22 Summertime

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Bressonaire
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Re: 22 Summertime

#26 Post by Bressonaire » Tue Apr 19, 2022 4:22 pm

Very glad to see an essay by Stephanie Zacharek of Time. I always find her fascinating and informative without being at all academic. It's been a couple years since she's done an essay (Let the Sunshine In), and I've been worried that the new owners of Time had barred her from doing them.

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movielocke
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Re: 22 Summertime

#27 Post by movielocke » Tue Apr 19, 2022 5:41 pm

23 years, ten months after the original edition criterion DVD was released, breaking Taste of Cherry's longest upgrade record by a couple years. And now, all 28 titles issued in 1998, criterion's first year of DVD releases, have been upgraded to a second edition or are now out of print.

I would guess the special features discuss the aspect ratio. as a 1955 release, this went to theatres widescreen, and was announced as widescreen in British trades. But obviously it shot spherical and has been presented (presumably) open matte for decades since that initial release. I wouldn't be surprised if criterion found evidence Lean preferred academy ratio for this film, like they did from Peter Brook for Lord of the Flies.

and having watched the film, it feels very composed for academy.

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EddieLarkin
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Re: 22 Summertime

#28 Post by EddieLarkin » Tue Apr 19, 2022 6:26 pm

I would disagree, the film is blatantly shot for widescreen; I spotted many instances of the camera operator moving the frame slightly to keep actor's heads inside what would have been the widescreen markings on the ground glass. The film did not begin production until the summer of 1954, by which point Academy ratio composing had well and truly bitten the dust for all American and British studio productions. Before production began, it was announced in the trades that the film would be shot in colour and in widescreen. On release, projectionists were instructed to run the film at 1.85:1. Even a contemporary review of the film lists this aspect ratio. What Lean might have preferred I've no idea, but I'm aware of no evidence whatsoever that he preferred the film in Academy. I do know he shot the film in widescreen, so that should be the starting point for any release.

britcom68

Re: 22 Summertime

#29 Post by britcom68 » Tue Apr 19, 2022 6:48 pm

I am looking forward to this upgrade in many ways (the version playing on the Criterion channel is indeed better than the old dvd edition when it comes to the colors) but I do feel that there were multiple missed opportunities for further supplements, albeit perhaps not entirely in Criterion's hands:
It is not every day an actor, even retired, can say that they have been directed by David Lean as well as shared screen time with Vivien Leigh, Marilyn Monroe, Julie Christie and Katherine Hepburn- such is the case with Jeremey Spenser who has a small part in this film and is (at the time of today's announcements) still very much alive. Still, as has been noted elsewhere here for other releases, former child actors are not always the best to discuss a film they made as a child-performer, or in Spenser's case for Summertime, a teenager. I do honestly wish that Criterion would at least tell us if they did reach out to him and were either rebuffed or just not answered in time or if he is not able to contribute anything due to health issues, since it isn't like there is anyone else associated with this film who is still alive. I will give credit to Kino and Shout Factory in at least freely publicizing which cast/crew members were contacted but declined interviews, Criterion is usually so tight-lipped about who it has at least attempted to get involved in its releases.
Also, it is very unfortunate that Criterion did not choose to do anything specific detailing the various adaptations of the original story behind this film. Although Laurents has been dead for years, it was only just a few months ago that Stephen Sondheim passed away. What is interesting is that I am not alone in having written to Criterion to lobby for Summertime's upgrade for literally over a decade, so surely Criterion could have gotten Sondheim on record back in 2021 concerning his role in the adaptation of Lean's film into his musical since this upgrade was clearly already under way at the same time Criterion was working with Sondheim concerning the Pennebaker documentary of Company. I know that Sondheim was deeply unhappy for many decades about the musical adaptation of Summertime but the experience for him was crucial in his career choices, and Sondheim's observations on Richard Rodger's drinking and work-habits during their collaboration on this were put into his script for The Last of Shelia. Personally though, I guess I am forever holding my breath and almost always let down by Criterion in this single respect: adaptations. Unfortunately it is so often lost sight of that many people only discover a film only after seeing its adaptation and it ought to be worth the effort to make that its own part of the special features for those people out there that may not have seen or even embraced the film itself but did have a love of the play or mini-series, etc.
Lastly, I do hope that Criterion comes thru with some clarification about the aspect-ratio issue, it is something we don't necessarily have to get in a special-feature if they could release a detailed statement, they have done this with other releases in the past and is hardly asking for the moon.

Regardless though, this is a nice long-awaited upgrade and as for its new cover-art, it is a nice throwback to the title-card sequence in the film itself so I will not join the chorus of complaints out there about the new design.

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FrauBlucher
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Re: 22 Summertime

#30 Post by FrauBlucher » Wed Jun 29, 2022 5:45 pm


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andyli
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Re: 22 Summertime

#31 Post by andyli » Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:46 pm

Apparently real efforts have been put into restoring the technicolor material. The result shows. Kudos to Criterion.

black&huge
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Re: 22 Summertime

#32 Post by black&huge » Wed Jun 29, 2022 8:48 pm

Overall looks fucking amazing to me

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ryannichols7
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Re: 22 Summertime

#33 Post by ryannichols7 » Wed Jun 29, 2022 10:23 pm

man this was a missed opportunity for 4K, there's so much great shadow detail that would've really been great in HDR! but either way, really pleased this looks as good as it does, the more technicolor we get the better

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

22 Summertime

#34 Post by Matt » Mon Jan 15, 2024 10:21 pm

I was having a devil of a time determining if this was shot in three-strip Technicolor or if it was shot in the successor format using Eastmancolor (or other monopack) negative film with processing and dye-transfer printing by Technicolor. It falls right in the period when both technologies were in use, and the “color by Technicolor” credit was used for both. Many online reviews of the Blu-ray say “three-strip Technicolor,” but I could not find any evidence to back that up.

There is no credit for a “Technicolor Color Consultant” which is usually a good sign that it was three-strip, and the Criterion “about the transfer” note on the Blu-ray mentions “the 35 mm original camera negative”—singular—and not “negatives” or “three-strip negatives.” And yet there is this other, difficult to parse statement: “duplicate shots had been inserted into the negative, and for those segments the 35 mm yellow, cyan, and magenta separation masters were used.” Separation masters (aka YCMs) would generally only have been made from a monopack negative as preservation elements.

Anyway, I still don’t have irrefutable evidence one way or another, but I’m pretty certain it’s not three-strip. I might just email the lab that did the 4k scan just to find out for sure, even though I have no practical use for this information.

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TechnicolorAcid
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Re: 22 Summertime

#35 Post by TechnicolorAcid » Mon Jan 15, 2024 10:50 pm

For what it’s worth, TCM, who I believe I believe has access to this prints in someway, mentions Summertime being a Technicolor film, Jack Hildyard worked on many Technicolor productions including his first ever role on Henry V, and for a final piece of interest; Criterion themselves put Summertime down as a Technicolor film in their Technicolor Criterion Channel Collection (though that last one is a big stretch).

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

22 Summertime

#36 Post by Matt » Mon Jan 15, 2024 11:07 pm

Films using an Eastmancolor negative with processing and dye transfer prints by Technicolor were and are commonly referred to as “Technicolor,” so unfortunately casual references to the brand name are typically of no use in determining the actual process used. Even the venerable American Film Institute (AFI) catalog uses just “Technicolor” for this process. You’d be surprised how many apparently authoritative sources have inaccurate, incomplete, or unspecific information.

I’ve been waging a minor battle on Wikipedia to add more specifics about the actual color process used on films, but any clarifications I make without documentation are immediately reversed.

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TechnicolorAcid
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Re: 22 Summertime

#37 Post by TechnicolorAcid » Tue Jan 16, 2024 12:23 am

Well Matt here's some info that might help out, the production company London Films was a studio that pretty much championed Technicolor productions and was in fact, one of the last few pictures to be produced by Alexander Korda. And to make things a bit more interesting, looking at lists of films in Eastman Color, none of them include Summertime from my findings (although that itself is a whole other bag of worms). Not to mention that though this was around the boom of Eastmancolor, that doesn't mean it was taking over just yet so there were still at least a couple of Technicolor films being made. If you'd like Matt I could try inquiring for info by emailing people if it's possible.

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Matt
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Re: 22 Summertime

#38 Post by Matt » Tue Jan 16, 2024 12:33 am

TechnicolorAcid wrote:Criterion themselves put Summertime down as a Technicolor film in their Technicolor Criterion Channel Collection (though that last one is a big stretch).
Indeed, I just checked the list of films in that series and several of them were not shot with Technicolor cameras or negatives. For instance, MGM famously cheaped out on Brigadoon and used the newer monopack Ansco Color process instead of Technicolor, with disastrous results for the long-term stability of the color and base of the negative. The list is a good case for how “Technicolor” has become synonymous with “saturated color” or sometimes even “has color.”

Jonathan S
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Re: 22 Summertime

#39 Post by Jonathan S » Tue Jan 16, 2024 9:53 am

FWIW, it isn't included in Wikipedia's list of three-strip Technicolor films.

I couldn't find any answer in Kevin Brownlow's biography of Lean, though an interesting footnote (not directly in relation to Summertime) mentions: "David loathed Technicolor [as a lab?] because they would provide a good answer print but he felt that their work then deteriorated. He used to drop into theatres and saw prints which should have been discarded."

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: 22 Summertime

#40 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Tue Jan 16, 2024 12:26 pm

A few contemporary sources on Google Books—Film Bulletin, the 1955 Film Daily Year Book, and the British Cinema News and Property Gazette—state it was Eastmancolor with prints by Technicolor.

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Matt
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Re: 22 Summertime

#41 Post by Matt » Tue Jan 16, 2024 8:55 pm

Marvelous! Thank you both.

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TechnicolorAcid
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Re: 22 Summertime

#42 Post by TechnicolorAcid » Fri Jan 19, 2024 1:12 am

Okay so I Emailed someone at Criterion hoping for an answer and I got genuine confirmation from them saying:
"Hi [NAME REDACTED],
Thanks for following up... In fact, the film was shot in Single strip Technicolor, not Eastman color.
I hope this settles something for you, but please let me know if you have any other questions.
Best,
Criterion Employee"
This does in fact prove that it was shot in Technicolor, just not a Three-Strip. I have the screenshots to confirm this is what they actually said.

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HinkyDinkyTruesmith
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Re: 22 Summertime

#43 Post by HinkyDinkyTruesmith » Fri Jan 19, 2024 1:39 am

"I hope this settles something for you" is really funny.

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TechnicolorAcid
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Re: 22 Summertime

#44 Post by TechnicolorAcid » Fri Jan 19, 2024 2:06 am

It makes a tad bit more sense in context with the initial message but reading it out of context now, yeah it's pretty funny.

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

22 Summertime

#45 Post by Matt » Fri Jan 19, 2024 2:10 am

Thank you, TechnicolorAcid, for asking. I’m afraid it doesn’t settle anything as I think they’re wrong! There was a Technicolor monopack (single-strip) technology at one time (which was actually 35mm Kodachrome reversal). Son of Lassie (1945) was the first feature wholly shot with it. But it fell out of use by 1952 when Kodak’s Eastman Color negative film did the same thing but better and cheaper and without a middleman, and Technicolor transitioned to performing processing and creating prints using their dye transfer process (which lasted in the U.S. until 1975, 1980 in Italy, and 1993 in China).

At any rate, I’ve found what I would call definitive proof from The Eastmancolor Revolution and British Cinema, 1955-85 project, a scholarly research project conducted in partnership with StudioCanal, the BFI, and others. An ad for the film (with its British title) that clearly says “Filmed on location in Venice, Italy in EASTMAN COLOUR Print by TECHNICOLOR”

Image

That project’s whole blog is really interesting, and one of the posts delves into how the same film in the UK would credit Eastman Color as well as Technicolor while in the U.S. would say only “Color by Technicolor” (which was true technically if not quite totally). Kodak, at the time, apparently did not care as much about branding as Technicolor, whereas Technicolor was a trusted brand name to audiences in the 1950s who had probably recently seen a lot of horrible-looking films made with inferior color processes.

This has probably become more involved than I expected, but at least we’re not talking about the aspect ratio!

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TechnicolorAcid
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Re: 22 Summertime

#46 Post by TechnicolorAcid » Fri Jan 19, 2024 2:59 am

Well I guess that settles it, thanks Matt (and also the others who pointed this out earlier in the discussion), also sorry for extending this longer than it should have gone for, just wanted to bring up that Email response.

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Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
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Re: 22 Summertime

#47 Post by Drucker » Fri Jan 19, 2024 5:34 pm

Early contender for thread of the year. Love your posts about three-strip lately, Matt, and especially your investigation in this thread. Did Lean have a negative experience using Technicolor on Blithe Spirit, and not enjoy how that film ended up looking? I wonder.

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

Re: 22 Summertime

#48 Post by Matt » Sat Jan 20, 2024 12:42 am

TechnicolorAcid wrote:Well I guess that settles it, thanks Matt (and also the others who pointed this out earlier in the discussion), also sorry for extending this longer than it should have gone for, just wanted to bring up that Email response.
No, don’t be sorry. Your posts really helped me dig further, and I appreciate you getting a response from Criterion. I think all this discussion has illustrated how difficult it can be to draw definitive answers to these kinds of questions from the evidence we have available. Witness all the arguments that have taken place here and elsewhere about intended aspect ratios. At least with color we can have the tangible proof of the actual film negative(s).

I can also now understand how strong Technicolor was in perpetuating their brand even as their signature technology was falling out of favor. Thank goodness we have Technicolor dye transfer prints and their YCM color separations from the original monopack negatives, because if we had relied on 1950s Kodak stock alone we would have lost so many more films. For example, in looking for information on the shooting of The Searchers, I learned that the original (Eastman Color) negative has lost all its color and the film base has become fragile and unusable. But since it was standard procedure to create YCM separation elements from negatives, the film’s colors can be reconstructed from them, and we’ll have a new restoration from them to look at in a couple of months.

There’s also a great extra from Disney’s Pollyanna DVD (one of the most informative extras about color I’ve ever seen) talking about how the YCM separations that were made from the monopack negative inadvertently left out the yellow matrix and instead had two blue and one red. They were able to use the otherwise faded negative, drawing out the green layer to make a new green separation master.

Drucker: thanks for the kind words. I did a lot of research on two-color Technicolor in grad school and learned from archival documents that the published “authoritative”filmographies of two-color films are incomplete. So I’m always skeptical about “certainties” regarding Technicolor in general. I’m delighted my posts have been of any interest to anyone but myself.

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TechnicolorAcid
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Re: 22 Summertime

#49 Post by TechnicolorAcid » Sat Jan 20, 2024 1:49 am

One more thing I want to end Matt's journey on is that now, on the second paragraph of Summertime's Wikipedia page, someone on January 18th "The film was shot on location in Venice in 1954 on Eastmancolor negative film with processing and prints by Technicolor." with 2 citations listed. Which is genuinely kinda nice that now others who have this oddly specific question or are just interested in some facts about Summertime won't have to look that deep about this topic. I am now preemptively seconding this for Best Thread on the 2024 Criterion Forum Awards.

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

Re: 22 Summertime

#50 Post by Matt » Sat Jan 20, 2024 3:33 am

That was just ol’ me. I’ve been updating articles for other films as well.

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