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MichaelB wrote:

ellipsis7 wrote:The Fox Lorber disc runs 115 mins, while the original release duration is recorded as 122 mins...

The UK release version was 10,890 feet, which translates to 121 minutes exactly.

And if you apply PAL speedup to that, you get just over 116 minutes. Was the Fox Lorber disc from a PAL source?

Don't think so... The figure of 122 mins comes from Perry & Prieto's MA: Refs and Resources, Carlo di Carlo's recent MA book published by CineCitta, Chatman, Rohdie etc.... Of course this may be one of those facts that enters common currency... My maths, which may well be rusty, works out as 1.00/1.04 x 122 = 117.31 or so, which could round up to 118 mins... Similarly if it was 121 mins it would come out at 116.35 or so, as you say...

OK, the British figure is irrelevant because it was cut by the BBFC on its original release, so I'm happy to go along with 122.

Yep, looking at the NFT June 2005 MA retro programme, 122 is there too..

It`s up for pre-order @ HMV

I would buy this in a heartbeat if either my Blu-ray or HD DVD player upconverted non-R1 discs. However, earlier talk of a possible proper R1 release in this thread is makin' me wary. As a result, until it either comes out on R1 or HD, I'm gonna have to hold off.

davidhare wrote:I'll wait to see the MoC but I worry that 1.75 may be a whisker too narrow.

MoC's near-contemporaneous Rocco and his Brothers is presented at the unorthodox but apparently correct 1.8:1 - there's a note in the booklet explaining this.

davidhare wrote:I think you should take the dive and buy a multi-region player

I have a Philips DVP642 that (thanks to the pressing of a few buttons) plays multi-region titles & PAL/NTSC. However, it doesn't upconvert. Based on the huge improvement that is evident when, say, watching Criterion's Dazed and Confused upconverted on my Toshiba A-3 HD DVD player (as opposed to how the disc looks un-upconverted on the Philips), I've gotten the impression that a merely average R1 probably looks better upconverted by my A-3 than a beautiful MoC title looks unconverted by the Philips.

I dont know much about this but apparently somone invented a hack which turns the US Toshiba A2 player into both multi region and PAL compliant.

I think I read about that in the "Blu-ray vs. HD DVD" thread, but it sounded pretty complicated and risky. I guess that, if there's a good, relatively inexpensive upconverting Standard Def DVD player that can be easily set for multi-region with a few button mashes, I might swap out the Philips for something like that.

Of course all the Euro/Oz Tosh players are now capable of All Region.

Well, is that multi-region for just HD DVDs (like our U.S. players) or multi-region & NTSC/PAL for SD DVDs, too? Because (especially if/once fire sale prices on HD DVD players kick in) that could be an awfully tempting option for replacing the Philips.

I have always held the idea in my head that in the 60s, non-scope (2.35:1) Italian films were almost always hard-matted to 1.66:1, but were often protected for 1.85, unlike in France where everything was composed for 1.66:1, though hard-matting was less common. 1.75:1 was also common in Italy, judging from my bungling research over the years.

LA DOLCE VITA in 1.75? Shouldn´t it be 2.35 like in theaters? Am I missing something here?

Jurples, I recommend upgrading your SD player to Philips DVP5982 ($65) which upconverts and is just as easily made region-free as your older player. I am seeing a very strong picture quality with that player through my Philips lcd via hdmi. I hope this helps...

MoC final encode is 1.66:1 anamorphic. After reviewing the materials and analysing everything closely, there was no other option without losing key pieces of frame information.

davidhare wrote:Certainly France and the UK seem to favor 1.66 at least until the mid 70s.

Well beyond that - in fact, it's a very convenient aspect ratio for the late 1970s/early 1980s video era, where it was in filmmakers'/distributors' commercial interests to be as 4:3-friendly as possible.

Most cinemas couldn't show 4:3 by then, so 1.66:1 was the next best option, as it only involved shaving a relatively small amount off the top and bottom.

The disc's pre-order price has gone down to 11.98 at Amazon.

Nick, are there any additional supplements planned for the release? Bare bones MoC discs in the past year or so have generally been at a lower price point than this, but this one retails at the regular not-bare price.

A number of other factors also contribute towards whether a disc is £17.99, £19.99, £22.99 or £24.99 -- such as: the cost of acquiring the title and the cost of restoration.

With this title, we wanted to devote the entire disc to the film (and the trailer) -- so it's a 7GB DVD9, anamorphic, pillarboxed 1.66:1 transfer, and nicely cleaned up too. I'm proofing it at the moment and I can't keep my eyes off it --- looks marvellous.

If we could have found something else really decent to accompany the film we could have gone to 2 x discs, and bumped the price to £22.99 -- but it would also have delayed the title, and thus others, by a few months. We're having to make harsh (but ultimately sound, I think) decisions about how much time and effort to expend on each release -- and I'd rather concentrate on the essentials.

So, we're concentrating on getting the transfer and subtitles as good as possible and putting all our efforts into the book. We're bumping the book to 56-pages.

I'll post some grabs of LA NOTTE and CHIKAMATSU MONOGATARI / UWASA NO ONNA tonight/tomorrow. The current preorder prices on Amazon for both these are pretty hot and will no doubt rise once the title comes out.

Great price on Amazon... I'm eagerly awaiting this... 'pillarboxed' & 'anamorphic' means presumably means we get every little bit of left and right of frame, the complete composition, with negligible clipping top and bottom of frame as it is 1.66:1...

As regards extras, I'm happy to hear the film looks so good (awaiting keenly the screengrabs) which is the main thing....

Only outstanding potential extra I can think of is 1997 docu CARO ANTONIONI reedited substantially as DEAR ANTONIONI for BBC Arena... That said it does not particularly feature LA NOTTE, so would not be worth delaying to include...

What this film needs is a really decent release, which MoC is giving it... Garlands and gratitude await...

a couple of quick grabs from the finished 1.66:1 anamorphic pillarboxed MoC encode (out March 24th 2008):

God that looks good!...

Wow, I'm sold. Just pre-order it at Amazon with 40% off.

thanks for the heads up, carax09! amazon has this for $60. order'd!

Gigi M. wrote:Wow, I'm sold. Just pre-order it at Amazon with 40% off.

Quick question, does Amazon UK pre-charge credit cards for pre-orders, or charge at shipping?

davebert wrote:

Gigi M. wrote:Wow, I'm sold. Just pre-order it at Amazon with 40% off.

Quick question, does Amazon UK pre-charge credit cards for pre-orders, or charge at shipping?

At shipping...

The MoC La notte page has now gone live.

Booklet bumped to 56-pages. Fantastic Antonioni Q&A in there.

We settled on 1.66:1 pillarboxed anamorphic, as per my previous post with screengrabs.

justeleblanc wrote:I'm waiting for the Criterion release, but only so the three of them match on my shelf.

Also, with the upcoming Scorsese Criterion disc, I assume the Criterion disc would have some sort of Scorsese/Antonioni feature. That may of course be on the MoC disc as well. Still, matching spines.

Is La Notte actually confirmed to be coming from Criterion at some point or just speculation?