Blood and Black Lace

Discuss releases from Arrow and the films on them.

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David M.
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#51 Post by David M. » Wed Apr 08, 2015 1:06 am

You really shouldn't be using a laptop screen to analyze anything - unless you've had it analyzed with a colorimeter or spectro. Most of them have a color temperature of around 9000K (very blueish) while the video standard is 6500k (almost neutral white). And most have desaturated colors (like the blue tinted whites, it's a power saving measure). The current Macbook Pros are very accurate for a laptop, however.

Of course - unless your TV has been set up - it will be doing all sorts of, uh, stuff, to the picture too, so it won't be showing you what's on the disc either. Although, desaturating the color isn't an uncalibrated TV trait (there's no battery requirement there).

Orlac
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#52 Post by Orlac » Wed Apr 08, 2015 12:57 pm

This is me being OCD - why is the one note written in this movie "Where is the diary?" in German instead of Italian?

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Finch
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#53 Post by Finch » Wed Apr 08, 2015 3:53 pm

Orlac wrote:This is me being OCD - why is the one note written in this movie "Where is the diary?" in German instead of Italian?
That puzzled me too. Sensational work on the film by the way, David, and congratulations to the entire Arrow team for an absolutely first-rate release of Blood and Black Lace. It has me salivating at the prospect of what you guys can do for Kill Baby Kill and other outstanding Bava titles.

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Banasa
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#54 Post by Banasa » Wed Apr 08, 2015 3:56 pm

The film is a Italian-French-West German co-production. That last country might be the reasoning.

David M.
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#55 Post by David M. » Wed Apr 08, 2015 5:02 pm

It's a strange one. It's discussed on the commentary.

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#56 Post by EddieLarkin » Wed Apr 08, 2015 5:05 pm

I wish labels would, as a matter of course, translate foreign title cards accurately. Having "Blood and Black Lace" appear under Sei donne per l'assassino just looks a bit silly, at least on the Italian track subs. Sorry to pick on this release but I was just checking out the disc. The Zatoichi set was terrible for this: it's actually quite difficult to find accurate translations of the Japanese titles for those films, so it doesn't help when Criterion insist on using the boring and repetitive American titles in the subs beneath the no doubt more exciting (and probably more appropriate) Japanese title cards (by the looks of it, most of them are completely different to what they ended up being called in America).

I understand why it's beneficial to advertise these films using their American titles, but I don't see why the subtitles have to follow suit. It would seem to go against a translator's job to deliberately have a subtitle that ostensibly translates on screen text, but in fact does the opposite. The only title I can think of recently that didn't do this was Artificial Eye subtitling 浪華悲歌 as Naniwa Elegy instead of Osaka Elegy (though I wouldn't know if that is genuinely more accurate or not). Sadly that practice didn't extend to their Bergman set, where Gycklarnas afton remains "Sawdust and Tinsel"...
Last edited by EddieLarkin on Wed Apr 08, 2015 5:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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swo17
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#57 Post by swo17 » Wed Apr 08, 2015 5:10 pm

I thought we'd settled on "Carnies' Twilight."

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#58 Post by EddieLarkin » Wed Apr 08, 2015 5:11 pm

Yeah but I was hoping to find AE had gotten there before us.

Orlac
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#59 Post by Orlac » Wed Apr 08, 2015 6:07 pm

EddieLarkin wrote:I wish labels would, as a matter of course, translate foreign title cards accurately. Having "Blood and Black Lace" appear under Sei donne per l'assassino just looks a bit silly, at least on the Italian track subs. Sorry to pick on this release but I was just checking out the disc. The Zatoichi set was terrible for this: it's actually quite difficult to find accurate translations of the Japanese titles for those films, so it doesn't help when Criterion insist on using the boring and repetitive American titles in the subs beneath the no doubt more exciting (and probably more appropriate) Japanese title cards (by the looks of it, most of them are completely different to what they ended up being called in America).

I understand why it's beneficial to advertise these films using their American titles, but I don't see why the subtitles have to follow suit. It would seem to go against a translator's job to deliberately have a subtitle that ostensibly translates on screen text, but in fact does the opposite. The only title I can think of recently that didn't do this was Artificial Eye subtitling 浪華悲歌 as Naniwa Elegy instead of Osaka Elegy (though I wouldn't know if that is genuinely more accurate or not). Sadly that practice didn't extend to their Bergman set, where Gycklarnas afton remains "Sawdust and Tinsel"...
Harakiri-Seppuku being a classic example.

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MichaelB
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Blood and Black Lace

#60 Post by MichaelB » Thu Apr 09, 2015 6:44 am

For the record, as I'm sure we'll get enquiries when it's released, the subtitle "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne" is actually on the original title card for Docteur Jekyll et les Femmes as spliced into the original 35mm camera negative.

I assume this was a compromise agreed between Walerian Borowczyk (who favoured "The Strange Case") and the distributors (who came up with the narratively nonsensical but presumably more marketable "et les Femmes").

The built-in subtitle was actually quite handy, since it meant that we didn't have to make a potentially controversial decision about changing the onscreen title to reflect Borowczyk's preference: purists can rest assured that they're seeing exactly what was released in France in 1981.

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Banasa
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#61 Post by Banasa » Thu Apr 09, 2015 7:19 am

I'm actually not bothered by these kind of minute details. When I see these subtitles that dont match the Italian or Japanese titles screens, you have to be aware that some people would probably more confused wgen a title didnt match what is said on the box you bought it on.

This kind of thing seems like nit-pucking as the rest of spoken dialogue shown as subtitles captures tone opposed to a direct translation. It seems as eye rolling as on wikipedia when they mention such OCD details asScary Movie 5 (stylized as SCARY MOVIE) or something.

Orlac
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#62 Post by Orlac » Thu Apr 09, 2015 12:28 pm

MichaelB wrote:For the record, as I'm sure we'll get enquiries when it's released, the subtitle "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne" is actually on the original title card for Docteur Jekyll et les Femmes as spliced into the original 35mm camera negative.

I assume this was a compromise agreed between Walerian Borowczyk (who favoured "The Strange Case") and the distributors (who came up with the narratively nonsensical but presumably more marketable "et les Femmes").

The built-in subtitle was actually quite handy, since it meant that we didn't have to make a potentially controversial decision about changing the onscreen title to reflect Borowczyk's preference: purists can rest assured that they're seeing exactly what was released in France in 1981.
Hong Kong movies did that routinely on the Chinese language prints (an odd exception is Drunken Master, which just had Chinese credits on such prints). "Jing Wu Men" does not translate to Fist of Fury!

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Finch
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#63 Post by Finch » Thu Apr 09, 2015 3:03 pm

Can't believe that people are nitpicking on a wonderful release like this. Blood and Black Lace is what the film is known as in the English-speaking world, not to mention that the Italian title is a bit spoiler-ish.

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MichaelB
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#64 Post by MichaelB » Thu Apr 09, 2015 3:25 pm

I seem to recall having a similar discussion over An Autumn Afternoon, but I argued then that it made much more sense to explain the Japanese title in the booklet, since a literal translation (The Taste of Mackerel Pike) needs explanatory footnotes to make it have the same effect on Western viewers that it does on Japanese ones.

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#65 Post by EddieLarkin » Thu Apr 09, 2015 5:00 pm

True, but "An Autumn Afternoon" is not an appropriate substitute to invoke the intended feeling either. At least having "The Taste of Mackerel Pike" come up will lead to the more inquisitive viewer seeking out an explanation. I say better to have a few people confused instead of a majority misled. This wasn't a criticism of the Blood and Black Lace disc by the way, I was merely using it as an opportunity to bring up the topic as it was something that has bothered me in the past (if any of the users here with a decent grasp of Japanese can attempt to translate all of the Zatoichi titles for me, I'd love you forever!).

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MichaelB
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Blood and Black Lace

#66 Post by MichaelB » Thu Apr 09, 2015 5:50 pm

EddieLarkin wrote:True, but "An Autumn Afternoon" is not an appropriate substitute to invoke the intended feeling either. At least having "The Taste of Mackerel Pike" come up will lead to the more inquisitive viewer seeking out an explanation.
...which is provided in the first paragraph of the BFI's booklet essay, which I'd argue is by far the most sensible place for it to go.
I say better to have a few people confused instead of a majority misled. .
Anybody who thinks that Sei donne per l'assassino literally translates as Blood and Black Lace frankly deserves to be misled.

The core point is that it and An Autumn Afternoon are the universally recognised English titles. Much though I think that The 400 Blows is an absurd mistranslation (or rather, an over-literal translation of an idiom that only works in French), I concede that it's too late to change it now.

It gets slightly trickier with titles where there's no universally accepted English version - Loves of a Blonde/A Blonde in Love and Closely Observed Trains/Closely Watched Trains being cases in point - but I'd argue very strongly that if there's one acknowledged English title, that should be the one featured in the onscreen subtitles, with the question of literal translations (and the inevitably necessary contextualisation) left to the extras or booklet, Which of course is what generally happens.

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#67 Post by EddieLarkin » Thu Apr 09, 2015 6:32 pm

I see your point, and I guess I'd have no axe to grind at all if literal translations and the inevitably necessary contextualisation actually always appeared in the booklets or extras. Many releases don't come with such bonuses and even when they do, not every label will acknowledge the foreign title they've used all over the release (cover, booklet, subtitles) is in fact not even an attempt to translate the original title, but instead something a foreign distributor has come up with on their own (with some exceptions). See: Zatoichi, and I suspect a great deal of Criterion's Japanese titles.

And of course the problem varies depending on the viewer and the language; yes English speaking viewers are probably not going to be misled in the case of Blood and Black Lace as most have a passing understanding of the Romance languages. But Japanese characters appear to most English speakers as indecipherable, and they would have no reason to believe when looking at 座頭市地獄旅 and Criterion's subtitle beneath it, "Zatoichi and the Chess Expert", that it wasn't an accurate translation (whilst it actually appears to be "Zatoichi's Journey to Hell" or perhaps "Zatoichi's Hellish Journey??).

Or to get back to Arrow, "Blind Woman's Curse" does not remotely appear to be a translation of the characters on the title card and posters of the film, and there is no literal translation offered in the booklet. The alternative title mentioned, "Black Cat's Revenge" also isn't any sort of translation as far as I can see. Rather, the actual title relates to a dragon (referencing Kaji's tattoo in the film, I imagine), not a cat or blindness. It's very hard to come up with something accurate yourself even with translation tools. Sometimes I just want to know what the name of the film was I just watched is all :(

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antnield
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#68 Post by antnield » Thu Apr 09, 2015 6:42 pm

EddieLarkin wrote:Or to get back to Arrow, "Blind Woman's Curse" does not remotely appear to be a translation of the characters on the title card and posters of the film, and there is no literal translation offered in the booklet. The alternative title mentioned, "Black Cat's Revenge" also isn't any sort of translation as far as I can see. Rather, the actual title relates to a dragon (referencing Kaji's tattoo in the film, I imagine), not a cat or blindness. It's very hard to come up with something accurate yourself even with translation tools. Sometimes I just want to know what the name of the film was I just watched is all :(
The title, its alternatives and actual translation are the the first topics of conversation in Jasper Sharp's commentary.

David M.
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#69 Post by David M. » Thu Apr 09, 2015 6:44 pm

Finch wrote:Can't believe that people are nitpicking on a wonderful release like this. Blood and Black Lace is what the film is known as in the English-speaking world, not to mention that the Italian title is a bit spoiler-ish.
Honestly, I find that "nitpicking" is a sign that observant individuals with high standards are interested in a product, so as someone involved in its production I take it as a compliment (provided the criticism is both accurate and constructive).

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#70 Post by EddieLarkin » Thu Apr 09, 2015 7:08 pm

antnield wrote:The title, its alternatives and actual translation are the the first topics of conversation in Jasper Sharp's commentary.
Ah, I didn't think of that! Good to know, thank you. I'll make sure to listen to it when I next watch the film.

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tenia
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#71 Post by tenia » Fri Apr 10, 2015 6:03 am

David M. wrote:Honestly, I find that "nitpicking" is a sign that observant individuals with high standards are interested in a product, so as someone involved in its production I take it as a compliment (provided the criticism is both accurate and constructive).
In a sense, I feel that a lot of labels or studios don't understand that most of the people buying these types of releases are not doing so just because they're curious, but because they are looking for a high-end product.

I was discussing last week about the French BD of Sergio Martino's Torso on Facebook, and it so happenned that who seems to be the head of the label which released this BD came by.
We were talking at first about the upcoming French BD of Fulci's The Woman in a Lizard's Skin. The thing about this French BD is that it's encoded in 1080i50, so I pointed out that it'd be nice not to cap the level of care given to this release through a 1080i50 encode like for Torso.

Believe it or not, but I spent the next 10 posts to explain to this guy why it was so important to respect this encode, why it has disappointed some that it was not in 1080p24, and why people buying such a niche product (especially years after Blue Underground released the movie in a decent BD) DO HAVE this level of care.

He still affirmed that since the HD CAMSR master they got was 25fps but PSF, that was OK to keep the 25fps speed, and that it was in fact even better to do so rather than transcode it to 24fps in order to do a proper 1080p24 BD.
All he said was "the picture on my BD is so much good BECAUSE I kept the 1080i50." And of "you're not a label, so you can't know what's right or what's wrong, you just don't, so stop, I know better, and we'll see when you start doing my job".

Not a very constructive discussion, that's for sure, but it mades me wondered how a label can not understand why respecting the good frame rate is important, and how BU got their Torso BD in 1080p24...

David M.
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#72 Post by David M. » Fri Apr 10, 2015 6:39 am

They're mistaken. For progressive content there's no quality loss in changing the frame rate back to the original film speed. There is no benefit to encoding 1080i for film content.

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MichaelB
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#73 Post by MichaelB » Fri Apr 10, 2015 8:15 am

We could have upscaled the Alexander Mackendrick doc on Sweet Smell of Success to 1080i, since the original was an interlaced PAL video master, but David decided that it made much more sense to slow it down to 24fps and make it progressive. Which means that the interviews play slightly slower than they did originally, but the film clips that were originally speeded up to 25fps should be exactly right. Which seemed to me the be the right way of prioritising things, and the encode turned out surprisingly well as a result (given that certain issues were baked into the original master tape).

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tenia
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#74 Post by tenia » Fri Apr 10, 2015 10:03 am

So that's unfortunately another exemple of how one leading a label could be obviously wrong, not willing to understand why and how he's wrong despite factual exemples, but instead try to shut down disagreeing people.

Anyway.

Fortunately, other labels are much more understanding, which is why constructive insiders such as you Michael & David are always welcome.
Normally, it should only work for the better : labels understand what people would like to get (thus to buy !) and people are not only listened too (which gives the label a positive aura) but get things they want to buy.

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MichaelB
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Re: Blood and Black Lace

#75 Post by MichaelB » Mon Apr 13, 2015 12:00 pm


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