Ludwig

[tenia]

Will the hour-long documentary portrait of Visconti be the same than the one included in MoC's Rocco and his brothers release ?

[TMDaines]

My understanding is it is.

[charal]

Both LUDWIG and STORY OF SIN are yet to show up on amazon uk. It has been up for preorder in the US for over a week. Is there any reason for the delay? When I emailed Arrow they said it should show up at amazon a week after their preorder but still no show.

[R0lf]

(They want to get the instant money from the store and the U.S. market booked in because the Amazon UK orders will hit after the pound goes to nothing post BREXIT means hard BREXIT in March.)

[Ribs]

(£25 is still going to be £25 in March, regardless of how much the exchange rate changes)

[PianoMan88]

Ludwig is up for pre-order now at Amazon UK! \:D/

[Ribs]

Looks like this set has been pushed back 3 weeks to March 27.

[kekid]

Looks like this set has been pushed back 3 weeks to March 27.

That date is two days from today, and I have seen no review yet.
Did I miss an announcement of further delay?

[Ribs]

No, it's currently in stock at the Arrow store. It may have even started shipping out, but I can't vouch for that as I ordered it together with something else that shipped in January so I don't get a dispatch notice.

[Cronenfly]

Mine shipped today from Amazon UK, maybe it is just taking a while for reviewers to peruse what looks to be a pretty lengthy set to get through?

[MichaelB]

Story of Sin came out a fortnight ago, and there have been very few reviews. Again, it's a substantial package to get through.

[bearcuborg]

Got mine this afternoon. Nice to see them use a legit cardboard box instead of that flimsy paper AMAZON uses.

[j99]

What an excellent release this is, and one I have been waiting for several years, so as to replace my ghastly Infinity Arthouse dvd. Essential purchase for any Visconti admirers out there, and for only £19.99. Release of the year so far (along with the Napoleon box).

[Emilio]

Reviews and notes are appearing on the interweb, such as:

http://caps-a-holic.com/c_list.php?c=3557" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Ludwig-Bl ... 38/#Review" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.filmdispenser.com/the-b-movi ... w-academy/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[MichaelB]

(They want to get the instant money from the store and the U.S. market booked in because the Amazon UK orders will hit after the pound goes to nothing post BREXIT means hard BREXIT in March.)

...which didn't happen in the end.

The crucial difference being that the markets had had months to prepare for this, whereas last June's plunge in the value of the pound was an instant reaction to a shocking and unexpected event.

[med]

Reviews and notes are appearing on the interweb, such as:
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Ludwig-Bl ... 38/#Review

Helmut Berger: The Mad King (1080p; 16:05) is a 2016 interview with Helmut Berger, who has frankly not aged all that well

Thanks for the heads up, Jeff.

[ng4996]

Beaver

[M Sanderson]

Thoughts on the transfer? Anyone watched it?

Still deciding whether to buy this one as some restorations of colour movies out of Italy (Conversation Piece, Property is no Longer Theft, Solange, Your Vice is a Locked Room) are a risk due to jaundiced appearance or being coloured incorrectly.

[jsteffe]

Thoughts on the transfer? Anyone watched it?

Still deciding whether to buy this one as some restorations of colour movies out of Italy (Conversation Piece, Property is no Longer Theft, Solange, Your Vice is a Locked Room) are a risk due to jaundiced appearance or being coloured incorrectly.

I wouldn't say that it's jaundiced at all. The image has well-balanced color and marvelous detail. The DVD Beaver screencaps give you some idea what the restoration looks like, if not its full effect. Combined with the English-language soundtrack portions (actually most of the film), it's a revelation. Purchase without hesitation!

[tenia]

Yes, I was wrong saying it's jaundiced but it clearly seems very often too bright.

[TMDaines]

The thing about the jaundice in many of the screenshots of new releases is that it is highly exaggerated when shown next to caps of previous releases. You're never going to notice this when watching the film in isolation. You can test this by just tweaking the colour on your monitor ever so slightly. It's incredibly noticeable for a couple of hours, but then your eyes no longer notice.

[tenia]

I never saw before most of the movies I'm now discovering through these new restorations-on-BD and yet, the yellow-ish bias and the poor black levels are always very perceptible to me, even with a lack of a previous reference.

That was the case for Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, What Have You Done to Solange? (despite some corrections made for the Arrow release), Mariage Italian Style, A Touch of Zen, Dragon Inn, Death Walks on High Heels / Death Walks at Midnight, The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave / The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, The Bloodstained Butterly, The Tree of Wooden Clogs and Fist of Fury (Shout! color corrected the new Bruce Lee 4K restos for their recent BD releases).

It also was the case for Ran, though it wasn't restored by L'immagine Ritrovata but Eclair. I was left also quite unconvinced by some Pathé or Gaumont restorations which also have some questionable color-timings.

The only movies I watched already before watching it again through a new restoration were Deep Red (its new color timing was so bad it had to be corrected for Arrow's 2016 re-release) and A Better Tomorrow.

However, you're right in saying that the human eye will accomodate quite quickly to this color bias.



But in any case, about Ludwig, the yellow-ish bias seems absent anyway, I spoke too fast here, but the weirdly elevated black levels are what reminded me spontaneously of the questionable Bologna color-timings. Moreover, Deep Red also was restored at Technicolor Roma (like Ludwig).

[jsteffe]

Ludwig doesn't look overly bright to me. A large number of scenes were filmed with strong studio lighting, but there are also quite a few scenes that are more shadowy and have appropriate black levels. What I see is a wide range of light and dark scenes in the film. It looks absolutely fine on my television.

I will say that the cinematography, while very fine, is perhaps not on the level of The Leopard, but it's also a different kind of film.

[tenia]

Hmmm OK, I see what you're saying and how that might have given me the wrong impression.

[M Sanderson]

So Ludwig doesn't have the issues that many of us have found incredibly distracting in such releases as Solange, Conversation Piece, Bloodstained Butterfly, etc etc?

At the moment just about any restored Italian film in colour seems to be at risk - the reason for my asking, not because of any screenshots.

I did, however, find Arrow's recent Deep Red an outstanding transfer even if it wasn't accurate to the original colour scheme. I couldn't watch the other above films, though. (Conversely, black and white films have yielded amazing results with Hands over the City, Salvatore Giuliano and L'assassino although Rocco & his Brothers is flawed.)

Not expecting Ludwig to look like The Leopard. Ludwig has little motion, is deliberately cramped to show the suffocating effect of tradition and ritual and routine on the title character - and has a very unsettling feel, almost Gothic, a suggestion of horror, at times.

So it's just been brightened a bit? Reviews are strong so I'm hopeful about this release.