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Very much so - and it's particularly obvious in the opening scenes in the station with Lanzmann surrounded by trains.

In fact, the technical presentation of The Last of the Unjust is very comfortably the best of any of the films in this set, although that's hardly surprising given that it's the most recent production and the only one featuring footage shot in the last few years. (By contrast, the 2010-premiered The Karski Report consists entirely of a 1970s interview, with no contemporary cutaways.)

I know I bitched about the lack of single-release for TLOTU, but the technical difference with the Criterion on Sobibor, but even on Shoah, is quite impressive and I'm glad I finally bought it. I’ve been able to compare the Criterion and the MoC side by side on my system (thanks needing 2 players, 1 Region A and 1 Region B), and at regular viewing distance (2.3m for my 50”screen), the combination of a much better grain rendition and the disappearance of the green tint makes the Criterion look thick, muddy.

The Criterion certainly isn’t a poor presentation : I’ve watched the whole first era on it without being especially bothered (though even in these conditions, you can spot compression issues in some shots).
But switching to the MoC set for the 2nd era is quite revealing.

Maybe I’m reading this too much, but it’s the first time I feel having these 2 looks gives 2 different directions to the program. The disappearance of the green tint creates a quite significant difference. On the Criterion, Shoah looks drab, intoxicated somehow, as if life was partially sucked out of all these places, all these people. It adds an other layer of gravitas to Shoah through dumbing down the colors, especially on faces.
The MoC brings these colors back, the sky is really blue again, whites are whites and not green, faces are pink, as if life was actually still there all the time. It does not convey the same thing anymore, the same impact.

This being said, I do wonder what is exactly the photography Lanzmann was aiming for. The Criterion set is “Lanzmann approved”. The MoC DVD set has a “Lanzmann approved” sticker that the MoC BD set does not contain anymore.

tenia wrote:Maybe I’m reading this too much, but it’s the first time I feel having these 2 looks gives 2 different directions to the program. The disappearance of the green tint creates a quite significant difference. On the Criterion, Shoah looks drab, intoxicated somehow, as if life was partially sucked out of all these places, all these people. It adds an other layer of gravitas to Shoah through dumbing down the colors, especially on faces.
The MoC brings these colors back, the sky is really blue again, whites are whites and not green, faces are pink, as if life was actually still there all the time. It does not convey the same thing anymore, the same impact.

It's a fair remark. When I visited Auschwitz, I spent ten days in Krakow and the weather was drab on the whole. The best weather we got was the gloriously sunny, late-Winter day we visited Auschwitz. You always imagine these places as dingy, grey, subdued places - thanks to the influence of cinema and how they photographed - but, of course, they are not. I think most non-Poles would be surprised to learn that Oświęcim is still a thriving town (and my university classmate is indeed from there).

Edit: Numerous spelling mistakes

tenia wrote:This being said, I do wonder what is exactly the photography Lanzmann was aiming for. The Criterion set is “Lanzmann approved”. The MoC DVD set has a “Lanzmann approved” sticker that the MoC BD set does not contain anymore.

I doubt Lanzmann ever saw a check disc of the Criterion version. Instead, he'll have given his approval to the transfer they were using, and their overall set. Consequently I'm certain the MoC version will match his intentions best.

EddieLarkin wrote:Consequently I'm certain the MoC version will match his intentions best.

That would mean Criterion have voluntarily added a green tint to the HD master they've been given ? That'd be strange, no ?

I'm fairly sure that's down to the less than ideal compression as well. It happens. Compare how "tighter" the colours are for the theatrical version of Fanny & Alexander compared to the rammed onto a single disc Television version, for instance.

EddieLarkin wrote:I'm fairly sure that's down to the less than ideal compression as well. It happens. Compare how "tighter" the colours are for the theatrical version of Fanny & Alexander compared to the rammed onto a single disc Television version, for instance.

Compression doesn't affect the color in that way, nope - but good theory. The difference in those shots will purely be down to the master.

(The only time compression affects color is if the input to the encoder is somehow wrong, or if very fine colored film grain gets lost to quantization).

Hopefully it goes without saying, but the color and gamma of the MoC version are exactly as per the supplied master.

Thanks, I was a bit unsure with my F&A comparison since I wasn't certain if they were the same master or not. But when it comes to Shoah, is it likely then that the Criterion tint was down to a loss of coloured film grain (or the input to the encoder being wrong)? We know they're the same master, and we know the MoC matches the master precisely, and I highly doubt Criterion would change the colour themselves in such a way.

EddieLarkin wrote:We know they're the same master, and we know the MoC matches the master precisely, and I highly doubt Criterion would change the colour themselves in such a way.

The green tint is clearly there, and if the MoC matches the color and gamma of the supplied master, then, either there are actually 2 masters, or Criterion tweaked the colors.
Very strange nonetheless.

This has just gotten a slimmed down reissue.

It looks like the discs are the same (but crammed into one case instead of two) and the book has shrunk from 300 pages to 60