TV 4K: OLED LG 65" C9 / OLED 3D LG 55" 920V
Reproductor UHDBD: Panasonic DP-UB9004
¿Cómo se retoma el hilo de toda una vida? ¿Cómo seguir adelante cuando en tu corazón empiezas a entender que no hay regreso posible, que hay cosas que el tiempo no puede enmendar, aquellas que hieren muy dentro, que dejan cicatriz?
Precisamente en peliculas con fotografía tan compleja y al limite como estas los "saltos de formato", se notan mucho más.
El DVD se las veia y deseaba para plasmar el grano y la subexposición de Willis de manera fidedigna, el BD mejoro bastante y es de suponer que el 4K ayude, sobretodo a la hora de representar el abundante grano como textura y no como una "paella"
What makes Megalopolis so strange and, for a big-budget Hollywood film, so singular, is that, just like Vergil’s Aeneid, it is at once accretive, allusive, and idiosyncratic because Coppola is attempting something very few artists have ever done: to speak from inside the imperial organism, even as it begins to crack, and to craft a vision that is both a monument to its grandeur and a requiem for its decline.
Puf, con ese subidón de tema, creía que se había anunciado y digo joder a ver si 2020 va a ser el año del 4K
La cosa es que este 4K va a dar bastante que hablar si sigue con las "modificaciones" de Coppola. Pero el HDR y que el grano se represente mejor lo ayude bastante.
Nada de modificaciones, el negativo original estaba jodido y los DVD antiguos tenían un color muy distinto porque partían de duplicados de mala calidad. Lo que se ha hecho al restaurar es aplicar los 4 puntos de amarillo +1 punto de rojo, de Gordon Willis, quien por cierto estaba vivo, supervisó la resturación, dio indicaciones y la vio proyectada y dijo que era "dead on" con respecto a como la habia rodado.
De DVD Beaver:
By the time I received my review copy, there was already a reaction on the Net to the Coppola Restoration. Some felt that it was not so much a restoration as simply a brightening, and even charged Coppola, Willis and others with caving into criticism that the film was too dark – not in terms of dramatic tone, but picture quality. Others compared the Blu-ray to the Restoration as projected in 2K at the Ross Theatre on the Warner lot and declared it to be exactly similar. By the way, it is curious that it's called the Coppola Restoration since, so it appears in the featurette, his only contribution was to ask Steven Spielberg, in his then new relationship with Paramount, that it be done.
So the question naturally occurred to me: What exactly should we be criticizing here? What should be the province of our review – or any review? I knew that whatever memory I had of the original theatrical presentation some 35 years ago had been replaced by time, various video incarnations and my own imagination. (It was reassuring to hear Francis admit to the same.) I also had the experience of seeing other restorations that seemed to me to be at odds with the intent of the drama. In any case, who am I to say what evil lurks in the minds of men – or what color or exposure was intended?
So I decided that before launching into any of the restorations, I would first watch the 19-minute featurette on the whys and wherefores. This turned out to be something of a revelation for me, historically and artistically. The first thing I learned was that the original camera negative (we're talking about the 1972 Godfather) was so overused, it had become useless. Second, that Willis shot the movie deliberately so that the only way to print it was the way he shot it, with none of the usual compensations for exposure latitude, resulting in an unusually thin negative which was one of the reasons it fared so badly. Third, that Willis used no on-camera filtration.
I repeat, Willis shot without filters. He expected that the golden tone that we associate with the movie would be applied in the processing. But since the negative was no longer viable, and surviving prints were not in terrific shape, it was not entirely clear what the color scheme should actually look like. Willis was consulted for the restoration, but he was not directly involved. According to the featurette, Willis stated that he expected "4 points of yellow plus 1 point of red" over normal. So when we look at the restoration and it appears to us reddish, it may be that this in comparison to what we are used to, which might have been more like 10 points yellow + 1 point red. Truth is that it's been so long since I have worked with color filters on negative film that I really can't say with any confidence what 4+1 should come out to given any scene. For my part, the new color palette took some getting used to, but I eventually tumbled to it.
As for brightness, in some parts of the first movie – less so, I think, of the second – Willis, we are told, was going for a look of old Anscochrome which results in something like old home movies – which is very much what Connie's wedding looks like in the restoration: almost amateurishly overexposed. The videos we have seen up to now have added a considerable amount of yellow to what was essentially a seriously overexposed negative, so that it appears to have more image content than the restoration – which, in a way, it does – but it's not, so the restorers would argue, what Willis shot, or wanted.
Back to the restoration: So what was needed was a worldwide casting call for any exiting prints or parts of prints for all three movies – the most in need of work were the first two, especially The Godfather. The redoubtable Robert Harris supervised a multi-stage restoration process that eventually made its way into 4K. When you see what the restoration team had to work with I think you will be aghast; and when you see what their work looked like in its various stages I am equally certain you will be astonished; and as for the final result: appreciative, if not satisfied.
Y toma, subtitulado en castellano:
What makes Megalopolis so strange and, for a big-budget Hollywood film, so singular, is that, just like Vergil’s Aeneid, it is at once accretive, allusive, and idiosyncratic because Coppola is attempting something very few artists have ever done: to speak from inside the imperial organism, even as it begins to crack, and to craft a vision that is both a monument to its grandeur and a requiem for its decline.
Eso me recuerda a que me parece increíble que, las remasterizaciones en 4K que se hicieron hace una pila de años de obras maestras como esta o Lawrence de Arabia, que ya están hecha y solo hay que hacerle el HDR y masterizarla, etc, todavía no hayan salido.. ¿no debería ser menos trabajo sacar estas que ya tienen su masterización hecha en 4K?