Dekalog and Other Television Works

Discuss releases from Arrow and the films on them.

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Pepsi
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#101 Post by Pepsi » Mon Oct 24, 2016 11:48 am

Back to the basics:

It’s no doubt that DEKALOG 1-4, and 7-10 are made for European TV using 25 f/sec, and if they are shot in 35mm, they have used a camera with a gate for Academic ratio 1:1.37. Both Criterion and Arrow are correct. Arrow have the exposed negative size, Criterion the 4:3 tube television frame, as it was back then broadcasted in (+ with a huge overscan).

BUT:

It feels very odd that they have chosen to make part 5 and 6 with a cinema aspect ratio, but chosen to use the sound mix for television purposes.. It doesn’t make sense, when they knew they are going to be broadcasted in cinemas. I believe they are shot in 24 f/sec, and the television version are mixed as they were shot on 25 f/sec (for the music).

Could someone cheque the Criterion cinema version 24 f/sec vs. the Arrow TV version 25 f/sec for A Sort Film about Love, and listen if the music sounds the same, in both versions, and if they starting point / end point for the music is at the same place for scenes that are presumably the same in both versions. Then we know.

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MichaelB
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#102 Post by MichaelB » Mon Oct 24, 2016 11:57 am

Pepsi wrote:It feels very odd that they have chosen to make part 5 and 6 with a cinema aspect ratio, but chosen to use the sound mix for television purposes.. It doesn’t make sense, when they knew they are going to be broadcasted in cinemas. I believe they are shot in 24 f/sec, and the television version are mixed as they were shot on 25 f/sec (for the music).
It's pretty much impossible to tell what speed the cinema versions were shot at without specifically asking people who worked on them, as there's no obvious visual indicator. However, I can certainly confirm that the pitch of the music in the TV versions is correct at 25fps, as I specifically checked. (There's no technical reason why Arrow couldn't have opted for 24fps for just those episodes, if that turned out to be the optimum speed).

Like you, I suspect there were two separate sound mixes, one for the feature version that was intended to play at 24fps, and one for the television version at 25fps - but I can't confirm this first hand because I don't yet have 24fps copies of A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love.

As for the framing, to my knowledge parts five and six were always intended to be framed wide regardless of medium - I remember the 1990 BBC2 broadcast being slightly letterboxed, and anticipated this because I'd already seen them in a French cinema, also wider than the others.

UPDATE: It occured to me that I do have PAL-adjusted 25fps copies of the Short Films courtesy of the old Artificial Eye DVDs, so I've just done a comparison with the Arrow encode (natively 25fps)... and, sure enough, the pitches are roughly a semitone apart. Which does tend to support the hypothesis that the film and TV soundtracks had different mixes to fit differing framerates - which of course would make perfect sense given that they were intended from the outset to have different film and TV editions.

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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#103 Post by criterion10 » Mon Oct 24, 2016 2:25 pm

Off-topic from the frame rate discussion, but any advice on whether or not the Short Films... should be watched before or after their respective television episodes?

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MichaelB
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#104 Post by MichaelB » Mon Oct 24, 2016 2:30 pm

I saw A Short Film About Killing first, then Dekalogs Five and Six in a double bill, and finally A Short Film About Love - and although that wasn't planned, it worked surprisingly well for me.

To be honest, if you've got the long cut of Killing, you might as well stick with that, as the shorter version is pretty much the same film, but slightly less graphic and with less backstory. But the two separate cuts of Dekalog Six/A Short Film About Love are fascinatingly different, not least in their endings - and I suspect it's more satisfying to encounter the ending of the longer film second, as the short version is much more abrupt. (Kieślowski preferred the shorter cut, claiming that the longer cut was too sentimental for his taste, but that may be precisely why so many people disagree with him.)

criterion10

Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#105 Post by criterion10 » Mon Oct 24, 2016 2:34 pm

Interesting, that sounds like a strong way to view the films for the first time, and I'll probably go about it similarly myself. Thanks.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#106 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Oct 24, 2016 2:58 pm

MichaelB wrote:To be honest, if you've got the long cut of Killing, you might as well stick with that, as the shorter version is pretty much the same film, but slightly less graphic and with less backstory.
This sounds like my experience as well. I saw a restored print of the longer theatrical version at Lincoln Center not long ago, and outside of filling out the lawyer's background, it didn't feel very different.

Pepsi
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#107 Post by Pepsi » Mon Oct 24, 2016 4:00 pm

To be honest, if you've got the long cut of Killing, you might as well stick with that, as the shorter version is pretty much the same film, but slightly less graphic and with less backstory.
I feel also that you should see the longer version, because they are so close, that you don’t need to see both, at least not at the same year.

I saw a few months ago Richard Brooks / Truman Capote’s IN COLD BLOOD. If you have time, you could see that instead of two versions of KILLING. It resembles quite much of Killing, both atmosphere, and the story. Im sure Kieslowski / Krzysztof Piesiewicz had it as a source material, when writing Killing.

I like more the cinema version of LOVE, because it believes in human being, and the ability of understanding, and love each other. The short version is like an slam on your face!


About the frame rate, we can discuss this for 20 more pages if it’s shot in 25 f/sec. Should it be transferred in the original frame rate, or the frame rate most people has seen it in cinemas (24 f/sec).

=====

About the Beaver discussion, if always think about the beginning monolog in Woody Allen’s ANNIE HALL:

There's an old joke. Uh, two elderly
women are at a Catskills mountain
resort, and one of 'em says: "Boy, the
food at this place is really terrible."
The other one says, "Yeah, I know, and
such ... small portions."

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MichaelB
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#108 Post by MichaelB » Mon Oct 24, 2016 4:05 pm

Well, with Dekalog the chances are you've either seen it in 24fps or 25fps and most likely you thought it was fine at either speed so it doesn't ultimately make that much difference.

It was clearly originally designed for 25fps television broadcasts (there being no talk of a theatrical release for the entire series until after completed episodes had been screened), so I have no doubt what the optimum framerate is - but most people who caught it in cinemas would most likely have seen it at 24fps. Including me on my first viewing.

But most if not all previous video versions would have been at 25fps, including the Facets edition, because that was a PAL-to-NTSC transfer. In fact, the Criterion edition may well mark the 24fps debut of the series on home video.

AK
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#109 Post by AK » Tue Oct 25, 2016 1:52 am

I've been following the discussion you're trying to have on Blu-ray.com with the doctor, and if there's a better definition than that thread for "beat a dead horse", I've yet to see it.

A big hug and a thank you for both Michael and Nick. Your involvement in any project is a guarantee of quality for me. Now that the Arrow Store hasDekalog in stock, I'm anxiously waiting to get my hands on it and enjoy the hard work you've put into this release.

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GaryC
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#110 Post by GaryC » Sun Oct 30, 2016 5:06 am

I did a search and couldn't see if this had been addressed, but is there a reason why Pedestrian Subway is in a ratio of 1.78:1? I've no idea if that's the intended OAR or not, but it does seem very odd for an early-Seventies TV production.

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MichaelB
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#111 Post by MichaelB » Sun Oct 30, 2016 5:42 am

It wasn't addressed because the book was already being printed when I finally got sight of the HD master, having previously assumed that it would be 4:3 because that's the aspect ratio of the Vimeo screener that TVP sent me and which I was initially working from.

Having run them both side by side, I don't think it's that big a deal, given the circumstances of production - the film was notoriously shot hand-held in just one take after Kieslowski took the potentially kamikaze decision to scrap what he'd done across 90% of the allotted schedule and reshoot from scratch, and certainly nothing important has been cropped off. But I agree that it's odd and unexpected.

The really baffling thing is why they cropped Pedestrian Subway to 16:9 but left Short Working Day (the other HD upgrade) in the original 4:3, but I'm very glad they did. And of course if Dekalog itself had been cropped to 16:9 (as it notoriously was on the Polish BDs), that would have been a total deal-breaker.

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GaryC
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#112 Post by GaryC » Mon Oct 31, 2016 9:13 am

MichaelB wrote:It wasn't addressed because the book was already being printed when I finally got sight of the HD master, having previously assumed that it would be 4:3 because that's the aspect ratio of the Vimeo screener that TVP sent me and which I was initially working from.

Having run them both side by side, I don't think it's that big a deal, given the circumstances of production - the film was notoriously shot hand-held in just one take after Kieslowski took the potentially kamikaze decision to scrap what he'd done across 90% of the allotted schedule and reshoot from scratch, and certainly nothing important has been cropped off. But I agree that it's odd and unexpected.

The really baffling thing is why they cropped Pedestrian Subway to 16:9 but left Short Working Day (the other HD upgrade) in the original 4:3, but I'm very glad they did. And of course if Dekalog itself had been cropped to 16:9 (as it notoriously was on the Polish BDs), that would have been a total deal-breaker.
If anyone wasn't aware the film had been cropped, the picture shifts down during the end credits as Kieślowski's name appears. There are 4:3 clips of the film in the Still Alive documentary, and it looks to me like the cropping was done at the bottom of the frame rather than the top - actors' heads are right at the top of the frame in either ratio.

I was at the location for Pedestrian Subway just under a month ago. Needless to say, it's changed a lot since 1972...

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MichaelB
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#113 Post by MichaelB » Mon Oct 31, 2016 10:50 am

A five-star rave from Cine-Vue.

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dda1996a
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#114 Post by dda1996a » Mon Oct 31, 2016 11:51 am

MichaelB wrote:A five-star rave from Cine-Vue.
It's a shame most reviews will focus mostly on the Dekalog (or not as it's one of the greatest things ever made) and not on the lesser known films that come included here. Having seen Three Colors, Veronique and the entire Dekalog I'm more interested in all the shorter early works he made. It seems foolish to even say this as the Dekalog might be my favorite thing Kieslowski ever made (and considering my undying admiration for the other films I mentioned might illuminate how much I care about this box) but with so little written on everything he made prior to the Dekalog (and sadly I've yet to see his other early films like Blind Chance) it is rather a shame most reviews will focus solely on the ten episodes themselves and not the rest

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tenia
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#115 Post by tenia » Mon Oct 31, 2016 11:58 am

Sadly, reviewers spending time to watch the extra features (even if they are additionnal movies) are extremely few.

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MichaelB
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#116 Post by MichaelB » Mon Oct 31, 2016 12:16 pm

I sympathise with them, as there's one hell of a lot of stuff to get through - and the five other TV works are probably Kieślowski's least seen and discussed pieces, at least outside Poland. In fact, with the exception of First Love, which was anthologised on PWA's Kieślowski documentary compilation, I think this may be their English-friendly debut on home video.

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MichaelB
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#117 Post by MichaelB » Thu Nov 03, 2016 3:50 am

As he did with the BFI's Alan Clarke box, Gary Couzens at The Digital Fix is reviewing Dekalog disc by disc.

So here's Disc One, containing Dekalog One, Dekalog Two, Pedestrian Subway and the Kieślowski tribute documentary Still Alive.

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dda1996a
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#118 Post by dda1996a » Thu Nov 03, 2016 4:15 pm

That's great. I enjoyed his Alan Clarke reviews and am happy to see someone write about the extra films in this box. Now I just to wait to receive it myself. Michael do you know if Artificial Eye is moving ahead with Blu Rays of the two expanded episodes?

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MichaelB
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#119 Post by MichaelB » Thu Nov 03, 2016 4:23 pm

dda1996a wrote:That's great. I enjoyed his Alan Clarke reviews and am happy to see someone write about the extra films in this box. Now I just to wait to receive it myself. Michael do you know if Artificial Eye is moving ahead with Blu Rays of the two expanded episodes?
I understand that Artificial Eye is planning several unspecified Kieślowski Blu-rays, possibly for next year. It has to be a racing certainty that the two Short Films are among them - not only are they clearly the most commercially attractive out of the titles that AE hasn't released yet, but they refused to sub-license them to Arrow, which speaks volumes. And since they have the rights and HD restorations are available off the shelf, it's not a hugely challenging prospect for them.

In other news, someone on Amazon docked Arrow a star because they didn't crop the picture to 16:9.

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dda1996a
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#120 Post by dda1996a » Thu Nov 03, 2016 4:30 pm

Are you insinuating that they might release the rest of Kieslowski films on Blu?

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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#121 Post by jindianajonz » Thu Nov 03, 2016 4:38 pm

The idea that this should be 4:3 is really more of a half truth. After all, these films were originally shot in 35mm...

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zedz
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#122 Post by zedz » Thu Nov 03, 2016 5:10 pm

jindianajonz wrote:
The idea that this should be 4:3 is really more of a half truth. After all, these films were originally shot in 35mm...
What earthly bearing does the film stock have on the 'correct' aspect ratio? 4:3 is the native aspect ratio of 35mm film. The use of it to capture wider ratios was a much later adaptation and, when this film was shot, was unthinkable for a television production.

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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#123 Post by jindianajonz » Thu Nov 03, 2016 5:20 pm

Sorry Zedz, I wasn't being serious. It was a rather lame allusion to the other review that has been frequently discussed in this thread.

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tenia
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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#124 Post by tenia » Thu Nov 03, 2016 5:23 pm

jindianajonz wrote:Sorry Zedz, I wasn't being serious.
For some, it was painfully obvious. \:D/

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Re: Dekalog and Other Television Works

#125 Post by MichaelB » Thu Nov 03, 2016 5:41 pm

dda1996a wrote:Are you insinuating that they might release the rest of Kieslowski films on Blu?
I've said literally all that I know. You'll have to ask them directly.

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