443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de...

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Finch
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#426 Post by Finch » Sun Aug 11, 2013 5:20 pm

Which also means that any other release, whether it's Second Sight in the UK or anyone else, is going to look shit too unless a more conscientious and enterprising label decides to do their own resto and do it proper.

Mind, Second Sight did perform some additional cleanup on The Long Riders on the master provided from MGM but getting Madame de right would mean to have to start from scratch. Not sure Second Sight would have the budget for that or even be inclined to do their own work. As of now, they haven't even announced a BD for any of their Ophuls titles.


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Matt
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#428 Post by Matt » Wed Aug 14, 2013 8:58 pm

The same site that gave 5/5 on picture quality to Children of Paradise.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#429 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed Aug 14, 2013 8:58 pm

Well, it doesn't look all that bad in their tiny screen captures. ;-}

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hearthesilence
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#430 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Aug 14, 2013 9:43 pm

HA, see, that's the problem, they forgot to put on the "Mastered for iPhone" logo on the front of the package.

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vsski
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#431 Post by vsski » Thu Aug 15, 2013 1:00 am

Actually the DVDTalk review states that the screen shots are from the DVD version not the reviewed Blu Ray, no wonder they look decent.
What really makes me sad is that DVDTalk, Beaver, HFT and RAH have all given the disc stellar reviews, even though they all should know better, but either don't care or didn't bother to look properly. So what is the incentive for CC or anyone else to ever redo this and how much will the few folks on this forum who refuse to buy this travesty really impact sales? :cry:

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tenia
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#432 Post by tenia » Wed Aug 21, 2013 10:46 am

This year's Gaumont release of Madame de... just got cancelled.

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#433 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Wed Aug 21, 2013 11:44 am

tenia wrote:This year's Gaumont release of Madame de... just got cancelled.
Is that official Is there a link to an announcement?
Wonder how Criterion feel about being palmed off with it?

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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#434 Post by lefeufollet » Wed Aug 21, 2013 11:51 am


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swo17
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#435 Post by swo17 » Wed Aug 21, 2013 11:53 am

Doesn't that post say the release has merely been postponed?

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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#436 Post by lefeufollet » Wed Aug 21, 2013 11:58 am

That's how I read it as well.

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Matt
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#437 Post by Matt » Wed Aug 21, 2013 12:06 pm

It says the scheduled release has been canceled and postponed to a date to be determined. Everybody's right!

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tenia
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#438 Post by tenia » Wed Aug 21, 2013 1:06 pm

Matt wrote:It says the scheduled release has been canceled and postponed to a date to be determined. Everybody's right!
I should have been more precised, but yes, it has been postponed without any new date.

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rspaight
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#439 Post by rspaight » Wed Aug 21, 2013 1:55 pm

This could get very interesting if Gaumont actually goes back and fixes it. (If that's even possible/practical.)

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Matt
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#440 Post by Matt » Wed Aug 21, 2013 1:59 pm

It's certainly possible. There would have to be an untouched digital scan of the film on which they can redo all of the digital restoration (more carefully and lightly this time around). And if they are unsatisfied with the restoration work that was originally performed (and they certainly ought to be), Gaumont should expect the work to be redone at minimal or no additional cost.

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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#441 Post by peerpee » Wed Aug 21, 2013 2:53 pm

Matt wrote:It's certainly possible. There would have to be an untouched digital scan of the film on which they can redo all of the digital restoration (more carefully and lightly this time around). And if they are unsatisfied with the restoration work that was originally performed (and they certainly ought to be), Gaumont should expect the work to be redone at minimal or no additional cost.
Someone at Gaumont must have signed off on the digital restoration work. I expect they'll have to pay in full to redo it properly because of that.

After the CHILDREN IN PARADISE letdown, it's unfortunate that Criterion didn't bump the MADAME DE master back to Gaumont instead of upgrading it to Blu (particularly when pristine HD masters have been available for years for other upgrades (RIFIFI, FRENCH CANCAN, BOUDU, etc). They've dodged a number of bullets in the last year (PURPLE NOON and BAND OF OUTSIDERS) and ended up with superb results there, which makes these two slip-ups all the more noticeable and alarming.

It's almost certainly the forensic online post-mortem of the Criterion MADAME DE Blu-ray that has made Gaumont realise it was a digital dog's dinner.

EDIT: Deleted one accidentally repeated word.
Last edited by peerpee on Wed Aug 21, 2013 6:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Zot!
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#442 Post by Zot! » Wed Aug 21, 2013 2:57 pm

it's a little concerning that reviews were not particularly damning. The screen caps on a small screen alone look pretty terrible, but how could you overlook it on a projector or larger screen?

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tenia
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#443 Post by tenia » Wed Aug 21, 2013 5:39 pm

peerpee wrote:It's almost certainly the forensic online post-mortem of the Criterion MADAME DE Blu-ray online that has made Gaumont realise it was a digital dog's dinner.
Not only, actually. The fact is that they allowed one DVD Classik forumer to see the BD-R / BD-T at Gaumont, and then to take it back home, do screencaps and post a sum-up of all this online. Reaction there has been overwhelmingly negative, so it's likely that this, on top of the awful grades the Criterion got in the English online test websites, made them change their minds about the release, with which they were quite confident at the beginning.

This confidence is, actually, what bothers me the most, because either Gaumont was happy with this awful result and thought everybody would be, or they never saw the finished result before the Criterion backlash. In both cases, it seems as major letdown from a process point of view.

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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#444 Post by jindianajonz » Wed Aug 21, 2013 5:56 pm

Has Criterion ever done a recall/replacement for something like this? All the replacements I'm aware of were due to bugs in producing the disc, not because they accepted inferior elements.

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Saturnome
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#445 Post by Saturnome » Wed Aug 21, 2013 8:44 pm

Great news, I'm kind of amazed they did this (how often this happen exactly!?) and that we can hope for a better release at some point. While I prefer every other Ophuls I've seen over Madame de... I might purchase the future release simply because of this and give the film another chance. I hope it's a permanent step in the right direction. I've grown kind of fearful of french films on blu-ray, I waited a long time for definitive positive reviews on the Pialat films before getting them, and I guess the habit won't go away for a while.

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manicsounds
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#446 Post by manicsounds » Wed Aug 21, 2013 8:53 pm

Possible "Gladiator" Blu-ray replacement in the future would be nice.

edit: Pardon me, I should've said "Gladiator"-type Blu-ray replacement, with Universal and Paramount replacing the badly mastered old discs for customers.
Last edited by manicsounds on Wed Sep 04, 2013 10:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

Rupert Pupkin
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#447 Post by Rupert Pupkin » Thu Aug 22, 2013 1:18 am

..../...

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jindianajonz
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#448 Post by jindianajonz » Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:20 am

manicsounds wrote:Possible "Gladiator" Blu-ray replacement in the future would be nice.
I can only assume this means you wish Criterion would replace every copy of Madame De... with a copy of Gladiator.

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Feego
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#449 Post by Feego » Thu Aug 22, 2013 12:41 pm

I'm pretty sure he means he hopes Criterion follows Paramount's lead in releasing an improved edition of Madame de... and offering an exchange program for those who already bought it, just as Paramount did for their originally blundered Gladiator release.

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zedz
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#450 Post by zedz » Thu Aug 22, 2013 4:09 pm

If Gaumont do release a superior transfer (and how couldn't they?), all those fawning reviewers who praised the Criterion fiasco will have egg on their faces - which is as it should be.

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