Cohen Film Collection

[FrauBlucher]

Jamaica Inn... 4k resto demo

And Jaimaica Inn before and after screen shots

[George Kaplan]

Jamaica Inn... 4k resto demo

And Jaimaica Inn before and after screen shots

Wonderful news. Can UNDER CAPRICORN be far behind? Someone, please, say "No!"

[FrauBlucher]

Cover art for Hangmen Also Die It doesn't seem like there will be bonus material. Too bad!

[domino harvey]

Cover art for Hangmen Also Die It doesn't seem like there will be bonus material. Too bad!

I Cohen'd that for you

[FrauBlucher]

Beaver on The Wind Will Carry Us

[Michael Kerpan]

Beaver on The Wind Will Carry Us

Sorry, I'll stick with my R2 DVD. (Assuming the screen shots are accurate, the colors of the BluRay look pretty cruddy -- while the R2 DVD look lovely).

[warren oates]

Given the history of Beaver's caps and the way that some of those images from both standard def DVDs do look boosted or too saturated or less like the rest of Kiarostami's films, I'm not prepared to jump to those kinds of conclusions. This is my favorite Kiarostami film and I've bought several versions of it so far. The Blu-ray seems worth it for the commentary alone. And I'll at least be holding onto disc 2 from the R2 set no matter what anyway.

[Michael Kerpan]

Well. let us know if the screen caps of the Blu are accurate. Part of the pleasure (of the MK2 DVD) of this film for me was the beauty of the color -- which seems totally absent from the drab screen shots of the new Blu.

[FrauBlucher]

Was it originally screened with muted colors?

[swo17]

Natural colors will look muted next to saturated ones.

[Gregory]

I'd be really curious what Gary's basis is for the claim that the new color timing is more "authentic." He didn't seem to have any criticisms whatsoever of the colors on the DVD releases before this new Blu-ray came out. Perhaps they were oversaturated, but I'm not sure that this more blue-biased transfer necessarily gets us any closer to the original look of the film. (If Gary's caps are accurate, the white shaving cream is now bluish.) If Cohen is going to charge Criterion-level prices it would nice if they would try to get director approval of the transfers they're using, like Criterion does.

[Michael Kerpan]

I got the impression that AK _was_ involved with the MK2 release.

[J M Powell]

FWIW the palette of my university archive's 16 mm print (yes, I know, hardly a reference source) looks much closer to the DVDs'.

[Oedipax]

Looks way too blue to me, but I'm still letting my order stand for now.

[Michael Kerpan]

FWIW the palette of my university archive's 16 mm print (yes, I know, hardly a reference source) looks much closer to the DVDs'.

It is at least a data point. ;~} As are [posters for the film I've seen -- which also look more or less like the French DVD color-wise.

[swo17]

Don't forget the importance of resolution:



Also, the DVDs look squished to me. Note, for instance, how his glasses look more oval-shaped in the shaving photo.

[George Kaplan]

I've seen THE WIND WILL CARRY US in 35mm projection three times and, to me, the Blu-ray certainly looks drab in comparison, but I've not watched the DVDs and

Natural colors will look muted next to saturated ones.

cannot be emphasized enough in this instance. Presuming that one set of images is "correct", whichever it is, it makes the other look very bad.

The key ad art shot from the DVD looks especially alarming to me because it does look so like the poster which, in turn has always looked to have been given a Miramax-like bump of gold (not so unlike this), as if to persuade viewers that Kiarostami's film has a Tuscan/IL POSTINO-like glow to it.

Initially, reading Gary's review my heart sank - I love this film - those caps aren't what I'd hoped to see. But, the more I stare at these images the more I'm convinced that: the NYer disc is awful; and the final two comparisons, landscape shots, are vast and decisive improvements to my eye.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

For what it's worth the monograph published by Hazan of Kiarostami's own photography has many examples of the landscapes with serpentine roads as per the capture above. They are in very different weather conditions ranging from brooding and stormy through to full sun. All of them display muted colours and closer to the bluray but not as magenta/cool biased as the capture. (The Beaver cap of the shot with the car is perhaps more representative) However nowhere is there any evidence at all of golden hues and the saturation of the dvds.
Frustratingly the 30 minute doc The Roads of Kiarostami produced by your man is in black and white.

[artfilmfan]

The color differences remind me of a similar situation previously seen on the DVDs of Un Coeur en Hiver (see comparisons at DVDBeaver). The UK DVD of "Un Coeur" has a golden glow just like the DVDs of "The Wind Will Carry Us" whereas the R1 DVD of "Coeur" (which was released later than the UK DVD) has muted colors that are very similar to the Blu-ray of "Wind".

[warren oates]

So I've been through The Wind Will Carry Us and it feels like Gary's assessment is right. Out of context some of those captures can make it feel like the whole film is now way too blue or even too dark. But as the film unfolds -- especially if you do a side by side with the previous MK2 standard def release -- it feels like the newer color timing is more nuanced and naturalistic, allows for more gradations of light and color. I'd say the first 10-20 minutes are the bluest. There are many moments later in the film with much hotter light sources and warmer colors that now feel more like part of a continuum than like the sort of reference points that might have been used previously to grade the whole video master.

[Jack Phillips]

Last night I popped the disc in just to check the image quality--and I could not stop watching. This is one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen on Blu-ray. There are occasional speckles on the source from which the transfer was taken, but I stopped noticing them after the first 20 minutes or so. I have both the US and French DVDs of this title. Except for the extras on the French DVD (which didn't get included on the Cohen release), there is no reason to go back to either of the DVDs. I will be watching this amazing Blu-ray, I'm sure, for years to come.

[adrian333]

This is probably my favorite Kiarostami and I'd much appreciate if someone could confirm that it is in fact region locked as stated by dvdbeaver. I know that in regards to Cohen Collection discs Gary was not always right in the past.

[warren oates]

Blu-ray.com on The Wind Will Carry Us.

[What A Disgrace]

According to Barnes and Noble (of all places!), Favorites of the Moon will include a feature-length audio commentary by critic Phillip Lopate, a new essay by critic Giovanni Vimercati and the 2014 re-release trailer

[chatterjees]

If anybody's interested to pre-order their upcoming releases, they are always little cheaper @BN website, at least for a month. After the titles are released, the prices go up.