Criterion Blu-Ray Disc A Big Disappointment
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carrotcake8 — 13 years ago(December 20, 2012 03:06 PM)
did you see the original cut during its infamous 1 week engagement at the
Cinema 1 in Manhattan? as i said if a am not mistaken that was the only
engagement of the original cut anywhere in the U.S.. so whatever minute
tweaking Cimino did for the Criterion blu-ray disc of the original Cinema1
cut it would be nice to say exactly what was done. -
FredBurroughs — 13 years ago(December 22, 2012 02:11 PM)
Expectations must be tempered accordingly when viewing older films in high definition. Even with a pristine, faithful restoration we are still subject to the whims of the director and DP regarding image appearance. Modern HD has conditioned most to expect all HD video to exhibit a sharpness, clarity and "pop" that greatly exceeds standard definition. Not all films, especially those which predate HD home video, integrate these aspects into their overall look.
The 2K restoration for Heaven's Gate is splendidly accurate to how the film should look. It is supposed to bear a somewhat misty, dreamlike softness. That is how the film was shot (in the movie's intended appearance and the processing of the physical film stock). Contrast this with the appearance of even older films on bluray, like Gone With the Wind, Bridge Over the River Kwai, and even the recent re-release of Patton. All films were shot before Heaven's Gate, yet they bear the vivid color and sharpness aspects of HD because that is how they were meant to appear on the big screen. A 4K scan would not have brought these qualities to Heaven's Gate because it was never designed to look that way in the first place.
Of course digital tweaking can bring these HD features to the new restoration, though that is a fine line to walk when reproducing a faithful transfer of the original film. A film transfer can be digitally altered/filtered/sharpened only so much before it loses its unique identity. -
myturn21 — 13 years ago(January 10, 2013 08:57 AM)
And the documentary Final Cut,
http://www.imdb.com/board/10424089/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
.
"ARRT! C'est l'empire de la mort!" -
alouette1977 — 12 years ago(December 08, 2013 01:50 PM)
Apparently, they wouldn't have gotten Cimino and Joann Carelli's participation in one of the featurettes, if they included Final Cut on the blu-ray (neither of them were interviewed for it.) Even after all the decades, Cimino still disparages what Steven Bach had to say and write about him, and remains defiant about what he did and how.
BTW, I thought the picture quality looked amazing.
"Everyone else may be an a**hole, but I'm not!" - Harlan Ellison -
bstephens21 — 12 years ago(December 09, 2013 02:05 AM)
And the unfortunate part is that the documentary really isn't an "adaptation". Michael Epstein is a lot more generous towards the film than Bach, and in many instances, goes against Bach's opinions on the film.
Maybe Second Run or MoC in the UK can get their hands on Cimino's transfer and include all the extras that Criterion dropped. -
saguaro-sun — 11 years ago(May 09, 2014 03:46 AM)
Second Sight in the UK released the Criterion/Cimino restoration on Nov. 25. 2013 in 2-DVD (PAL Region 2) and 2-BluRay (Region B) editions. The bonus disk contains a "DVD Release Version" of the Final Cut documentary. It's "excerpted", but I don't know by how much. The bonus material also includes interviews with Jeff Bridges and Zsigmond the cinematographer, whereas the USA Criterion version has interviews with Kristofferson and the soundtrack arranger and assistant director. Second Sight does not include any interviews with Cimino, whereas Criterion includes an audio interview with Cimino and a booklet with a 1980 interview with him.
The Second Sight edition is approximately the same price (including shipping from the UK) as you can find the Criterion in the U.S have to have a Region B capable Blu-Ray player of course (or a DVD player capable of playing Region 2 PAL), but from what people are saying, the quality of the Blu-Ray is not any improvement on the DVD -
josedeleon3000 — 13 years ago(March 15, 2013 10:57 AM)
I thought everything was perfect except I was hoping for more featurettes including the documentary The Making And Unmaking Of Heaven's Gate. And the theatrical trailer is zoomed into a 1.33:1 ratio. I saw a Widescreen trailer on YouTube and it was perfect.
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spaceodds — 12 years ago(May 30, 2013 02:09 AM)
Just read that a Limited Collectors edition is being released in France in November. It will have two blu-rays, two DVD discs and the soundtrack album of the film. Don't know if it will have all the extras we wish for.
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ridge-m-1 — 10 years ago(September 09, 2015 10:05 AM)
@ carrotcake8. Obviously you have read Blu-ray.com's review of the Criterion release. Their reviewer awards the video with 4.8 stars and asserts it as a thing of beauty.
Your self-claimed ability to accurately compare what you viewed over 30 years ago with Criterion's effort defies credibility. For example, why would one make a statement that "the crystal clarity and sharpness just isn't there" when the great DP Vilmos Zsigmond's
intent was to provide the picture with a "unique dreamy look"? -
naples-884-346409 — 10 years ago(October 29, 2015 04:51 AM)
One thing they changed according to reviews:
Right before the original intermission there was the breathtaking shot of John Hurt 'vanishing' with his horse in the smoke and dust.
That was my favorite shot in the whole movie.
It's highly metaphorical and contains a central theme of the movie: How people and things just fade away.
I can't believe Cimino took that out
And I read he changed the sepia tone: It's now less monochrome in some scenes.
Why did he do that?
Just in the last years this kind of monochromatic look has become popular (David Fincher, some Spielberg).
It's what made the original look so distinctive.
I bet Vilmos Z. is not pleased.
They should restore the 219 minute cut in 4k without changing anything.
It's still the best version. -
ridge-m-1 — 10 years ago(November 10, 2015 02:47 PM)
Very interesting information. This aficionado of this totally underrated masterpiece believes the picture deserves a completely uncut release and a 4k transfer.
Don't hold your breath having our wishes fulfilled though "naples". -
puirt-a-beul — 9 years ago(August 23, 2016 08:36 AM)
I can relate to what you're saying, carrotcake.
I'm just watching it for the first time, from the Criterion BD, and I'm disappointed with the transfer. I understand that it was deliberately shot in soft-focus, and in most shots on available light (what looks like overcast or late-afternoon), on typically-diffuse 70s film stock. But there seems to be more than that.
Since it was scanned from the three-colour separation preservation negatives and then the image was composited from those scans, I'm wondering if part of the issue is slight misregistration between the component cans. Negatives do shrink and warp over time; in a lot of shots in the BD transfer it looks like this might have happened, you can see a slight fringing around objects, almost like edge-enhancement, except it's a think line of magenta down one edge of an object and a thin line of cyan down the other. The overall effect is a slight out-of-focus, underwater look that I find very distracting.
That's specifically why Warner Bros developed its digital re-registration software, to bring images scanned from colour-separated negatives back into alignment. I wish more companies would use it, or else develop their own.
You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.