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This reminds me that I once read that Val Kilmer said he turned down the lead in Blue Velvet because the version of the script he read was too "pornographic", and he said if it was more reflective of what wound up on screen he would have taken it.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:This reminds me that I once read that Val Kilmer said he turned down the lead in Blue Velvet because the version of the script he read was too "pornographic", and he said if it was more reflective of what wound up on screen he would have taken it.

As we know from some of the deleted footage that surfaced on the Blu-ray release, the Jeffrey character had established voyeuristic tendencies before his encounter with Dorothy. Also, MacLachlan has discussed that it was Lynch's original intention to imply that Jeffrey was raped by Frank and his cronies after he was beaten, something MacLachlan convinced Lynch not to allude to. I have no doubt that the final edit of the film was greatly improved by the removal of the more extreme behavior.

New restoration from Criterion & Studio Canal in Cannes Classics 2021...

Mulholland Drive by David Lynch
(2001, 2h25, United-States)
Presented by Studiocanal. Restoration made by Criterion and Studiocanal from the original negative, scan in 4K at Fotokem, sound remastering from the original 5.1 sound. Sound and image were validated by David Lynch, in Cinéma and HDR format. French distribution by Studiocanal, with a theatrical release and a collector Blu-Ray UHD box set.

Not so new...

Very happy I held off on getting the Blu for this so long, especially after being so tempted by the great special features when it was streaming on Filmstruck or the Channel.

So only the UHD will have the new restoration? The Blu-ray disc in the same package will have the old one?

That's how I'm reading it.

Encoding aside, I assume there likely would be minimal difference. So, really no reason to spend the money to create a new Blu-ray.

Now, something that had a 4K restoration after Criterion released it, like Walkabout, is a whole other thing and I would expect the Blu-ray included with the UHD to be the newer master.

Is StudioCanal listed as the licensor on the sell sheet? I thought that the rights reverted back to David Lynch and he gave it to Criterion/Janus.

Yes, it's StudioCanal, which makes sense since they're using their restoration for the 4K disc.

dwk wrote: Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:19 pm Encoding aside, I assume there likely would be minimal difference. So, really no reason to spend the money to create a new Blu-ray.

Now, something that had a 4K restoration after Criterion released it, like Walkabout, is a whole other thing and I would expect the Blu-ray included with the UHD to be the newer master.

In this case, the 4k disc will have a restoration made after the BD release:

So you re-scanned the film using the latest technology?

We couldn't do things by halves, not with a film like Mulholland Drive! We went back to the original negatives and scanned them in 4K using the very latest technology. This step lent the restoring process greater depth and texture, and brought more of the film's details to light. We reapplied the existing cinema calibration to the new scan, which needed to be kept because David Lynch had spent so much time on it. We wanted to stay true to his vision. 95% of the work had already been done by Lynch back in 2015. But the technical facelift given to this restoration was significant.

Also, don't forget Criterion's encoding of the original BD, well, sucked. Within a few minutes, thanks to the opening night scene, it becomes obvious that the disc has egregious macroblocking. None of those artifacts appear on StudioCanal's international BD, which uses the same HD master as Criterion, so if you really need that on BD, it's worth seeking out the StudioCanal disc. (I even have two I can sell to anyone right now - one brand-new, still sealed, and one that's virtually a mint disc with damaged artwork.)

senseabove wrote: Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:40 pm
In this case, the 4k disc will have a restoration made after the BD release:

So you re-scanned the film using the latest technology?

We couldn't do things by halves, not with a film like Mulholland Drive! We went back to the original negatives and scanned them in 4K using the very latest technology. This step lent the restoring process greater depth and texture, and brought more of the film's details to light. We reapplied the existing cinema calibration to the new scan, which needed to be kept because David Lynch had spent so much time on it. We wanted to stay true to his vision. 95% of the work had already been done by Lynch back in 2015. But the technical facelift given to this restoration was significant.

Yeah, but the original was a from a 4K scan, even if the finishing was done in 2K (and I'm not sure I buy what StudioCanal is selling.) It most likely wouldn't be different enough on Blu-ray to bother.

They did talk about how the scanner technology "has since evolved" so I assume the scanned image would look slightly different (dare I say improved?).

I'm quite certain the original restoration was finished in 4k (ie 4k scan + 4k resto) and that the person who is interviewed (or the interviewer) is mixing it up with the output files.

tenia wrote: Tue Aug 17, 2021 5:17 am I'm quite certain the original restoration was finished in 4k (ie 4k scan + 4k resto) and that the person who is interviewed (or the interviewer) is mixing it up with the output files.

Mmmm, I don’t necessarily think so? I think they’re talking about the improvements in scanner technology. Soderbergh talked about the 4k scan for the Criterion Sex, Lies and Videotape being much better than the 4k Sony did a few years earlier, just because of the improvements in scanner tech.

The Criterion booklet and basically everything else states in a trustworthy manner it was a full fledge 4k restoration, so there is no public element to doubt it. However, there is Donnie Darko which was a 4k resto but with no usable 4k file hence the original BD roll-out with no UHD.

Also, the Soderbergh Sony scan was probably a decade old, if not more. Scanners indeed evolved since when the industry switched from DataCine-type scanners to Arriscan-type ones.

tenia wrote: Tue Aug 17, 2021 6:18 amThat's not the case between when the 1st 4k scan of MD happened and now (not that I know of). It has even been re-scanned at the same lab it was, and their website gives no info indicating they might now have a scanner different from what was used then.

What led you to say it was scanned at the same place twice? I don't have the Criterion BD, but the booklet info as quoted in the blu-ray.com review credits Colorworks with the 4k scanning. The Cannes announcement (which also leaked the UHD Criterion release news) credits the scan for the version they screened this year to Fotokem.

Also, following the rabbit-hole that led me down, if the new restoration was done at Fotokem: the Criterion booklet says the BD source restoration was done on a Scanity continuous transport scanner, while it looks like Fotokem has an IMAGICA single-frame pull-down scanner (as well as a Scanity). From my admittedly limited, dilettante's knowledge, single-frame pulldown scanning is considered to allow for better quality most of the time, no? Though if that scanner was available in 2015, the claim that the tech has improved should rather be that they just used a higher-quality scanner this time.

That's my bad : the color corrections were done at Fotokem and for some reason, I thought the scanning too, or possibly saw that Fotokem had a Scanity like what MD was scanned on and missed the Imagica. I'll edit my post.
However, yes, switching from a Scanity continuous scan to an Imagica single-frame one should yield a better scan. I'm not sure it'd be as much a gap as from what we saw around 2013 with the switch away from Spirit DataCine scans (Scanity scans always seemed better to me), but still.

From what I gathered searching Fotokem and Imagica, it looks like The Sound of Music was scanned at Fotokem on a 65mm Imagica, so maybe it's not a recent acquisition at Fotokem.

I just hope that Criterion's encoding for all their UHDs is going to be reference quality. The encoding on the Mulholland Drive bluray was abysmal. I too bought the Studio Canal version here in Australia, and have verified on my own system how bad the Criterion was.

I saw a tweet or a Facebook post that said the UhD of this film won’t be available in Canada?
I can’t find that post again.
Can anyone confirm this?

Does that happen often? The blu ray version of Human condition is still not available on Amazon Canada.

Unobstructed View confirmed this. It's not the first time it has happened. The last title I can think of that this happened to was Me and You and Everyone We Know. Someone else controls the rights in Canada in these instances.