BD 33 The Gospel According to Matthew

[neilist]

I'm greatly looking forward to this title! Looks like a fantastic release.

It still says 'More extras to be announced nearer to release date' though. Has this just not been removed from the page or is there still even more to come?

[TMDaines]

Ditto what I said in the Accattone thread. Another great looking double package.

[MichaelB]

Beaver - complete with this rather eyebrow-raising claim:



I know MoC is keen for us all to go multi-region, but this approach seems a tad extreme for a label operating in Region B-land.

(To be fair, the main body of the text says that it's Region B, as one would expect).

[triodelover]

I think I can safely replace my Tartan.

[mfunk9786]

It's been established at this point that Gary Tooze is pretty inaccurate/lazy/whatever when it comes to copy/pasting information from previous reviews, and forgetting to change key stuff like region codes. I wouldn't put any stock in the region info listed from DVDBeaver, especially if it doesn't seem to make sense.

[Peacock]

So basically after criticising Mr Bongo for illegally selling their product in the US, Nick has gone and sold his exclusively in the US and using the Criterion name? Can you get any lower?


(Looks great by the way.. maybe not as much grain as I'd expect which makes me think the master might not be very new, but I imagine it looks even better in motion)

[swo17]

It's been established at this point that Gary Tooze is pretty inaccurate/lazy/whatever when it comes to copy/pasting information from previous reviews, and forgetting to change key stuff like region codes. I wouldn't put any stock in the region info listed from DVDBeaver, especially if it doesn't seem to make sense.

It's also been well established that no one gets MichaelB's jokes.

[mfunk9786]

Oh, that was a joke? I'd like to apologize to everyone involved in reading my original reply, and urge MichaelB to make these things more obvious in the future.

[swo17]

But then they wouldn't be as funny!

P.S. If anyone is keenly aware of the vagaries of region coding, it's the guy who makes posts like these.

[MichaelB]

Oh, that was a joke? I'd like to apologize to everyone involved in reading my original reply, and urge MichaelB to make these things more obvious in the future.

For the record, the parenthetical bit at the end did originally include the word 'sarcasm', but I thought "surely, surely it's too obvious to need spelling out?". So I changed it to something acknowledging that the review also says it's Region B.

Personally, I stopped relying on the Beev the day the first mistakenly-ordered Region A disc landed on my doormat. Though I suppose the upside was that I had one to test my multi-region player on when I finally bought it a couple of years later. (Thankfully, the Region A disc in question was dual-format, so I could at least play something, even if it wasn't in 1080p).

[Tommaso]

It may just be the larger size of the bluray image, but to my eyes the too bright Kinowelt looks a bit sharper in those caps. Look at the stones in the second set of image caps. But I somehow can't believe this could in fact be the case.

[Peacock]

Beaver's caps are always noticeably softer than the disk actually appears. I guarantee Blu-ray.com's will look better.

[jbaart]

It may just be the larger size of the bluray image, but to my eyes the too bright Kinowelt looks a bit sharper in those caps. Look at the stones in the second set of image caps. But I somehow can't believe this could in fact be the case.

Yeah, I had the same impression. Only time will tell I guess. The Kinowelt is too bright and has probably been artificially sharpened, but to me it still looks like it has more visible detail.

[ellipsis7]

Watched this, sublime presentation by MoC!....

[charal]

In Oswald Stack's 1969 book on Pasolini he lists the running times of all the films to date. ACCATTONE is listed as being 120 mins but cut to 115 mins in the UK. MAMA ROMA was also cut from 110 mins to 106 mins. THE GOSPEL was cut from 140 mins to 135 mins. [Naomi Greene lists the respective times as 116, 105 & 137 with no dual figures quoted at all.]

In THE GOSPEL I am sure the scene where Judas hangs himself was faded out in both the print shown on Australian TV and the Tartan VHS. Am I dreaming this or is the shot of his hanging body a restored uncensored shot [from the Italian negative]?

[ellipsis7]

BBFC classification for the UK...

Film/ Film 04/11/1964 Compton Film Dist 136m 59s THE GOSPEL ACCORDING ST. MATTHEW
Video/ Video 07/06/1999 Tartan Video Ltd 129m 42s THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST MATTHEW
Video/ Video 25/02/1991 British Film Institute Ltd 129m 11s THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST.MATTHEW

MoC MATTEO is 138 minutes and does not appear to have been classified separately... That duration would roughly tally with the earlier Tartan Video/DVD running time, taking into account PAL speedup, which however does not apply to BR....

The Judas hanging sequence appears intact, whether that shot is restored I don't know...

[MichaelB]

The BBFC almost invariably works from PAL DVD copies, so the running times will almost always reflect PAL speedup. If the Blu-ray came from the same master, there's no need to classify it separately.

In Oswald Stack's 1969 book on Pasolini he lists the running times of all the films to date. ACCATTONE is listed as being 120 mins but cut to 115 mins in the UK. MAMA ROMA was also cut from 110 mins to 106 mins. THE GOSPEL was cut from 140 mins to 135 mins. [Naomi Greene lists the respective times as 116, 105 & 137 with no dual figures quoted at all.

I'm assuming that Stack only supplied the 120 minute running time and not the 115 minute one, because those differences are almost certainly down to PAL speedup, which "loses" one minute in every 25.

So 120 mins does indeed convert to 115 and 110 would end up at about 106. 140 mins should actually be nearer 134, but I daresay there was a bit of rounding-up.

[ellipsis7]

Philip French @ The Observer

[kekid]

The BBFC almost invariably works from PAL DVD copies, so the running times will almost always reflect PAL speedup. If the Blu-ray came from the same master, there's no need to classify it separately.

In Oswald Stack's 1969 book on Pasolini he lists the running times of all the films to date. ACCATTONE is listed as being 120 mins but cut to 115 mins in the UK. MAMA ROMA was also cut from 110 mins to 106 mins. THE GOSPEL was cut from 140 mins to 135 mins. [Naomi Greene lists the respective times as 116, 105 & 137 with no dual figures quoted at all.

I'm assuming that Stack only supplied the 120 minute running time and not the 115 minute one, because those differences are almost certainly down to PAL speedup, which "loses" one minute in every 25.

So 120 mins does indeed convert to 115 and 110 would end up at about 106. 140 mins should actually be nearer 134, but I daresay there was a bit of rounding-up.

Which format (PAL or NTSC) does the timing of the Blu Ray conform to? What is the general principle to answer this question?

[peerpee]

Our Blu-rays are 24/1080p so they're 24fps like film. The majority of our DVDs are NTSC in order to maintain 24fps, the same running time, the same pitch audio, and same speed subtitles. Unlike most other British labels, the timings on the back of our DF sleeves are accurate and refer to both the Blu-ray and the DVD inside the Dual Format package.

[kekid]

Our Blu-rays are 24/1080p so they're 24fps like film. The majority of our DVDs are NTSC in order to maintain 24fps, the same running time, the same pitch audio, and same speed subtitles. Unlike most other British labels, the timings on the back of our DF sleeves are accurate and refer to both the Blu-ray and the DVD inside the Dual Format package.

Thank you for clarifying this. Please forgive my ignorance, but I would like to understand this further. Are all "films" made to be shown at 24fps? That is, does NTSC vs PAL distinction come into play only when a film is converted to a video? Or are some films actually made to be shown at 25 fps, hence the "PAL speedup" would be a more accurate representation of the film, and the Blu Rays would be made to reflect that speed?

[peerpee]

Long answer, really -- I'll try and keep it short. Early films were handcranked, so the fps was all over the shop and inconsistent. Then folk started using 18fps, 20fps, 22fps, and allsorts during the silent era, but this was standardised in the late 1920s - around the time that sound came in - at 24fps.

Some films are shot 25fps because they were shot for European TV (BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ springs to mind, I think this may have affected ANTICHRIST too?) and these have been slowed down by Criterion to 24fps for NTSC DVD or Blu-ray. Some experimental films are still shot at allsorts of different framerates.

PAL (25fps) and NTSC (29.98fps interlaced and 23.98fps progressive (by means of 3:2 pulldown, to effectively get to 24fps)) are television and video formats - they've caused a host of problems during the DVD years, particularly when it comes to older non-24fps films. The sooner we see the back of these two formats, the better!

Blu-ray is neither NTSC nor PAL, and it's great because it's 24fps, progressive, with uncompressed sound (the sound on all DVDs is heavily compressed, and akin to an MP3). Blu-ray could have had support for all framerates, but they didn't build that into the spec unfortunately, because something like 98% of all films in existence are 24fps.

[peerpee]

COLOSSAL YOUTH is an example of a film that was shot on PAL DV equipment at 25fps. Our DVD of that was PAL 25fps to respect the original shooting spec. The Criterion DVD was not rendered at 25fps, because it's an NTSC DVD. I don't know whether they corrected the pitch of the audio, but if they didn't, the pitch will be lower (on the majority of PAL DVDs the pitch is higher, because of the 4% speedup, which annoyingly raises it by a semitone).

[kekid]

Long answer, really -- I'll try and keep it short. Early films were handcranked, so the fps was all over the shop and inconsistent. Then folk started using 18fps, 20fps, 22fps, and allsorts during the silent era, but this was standardised in the late 1920s - around the time that sound came in - at 24fps.

Some films are shot 25fps because they were shot for European TV (BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ springs to mind, I think this may have affected ANTICHRIST too?) and these have been slowed down by Criterion to 24fps for NTSC DVD or Blu-ray. Some experimental films are still shot at allsorts of different framerates.

PAL (25fps) and NTSC (29.98fps interlaced and 23.98fps progressive (by means of 3:2 pulldown, to effectively get to 24fps)) are television and video formats - they've caused a host of problems during the DVD years, particularly when it comes to older non-24fps films. The sooner we see the back of these two formats, the better!

Blu-ray is neither NTSC nor PAL, and it's great because it's 24fps, progressive, with uncompressed sound (the sound on all DVDs is heavily compressed, and akin to an MP3). Blu-ray could have had support for all framerates, but they didn't build that into the spec unfortunately, because something like 98% of all films in existence are 24fps.

Thank you very much for taking time to clarify this.

[MichaelB]

(the sound on all DVDs is heavily compressed, and akin to an MP3).

Certainly most, but not all: a tiny minority of DVDs have uncompressed PCM stereo sound.