260 Eyes Without a Face

[swo17]

A major pro of the Criterion release is the gorgeous HD transfer of Le Sang des bêtes, which I'd only previously seen on well-worn 16mm.

But I already had the BD, so there's no reason for me to get the UHD.

The Umbrella has that too, but I don't know how the two transfers compare

[Stefan Andersson]

There is a book in French with the screenplay, including scenes cut during shooting and editing:
https://lechatquifume.myshopify.com/pro ... 439c&_ss=r

This book might be, wholly or partly, the same as the booklet in the Le chat qui fume edition. For contents of the booklet, go here:
https://testsbluray.com/2024/09/14/test ... ns-visage/
The booklet apparently has a lot of errors (mangled sentences) and needed more proofreading.

[tenia]

I'm fairly certain the Chat qui fume release still doesn't have the final music cue.

[hearthesilence]

A major pro of the Criterion release is the gorgeous HD transfer of Le Sang des bêtes, which I'd only previously seen on well-worn 16mm.

FWIW MoMA actually screened their 35mm print of this recently. But it was merely okay - the HD transfer on Criterion's Blu-ray actually looked much better.

[nicolas]

Does anyone know if the full final music cue is now present on the 4K? Gaumont truncated it severely for their HD master, which was replicated by the BFI and Criterion, apparently so that the audio could fade out at the same time as the image. It lessened the impact of the ending considerably.

I haven’t seen the film yet but just taken a look at the Criterion 4K for you and can confirm that there is music over black. Once the FIN card fades out, there’s ~9 seconds of music followed by three more seconds of silence.

PQ-wise, the Criterion is outstanding. Great master, finely grained and the encode renders it beautifully.

[nicolas]

Found a comparison among all the 4Ks: https://slow.pics/c/YLVgurlI (PQ) and https://slow.pics/c/nqU91GXV (AQ)

[hearthesilence]

Umbrella definitely looks worse. I'm not sure which one I'd go with, the BFI or Criterion.

[andyli]

I mentioned this before but do note for unknown reasons Umbrella tend to waste space on their UHD by encoding their video file at significantly lower bitrate than other labels. Eyes Without a Face takes up only ~45 GB of space out of (presumably) a BD66 disc.

[Tuppence]

Found a comparison among all the 4Ks: https://slow.pics/c/YLVgurlI (PQ) and https://slow.pics/c/nqU91GXV (AQ)

Thanks to nicolas for the confirmation on the Criterion (there should be 12 chords at the end, rather than Gaumont's truncation which takes it down to one) - from the audio waveforms seen above, it looks like the BFI has reinstated the full music cue at the end as well.