Gaumont French Releases

[tenia]

While I agree with the overall feeling that the resulting flatness can be problematic (I myself prefer a more contrasted aspect, even if possibly just by force of habit), I argue two things :
- if these levels are willingly decided at the restoration level by Eclair, I'm unsure if there are any details lost in these darker areas to begin with. There are many restorations with blacks at 0 where these darker areas show no detail there. Having them at, say, 7 instead of 0 won’t change that. That’s what happens with Joan of Arc for instance : Criterion used the Gaumont restoration and just re-adjusted the contrast (or the gamma), but flat black areas were flat grey areas, and won’t show more detail on the Criterion disc. Yet, because it uses the full video range, it won’t be picked up. And indeed, Svet didn’t pick it up and gave the PQ 5/5, but these darker areas won’t have any more shadow details than the Gaumont release.
- Many of the issues visible on the Gaumont release of Elevator to the Gallows are not a result of the lighter gamma / contrast, but of the encode being unable to handle it correctly. Eclair has produced other light-looking restorations, but most of them aren’t encoded as poorly, and the result is thus much less debatable (Les tontons flingueurs, typically). I’d also believe that Criterion hasn’t done things very differently than for Joan of Arc (AR aside, of course), but I don’t have the Criterion to compare, and blu-ray.com caps don’t match, so I’m not sure.

Note that it's also varying from restoration to restoration indeed : Quand tu liras cette lettre has lower blacks (but not at 0), Joan of Arc has them at 11, Le voleur 2, Le plaisir 3, Le dernier des six 4, Un carnet de bal 17, Trois chambres à Manhattan 4. It's thus not a homogeneous result.

The new Tontons flingueurs restoration is all the more an interesting example because it's now lighter than the past restoration (though I haven't wrote down how low the blacks go), but while the older restoration was quite well received, the new one reveals more shadow detail because it seems the older one simply was too contrasted. Blacks were rich, but they were too rich.


Now, I'm not particularly educated on this part of PQ, so can't go deeper in that, but I felt these info would be interesting for people here.

[nitin]

Obviously I dont know exactly what Eclair is doing, but just because it's a conscious decision doesnt make it right either.

See for example Ritrovata, who apart from their colour grading, also apparently apply a Film Projection LUT to all of their restorations. The reasoning behind that seems to be to emulate film projection but in a digital space (either DCP or home video/blu ray). But it seems really obvious that whatever LUT Ritrovata is using doesnt seem to properly account for the fact that the film projection workflow/chain actually increases contrast and limits dynamic range along the way, and the end result to a viewer in a theatre would not look anything at all like the weak/raised blacks you get on Ritrovata's restorations in the digital space (again either as a DCP or home video/blu ray).

[tenia]

It's not only conscious but done on a case-by-case basis, ending up with what I feel is a more organic result, hence why I wanted to make the distinction.

But I agree with you : it's not better because of this consciousness (I certainly didn't ask Eclair what they were doing for no reason !), and obviously, the parallel with Ritrovata came to me very quickly.

[nitin]

It would be interesting to hear which french blu rays Eclair consider to respect their intentions via proper encoding and which they do not. I suspect they would consider most of Pathe's output to be faithful and Gaumont's to be more hit and miss.

[tenia]

The way they answered me let me suppose they won't say exactly which discs they consider problematic.

I suspect they would consider most of Pathe's output to be faithful and Gaumont's to be more hit and miss.

I'm not so sure about this split.
If this is indeed a case-by-case basis based on the customer's request, I'd suppose rather that Pathé are asking for "pure" blacks while Gaumont don't, and that the discs Eclair consider unfaithful are ones like Elevator, The Lovers or others where you see stuff like chroma issues and banding all over. But I don't think Le mystère Picasso, for instance, is unfaithful.

[Perkins Cobb]

A few other spring/summer releases with English subtitles (at least according to Amazon):

L'Homme du jour (Julien Duvivier, 1937)
Untel père et fils (Julien Duvivier, 1943)
Le Mariage de Chiffon (Claude Autant-Lara, 1942; so far the only title from the Eclipse set available in HD, I think?)
Le silencieux (Claude Pinoteau, 1973)
Lévy et Goliath (Gérard Oury, 1987)
Le Schpountz (Gérard Oury, 1999)

Anyone spot any others?

[tenia]

I can confirm that L'homme du jour, Untel père et fils & Le silencieux have English subs (can't for the other), and that Yoshiwara, Mayerling and Sans lendemain don't have Eng subs.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

There's always Grémillon and Vigo to look forward to in October in the Classics line which makes English subs probable

[JAP]

On a related note, the Cineteca di Bologna edition of the Vigo set (2 BRs+3 DVDs) is already available for €33.00 RRP.

[L.A.]

Artificial Eye releases L’Atalante & The Films of Jean Vigo in October. Wonder what this includes.

[Werewolf by Night]

Product Description
L'Atalante (1934)
This intoxicatingly inventive masterpiece is one of the world's great films. A simple and engaging plot is transformed into a kaleidoscope of dazzling digressions and offbeat characterizations complete with tour-de-force scenes that still seem fresh and startling.

À propos de Nice (1930)
What starts off as a conventional travelogue turns into a satirical portrait of the town of Nice on the French Cote d'Azur, especially its wealthy inhabitants.

Taris (1931)
An Inventive short portrait of a swimming champion.

Zero de Conduite (1933)
A radical, delightful tale of boarding-school rebellion that has influenced countless film-makers.

[L.A.]

Regarding the extras I meant. Doing some research I noticed an earlier DVD from AE so maybe it will the same release.

But I still feel enormous interest towards the upcoming French set. Like David said:

...some things are more important than money.

[feckless boy]

So far the forthcoming AE Blu-ray is listed as only a single disc - so probably something similar to the Criterion disc but hopefully using the new restorations.

The Gaumont Prestige - Coffret Jean Vigo Edition with 5 DVD or 2 Blu-ray + 2 DVD, with a book by Bernard Eisenschitz. According to one BD.com-poster this set will use the new 4K restorations and at least the films themselves will be subtitled in English.

The outtakes David Hare is talking about Tournage d’hiver: L’Atalante de Jean Vigo chutes et rushes.

[Costa]

If tenia or anyone else gets this:
https://www.amazon.fr/1492-Conquest-of- ... B07G2D87KH
please let us know if it's remastered, if it's indeed the extended cut and if it includes English subtitles.

I love this film and Vangelis' soundtrack.

[tenia]

Gaumont and Pathé changed their logistics company and it's a nightmare since. Most of their latest releases have been plagued with supplying issues at online suppliers. Hopefully, things will smooth out over time but I guess someone is going to pay some penalties !

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Both Amazon an FNAC are stating 17th October for arrival of stock on all Gaumont October releases and the delayed September Tourneurs

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

They have written to say mine will be delivered the 19th from both FNAC and Amazon so the stock situation seems to be pretty solid

[artfilmfan]

I've only watched about 40 minutes of it so far ... L'Atalante on the new Gaumont Blu-ray disc looks fantastic. I set my Blu-ray player to Region A and the disc plays fine.

[Stefan Andersson]

The CNC grants towards restoring French films will be considerably lowered. 2,8 million euros (per year, I assume) for the years 2019-2021, as opposed to 9 million euros in 2018.


The CNC are looking favourably on support from private sources, and have a list of 100 titles to be "adopted" for restoration. Gaumont and other holders of large catalogues are, unsurprisingly, critical of this.


Article in French ("free reading" part only) here:

https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article ... _3234.html

[tenia]

Labels and studios in France are not happy at all about it, and I understood better after reading this article why some labels were saying things were getting "complicated".

[eerik]

Jean Epstein's Finis Terræ & La Femme du bout du monde released next month with English subtitles.

[tenia]

There's a "before / after restoration" featurette on Gaumont's upcoming release of Pierre Richard's Le distrait, and it contains these comparisons (for which I can't find the right adjective), in case anybody was still wondering how these homogeneized gradings happen :


Hard to find any more explicit.

[L.A.]

Jean Epstein's Finis Terræ & La Femme du bout du monde released next month with English subtitles.

It seems the latter is not included on the Potemkine set.

[Aunt Peg]

My Gaumont Danton blu ray is dead. Anybody experienced problems with Gaumont discs? I see on this old blu-ray.com forum thread that some early French blu discs have problems.

I'm gonna have to purchase it again unfortunately.

My Danton is in the process of dying. Plays on my Panasonic machine but not Sony so I'll watch it this week since I haven't seen it since 1982 and only purchased it for a revisit.

I'm afraid my La Nuit de Varennes is dead

I adore the film and now can only hope that a US or UK release is forthcoming. At least I'd watched the disc a couple of years ago and its a film that gets better with each viewing.

I'm now going to check and watch all my French discs (probably about 50 Blu Rays not counting the Rohmer box set). Have already ordered the Artificial Eye Malle set as a backup and will consider buying US/UK releases of other much loved titles.

[Aunt Peg]

I checked my Gaumont of A Man Escaped and it is dead. Have just ordered the Artificial Eye edition to replace it.