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Cropped or open matte? Sony has been known to release open matte on DVD before (R1 Anatomy of a Murder) whereas I don't know if they've ever released a cropped film that was originally projected with a matte.

Okay, I think this seals it.

Japanese dvd:



My cap from the original Italian disc:


And off to ebay it must go...

Screenshots of the German "StudioCanal Collection" Blu-ray (region "B" only) of Visconti's "Senso". Only French and German subtitles, no English ones, with Italian, French and German audio tracks. It's from the "StudioCanal, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia/Cineteca Nazionale and Cineteca di Bologna L’Immagine Ritrovata" restoration.

Agh, look beautiful. So Studio Canal don't have the UK rights to this (hence no English subs?) One for Masters of Cinema then, perhaps?

Nothing wrote:Agh, look beautiful. So Studio Canal don't have the UK rights to this (hence no English subs?) One for Masters of Cinema then, perhaps?

They do. It was released by Optimum on SD and it will get a Blu release later this year.

Maybe, let's see... I went for Studo Canal SENSO Blu, and have just watched it through this evening (with French subs) on the big screen - a truly magnificent experience!.. It is such a great film, and Visconti on such top form, his operatic style manifest in a quality only second to THE LEOPARD... Noticed in the HD image a marvellously composed shot at the beginning - in the theatrical box, the Countess adjusts herself in the mirror, various officers are apparent in the reflection, and suddenly the curtain on the stage rises across the entire background of the reflection, as the next act starts... Never noticed that before...

David, it's not absolutely perfect -there's occasionally very slight edging when the 3 strips are not exactly aligned, and the colours are still slightly desaturated at times, black levels not always completely optimum -but there's a really tactile texture to the Blu, and the experience is so much richer than the Optimum DVD, and I guess also the improved Cristaldi dvd, which I've not seen... With the Blu you get the full operatic experience...

From Carlotta :

August 18th :

Tommaso wrote:Okay, I think this seals it.

Japanese dvd:



My cap from the original Italian disc:

Too bad for the Italian Sony DVD. The restoration was excellent, but with this unforgiven cropped version we lost all the beautiful cinematography of this movie. For instance, when Jean Sorel tries to "borrow" Sandra (Claudia Cardinale)'s ring, all the architectural backrgound of this scene is totally ruined because of the cropping.

but...
Sony/Criterion gave us a stunning Repulsion... there's no chance of a Sony/Criterion Sandra on blu ? [-o< [-o<

Ossessione € 6.99 (film and bonus with English and French subs)

Medusa (Italy) has announced Visconti's "The Leopard" for BD in November 17th. I'm curious to see if they will use the 2010 restoration from The Film Foundation

Il Gattopardo [Italy, 1963]
Tratto dal romanzo di Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.
Regia: Luchino Visconti
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon, Paolo Stoppa, Rina Morelli, Romolo Valli, Terence Hill, Pierre Clémenti



La Sicilia del 1860 viene sconvolta dall’annuncio dello sbarco garibaldino. Il principe don Fabrizio di Salina sceglie per l’annessione del proprio feudo di Donnafugata allo Stato Sabaudo. Inoltre favorisce il fidanzamento del nipote Tancredi con la bella Angelica Sedàra, figlia di un ricco parvenu. Il nipote inizia così la propria scalata sociale nel nuovo ordine, mentre lo zio preferisce restare legato alla tradizione. Unico baluardo di un mondo in via di dissoluzione, il principe sente forte il senso della fine, e quando durante il ballo, per festeggiare la scongiurata rivoluzione, si vede attorniato da gente ormai troppo diversa da lui si rassegna a morire. Critica al trasformismo della classe politica, pronta a indossare l’habitus nuovo per inscenare la solita storia, “se vogliamo che tutto rimanga com’è, bisogna che tutto cambi”, il film di Luchino Visconti è perfetto nella ricostruzione storica. Palma d’Oro al Festival di Cannes.

Lingue principali: Italiano / Audio Italiano: 2.0 DTS-HD
Sottotitoli principali: Italiano per non udenti, Inglese per non udenti
Rapporto schermo: 2.35:1 Anamorfico

Extra
Intervista esclusiva al produttore Goffredo Lombardo
Speciale: Il Gattopardo - Un viaggio nella memoria
Documentario sul restauro con intervista a Giuseppe Rotunno
Cinegiornale
Cinecronaca
Galleria dei bozzetti dei costumi di Piero Tosi
Galleria fotografica
Galleria fotografica delle scenografie di Mario Garbuglia
Libro de "Il Gattopardo" di Tomasi di Lampedusa.

PD: How they made that cover so poorly designed!!??

Rocco and His Brothers Blu-ray Coming Up




This winter, French distributors TF1 Video will release on Blu-ray Luchino Visconti's acclaimed Rocco e i suoi fratelli a.k.a Rocco and His Brothers (1960), starring Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale, Renato Salvatori, Annie Girardot, and Nino Castelnuovo. In 1960, the film won Special Prize and FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice Film Festival. Street date is December 7th.

In the U.S., Rocco and His Brothers is currently out of print (the last DVD release was produced by Image Entertainment). In the UK, the film is distributed by Eureka Entertainment and is currently available on DVD as part of the Masters of Cinema series.

An opportunity for MoC to upgrade to dual format?

Any reviews of the Australian blu-ray?

Australian reviewers are slack. I'll keep an eye out for it in my local rentals (they're reasonably good) if it pops up I'll let you know how it looks in comparison.

Any news on Rocco's BluRay?

Does anyone know when this will be released?

Le streghe (THE WITCHES, United Artist) has been released on a poor DVD here in Spain by a strange company that we don't know where they get their films. Review

Le streghe is on USA ala demande !

Caught the beginning of "Rocco & His Brothers" on TCM tonight in the hope that it would bear a Janus logo at the start, but unfortunately it did not. In fact, the print shown looked like the rather lousy Milestone laserdisc master; blurry, spliced, and yellow-subtitled, to boot. Any chance that this title might turn up as a Criterion release seems pretty slim.

Magnificent aprox. 80 minutes BBC documentary about Visconti with interviews to the actual family and visiting Lake Como villa, and family palazzi. BBC marks the difference when they make a documentary all doors are open. For RAI and Carlo Lizzani, not so much.

Part 8 is missing, probably Fox complained about The leopard. But the rest 11 parts works well.

Excellent doc.

I thought I heard something about a restoration of Rocco & His Brothers, but in looking online I don't see anything...perhaps it was just my wishful thinking, as the current (US) dvd is horrible & I've held out buying the MOC in hopes of a blu-ray release some time soon.

Rocco was restored several years ago. The MoC DVD presents that version. Milestone (who I think still owns the distribution rights in the US) never came out with a DVD or BD of the restoration. Their old DVD is still in print. TF1 in France was supposed to release a BD a couple of years ago (see above) but apparently never did. That would have been the first HD release of the film, and there are currently no others. My guess is no HD transfer exists.

I don't believe there is a separate thread for The Damned, which I watched for the first time yesterday, so I'll post a review I wrote for the film here:

Luchino Visconti's The Damned is one of the more frustrating films I have seen in recent memory, because for every step it takes forward, it also takes two backwards.

The first act of the film is easily the most cohesive and well-established, though even this part is not without many of the flaws found later in the film. Much information is instantly thrown at the viewers, by having characters (some of which are very easy to mix-up and confuse, due to their similar looks) reveal their extensive plans about their impending actions. It's all given in such a dialogue-heavy manner that it often becomes rather difficult for the viewer to follow. However, the first act does lead towards a logical conclusion, a Macbeth-like scheme that pulls the audience directly into the story.

But, as it continues onwards, it becomes clear that Visconti is not quite sure what direction he seeks to take his film towards. The film often shifts focus from character to character, no one in particular being as well developed as they should be, nor with any clear storyline being established. And while, one does get the impression that the film is truly about Martin, played by a wonderfully sinister Helmut Berger, his character is never directly the center of the film, nor developed well enough to make it possible for the audience to entirely invest in him.

(An interesting note that I find rather telling is that Visconti originally centered the film around Dirk Bogarde's character in the original four-hour edit. It appears that shortening the film by such a great length might have had a negative effect on the storyline and a general sense of inability to properly restructure the film.)

Visconti directs the film in a highly stylized, borderline campy manner that both works to its advantage and disadvantage. At times, the wonderful costumes and set designs, operatic manner similar to that of a soap opera, and frequent zooms so very reminiscent of the 1970s make the film stylistically a treat to enjoy.

Yet it does become rather excessive, and especially with a running time of nearly 160 minutes, it could have easily been twenty minutes shorter (there is one sequence referred to as the "Night of Long Knives," involving a homosexual Nazi orgy, that should have been left entirely on the cutting room floor, as it was in the original American release). I can't say I was ever really bored though, so that's a plus. Visconti also drowns his scenes in zoom after zoom, reaching a point that I am sure would even Jess Franco rolling his eyes.

Though for all its warts, there is something rather interesting about watching these awful, despicable human beings, corrupted by power and greed, embark on a series of twists and turns, trying to out-do one another for a greater rank. In this regard, The Damned does have a rather Shakespearean edge to it, albeit unfortunately without the refined aspects around the edges that made the renowned writer's works so great.

Mubi UK are currently streaming an HD version of Sandra (Vaghe stelle dell'orsa..., or Of a Thousand Delights as it was called on its UK cinema release in 1965). This version has English audio, rather oddly. It's available until 16 August.

L'innocente is also being streamed, until 17 August. This has Italian audio with English subtitles, but is SD.

This thread's been dead for quite a while. Some random updates are necessary

1.- Rocco and his Brothers. The 4k restoration was edited by Masters of Cinema in 2016. Region A/1 is not realised yet. Milestone films has the rights, according to what I readed

2.- The Witches (episode "La Stregha brucciata Viva") is out this week on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK and will be released in the US January 30th, by Arrow

3.- The Innocent. Realised by Cult Film in 2017, region Free

4.- Ludwig. Realised by Arrow Academy in 2017. Beautifully restored and presented.

5.- Conversation Piece. Dual Format edition by Master of Cinema in 2016. I have a previous BluRay edition by Raro Video.. Beware! wax image

6.- Vaghe Stelle dell'Orsa / Sandra: Was restored in 2013 by the Cineteca di Bologna, and exhibited in the section of Classics in the Venice Festival. No BluRay edition was realised in USA or UK to date. ( The Spanish BluRay is a bootleg. Poor image that recalls a mediocre DVD. To refrain)

7.- Death in Venice. I have no news of a new restoration or a first edition on BluRay

8.- The Damned. Same.. no news

Still waiting for the Film Foundation restoration of The Leopard to get an English-language BD release (subtitled, that is) that will stay in-print.

Yes. If Criterion can rerelease Monterey Pop, hopefully they can take another stab at this as well.