.
Directors change their minds too, as bluray history has shown, and can easily be influenced by the new "teal" trends.
Of course this could have happened also:
The director supervised a good looking transfer of the film, that was ruined by Ritrovata afterwards.
I mean, did he actually watch the entire film on the final bluray disc?

[Lowry_Sam]

Not sad, since I don't care for this film (yet, since I haven't seen it), but extremely sad about Indochine, which also has the same look and guess what.. Ritrovata again!!!

No!!! That looks terrible and definitely not how it looked when originally screened. I was eagerly anticipating this one.

[Costa]

Not sad, since I don't care for this film (yet, since I haven't seen it), but extremely sad about Indochine, which also has the same look and guess what.. Ritrovata again!!!

No!!! That looks terrible and definitely not how it looked when originally screened. I was eagerly anticipating this one.

yeah, I know.
I also saw the film on release and it definitely didn't look that way (although in that argument expect many to chime in and tell you that you can't possibly remember how a film looked 25 years ago), but I have the magazines of the era too with high quality screenshots of the movie (even 2 page ones) and definitely weren't like this.

[TMDaines]

This probably wouldn't feel so teal if you weren't comparing it to other much warmer-palletted screenshots. It's amazing how much you notice shifts in colour in comparisons or before/after changing the setting on your monitor, when in isolation they look completely normal.

[tenia]

I've never seen the movie before and didn't bother looking at the comparison screenshots. I could have written what I wrote just based on the title screenshot at the very beginning of the Beaver page.

Again, there is no need to compare the movie to previous releases, but rather to all the other yellow-ish restorations like Muriel, Ran, Your Vice is a Locked Door, A Touch of Zen / Dragon Inn, their recent Bruce Lee 4K restorations, A Better Tomorrow, Deep Red (original color grading, not the color-corrected version released by Arrow), Marriage Italian Style, and ma good chunk of the recent Gaumont / Eclair output (Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble, Alexandre le bienheureux, Il était une fois un flic, La valise, La chèvre, ...).

It's as if all these movies were shot on the same stock, with the same lighting material by the same DoP.

Like Costa said, we're now down to a point where it might be difficult to know who shot what with which material, but it's very easy to know where the color grading has been performed.

[Costa]

This probably wouldn't feel so teal if you weren't comparing it to other much warmer-palletted screenshots. It's amazing how much you notice shifts in colour in comparisons or before/after changing the setting on your monitor, when in isolation they look completely normal.

well, speaking for myself, I notice the teal even if I don't compare with anything.
For example, i had seen Criterion's Thief without having any previous knowledge of the movie and how it looked, and as I was watching it felt too teal to me and i immediately thought that this had to be a recent restoration following the trends.

When the Arrow version was released, I confirmed my thoughts.

[MichaelB]

For example, i had seen Criterion's Thief without having any previous knowledge of the movie and how it looked, and as I was watching it felt too teal to me and i immediately thought that this had to be a recent restoration following the trends.

When the Arrow version was released, I confirmed my thoughts.

Well, you're just wrong. The mighty Svet Atanasov says so, and all the reams of evidence that people have produced to the contrary (a director-approved laserdisc from the 1990s, the remarkable lack of comment about the film's bizarre colour scheme in contemporary reviews, Michael Mann's well-documented fondness for tinkering with his films even decades later) were clearly faked.

[Michael Kerpan]

Is there any quick and dirty way to adjust one's TV/monitor (that is easily reversible) to correct for these goofy color schemes?

[Drucker]

If you have multiple display settings, I figure take the settings you usually use, duplicate them into a different mode you rarely use, and then adjust color according to your preferences.

[nitin]

BR.com forum member 2-perf (a professional colorist) made some observations about what is potentially causing all of this in the Camera Obscura thread in the German sub-forum. The Camera Obscura insider pretty much confirmed the accuracy of those observations (in the context of The Bloodstained Butterfly's colour grading as can be seen on Arrow's release).

[TMDaines]

Could you please share a direct link?

[kuzine]

As I just looked it up: 2-perf's post

[nitin]

And the Camera Obscura insider's reply:

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p ... tcount=424" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[jsteffe]

I think there is solid logic behind Bologna's philosophy of trying to make their restorations look like original theatrical release prints, even if we may not agree with all of their individual choices in color timing.

I was a historical consultant on Bologna's restoration of the Armenian release version The Color of Pomegranates, and in that case they also timed the color to an early (original?) release print. I did not see the same print that they used (as far as I know), but I did see an early release print in the 1990s and I recall the color timing being distinctly different from later release prints of the Yutkevich version - among other things, it had a slightly more yellowish cast. I can see how they tried to arrive at a similar kind of look in their restoration. (In some ways I actually prefer the color on the later prints, but I respect their choice and the reasoning behind it.)

The Tree of Wooden Clogs seems like a different case, since according to the restoration credits Olmi requested the new color timing. I can't say that I prefer it compared to what I have seen in the past, but I'll have the opportunity to view the new Blu-ray on its own terms.