Ritrovata and Eclair Cinematic Universes

[mhofmann]

DVD Classik published an extensive review of the French Dario Argento BD set released a few months by Les films du Camélia.

No surprise regarding the gradings : Cat O Nine Tails and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage are both released in obvious Ritrovata'd gradings, while the Cinecitta gradings look like Cinecitta gradings.

It is however interesting to note that Profondo Rosso gets yet ANOTHER color grading, meaning it's at least the 6th one : the one released on DVD by Anchor Bay (1), the one released on BD by Blue Underground (2), the one prepped up by Ritrovata in 2015 (3), which served as a basis but got corrected by them for Arrow for their 2016 BD (4), the one done by Silver Salt for the 2021 Arrow UHD based on a new scan (5), and now the one done by Cinecitta (seemingly based on the 2015 scan) (6).

It's interesting to read how they argue much more in favor of the Ritrovata gradings (or even the Cinecitta gradings except Profondo Rosso) as opposed to other gradings done on these films, e.g., on by Silver Salt behalf of Arrow.

[tenia]

They trust a lot works like those of Ritrovata and Eclair, perceived as "reproducing the native characteristics of film stocks". This means that, since all labs can't all be right since different labs yield different results in a structural fashion, they tend to reject works not having looks like what Eclair and Ritrovata are doing, such as Silver Salt's (and others) works. They also often tend to see those as being "typical from American-type philosophies", as opposed to "European philosophy", despite this not being that simple at all (for instance, it's clear that Ritrovata and Eclair are doing 2 very different things of their own, while here, it's clear that Cinecitta aren't doing what Ritrovata are). On this set though, they don't like at all the Cinecitta Profondo Rosso grading.

This also can be seen in their Carlotta Chabrol boxset review, but also in the Studio Canal Tavernier boxset one, whereas to me (and people aligned with this), these sets are actually precisely pointing out how the presence of these looks are so much more correlated to which lab did the grading than the movies themselves).

I had heated discussions with them about our divergence on this, but fortunately, things have since calmed down and even if we still clearly disagree on these, at least we can discuss technicals in a simple and fluid manner again.

To some extent, I can understand where they're coming from, and I don't think everything coming out from elsewhere than Ritrovata, Eclair (etc) is exempt from discussions, but I do think that the demonstration has sufficiently been made as to where the Ritrovata and Eclair (etc) looks are mostly (if not exclusively) coming from, and how this should be enough to prove these results should definitely be taken with more salt than Classik are doing. As I wrote there, plenty of older gradings were wrong, and we know that, but just because the newer ones are different doesn't mean they're right : they can still be wrong, albeit in a different shape.

[rrenault]

At least in French film culture, I sense a reluctance to surrender to what could be called "the Arrow/David M way of doing things", since it's perceived as a threat to the theatrical experience, so I suspect there's a sense of traditionalism and old guard-ism involved. Obviously Carlotta know better and that it's not a zero-sum game.

In France, a lot of influential people in the film world have a vested interest in keeping the theatrical model alive and feel threatened by those David M-authored 4K discs.

This traditionalism is all a bit ironic considering the extent to which television companies in France fund theatrical film production.

[tenia]

I have to say I'm not sure to understand what any of you're saying, especially in how it would relate to disc encodes by Fidelity in Motion.

[rrenault]

I meant in the sense of "American philosophies" as opposed to "European philosophies" with FiM's dedication to high fidelity reference quality encodes intended for home viewing as an example of something the French film establishment might perceived as an "Anglo-American way of doing things", since it's an "infringement" on the "traditionalism" of the Franco-Italian film establishment.

Look at Studio Canal. They'll call up David M for Don't Look Now or Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, but "never in a million years would we want to subject our precious legacy museum pieces like Breathless and Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie to that crass American techno-fetishism".

[tenia]

I think that's over-thinking it. It's likely to be down to which team is handling what project, and it's not a matter of philosophy than skills here, as David M is (fortunately) not the only one able to output proper encodes like these. Gaumont and Pathé for instance have no problems, and they're not the only ones.

In terms of philosophies, it's not down to this, which is more binary, but to the restoration itself, meaning to the labs. In this case : yes, why not. But even then, not all European labs are working in the same way. Eclair and Hiventy aren't even working in the same way since they clearly each output their own recognizable results.

[Drucker]

They trust a lot works like those of Ritrovata and Eclair, perceived as "reproducing the native characteristics of film stocks".

Sounds to me like they are just copy + pasting the words on a press release of some sort but that's just my two cents.

[tenia]

This one might look like this, but it's just because it's the usual way of summing these things up. But this aside, they're not, they do have developped an opinion on this that is trusting these labs' work ane results.

To me, there is way enough elements to disprove this, but seemingly not to them, and that's despite the exercice I've done mostly, actually, to respond to their specific arguments (which felt like a starting point as good as any). For instance, regarding the Argento movies in this set, they've told me the disparity in restored looks (ie the Ritrovata ones being Ritrovata'd and the Luce Cinecitta not being Ritrovata'd) that "it might be because some movies are pre-1975 and the others post-1980". But there already are enough movies affected by this that are on both sides of this calendar threshold ! So nope : it can't be it.

It does make me wonder what would be required for such people to really and deeply start questioning what is happening. I mean, for starters : Eclair and Ritrovata can't be both right. Yet, that's how they treat their works : as a homogeneous corpus of properly restored movies, despite Ritrovata clearly not working like Eclair do (and vice-versa), because otherwise, well, we wouldn't be as easily able to pick who did what, wouldn't we.

To me, it seems as if when thinking we might be reliving the homogenenous magenta-push plague from 20 years ago but in yellow and green-blue, they get stuck on the yellow and green-blue thing rather than the homogeneous part of it. Which actually is THE issue.

[mhofmann]

Look at Studio Canal. They'll call up David M for Don't Look Now or Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, but "never in a million years would we want to subject our precious legacy museum pieces like Breathless and Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie to that crass American techno-fetishism".

I honestly don't think that's the case and it sounds a bit conspiratorial to me. Poor David M. has nothing to do with how labs grade their movies - and I'm sure he's encoded plenty of Ritrovata and Eclair restorations!

[Black Hat]

An article from the latest issue of Filmmaker Magazine on color timing in restorations.

Okay, which one of you is Bingham Bryant?

These worlds colliding, or rather, unmasked, would be quite the discomforting crossover event.

[rrenault]

Look at Studio Canal. They'll call up David M for Don't Look Now or Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, but "never in a million years would we want to subject our precious legacy museum pieces like Breathless and Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie to that crass American techno-fetishism".

I honestly don't think that's the case and it sounds a bit conspiratorial to me. Poor David M. has nothing to do with how labs grade their movies - and I'm sure he's encoded plenty of Ritrovata and Eclair restorations!

Yeah, I guess you're right.

[mhofmann]

An article from the latest issue of Filmmaker Magazine on color timing in restorations.

Okay, which one of you is Bingham Bryant?

No idea, but his feature 'For the Plasma' was just announced as an OCN partner label release.