Casablanca and Citizen Kane-- Which editions?

Hi everyone!

I'm on another O.C.D. quest. This started after I got the DVD box set of The Godfather films and *detest* it. They don't look like a movie to me anymore... they look like... well... "too clean" if that makes sense. So, I went back and got the VHS tapes. Yes, they're VHS, but the movies look th way I remember them-- dark.

This past weekend, while visiting my brother, we started talking about film restorations and The Wizard of Oz came up because it was on T.V. On the HD tv it doesn't look like a movie anymore either. The best way I can describe it is that it looks like watching a 1960's or 1970's color TV program that was done on video, not on film.

I don't want movies to look like real life... I want that disconnect there. (That has to sound strange, I imagine...) I want to see film dirt, scratches, imperfections... all the things that make film "film."

That said, I bought Casablanca on DVD and it's good but very clean. I've never seen Citizen Kane, so I looked that up online to try and determine which version of both that and Casablanca are the best. Now I'm confused.

Which versions of these two films would be the forum favorite and why? I know that's a loaded question and I've searched the threads on it. I'm trying to process all the information, but any help is still greatly appreciated.

Thanks again!

John

 

Sounds like your TV might be set to Auto-Motion Plus...

 

There's a huge controversy in the film restoration community as to "how much grain removal is appropriate?"

It's fair to say no two experts agree on this. I personally think the right way to go is how MGM handled the Bond films, and how Fox did Alien and Aliens for Blu-ray: remove the major amount of noise, keep the grain consistent shot to shot, and sharpen the picture provided it doesn't introduce any artifacts. In general, those films got rave reviews on Blu-ray.

I personally don't have a problem with either Citizen Kane or Casablanca, but I concede there's a fine line between just the right amount of image processing, and too much processing during mastering.

I agree with dirwuf above that you also should check your TV to turn off all the motion-compensation circuits. That 240Hz (etc.) stuff is BS; it removes the "film look" out of film, which ain't kosher to me.

 

I assume you mean the new Godfather set, as the old one is pretty dirty looking, at least the first film. I'm surprised that you think it's not dark enough, as the latest restoration has been criticized by some (not by myself) for being too dark and grainy most of the time, though they did clean up a ton of print damage and defect digitally.

 

As for the TV issues... this new HD stuff is WAY over my head. I was visting my brother and he has a HD TV. It's different, for sure. The one I have is an old Made in the U.S.A. Zenith from when I was a kid. (*ducks my head*) I'll ask him about this "auto motion" stuff and see if that could have been the culprit.

The Godfather box set in question was indeed the new one. Maybe I could have phrased it better-- I remember the old versions, the first ones I saw-- as being very warm, fuzzy, dark, and murky. These new ones are very, very crisp and defined with blacks being VERY black, etc. It almost looks *too* good. The grit and dirt suits the tone and content of the films well and I miss that. I guess I could say it would be like hearing a stereo version of Robert Johnson... it just ain't right... Hahaha...

I kept reading in places very high regard for the Criterion Laser Disc of Citizen Kane, but I don't have a laser disc player, so that one's out.

If this is inappropriate, I'd like to ask the Gorts for their help in deleting this paragraph and gentle correction as I don't want to violate any forum rules. I intend to buy the new DVD releases of both movies. If there's a kind member here who has the old non-special edition VHS tapes of either movie, would it be possible to borrow the tape long enough to play the two and compare them? I promise to send the tape back unharmed. I'd just like to see what we had *before* they were both cleaned up and restored for the sake of comparison. I don't know what Casablanca looked like pre-restoration and I've never seen *any* of Kane.

Thanks for all the replies! This is very helpful!

 

It was 100% supervised and approved by Francis Coppola, and he got what he asked for. The colorist on Godfather was Jan Yarbrough at WB MPI in Burbank, and he's as good as it gets. Nobody better in the world, in my opinion. I think Godfather looks stunning on Blu-ray, one of the best transfers out there.

Hideous and overrated by today's standards -- grain the size of canned hams, so much dirt it looked like a blizzard. It was great circa 1984, but that's a long, long time ago.

I casually knew Bob Stein (the founder of Criterion), and I liked his original intentions. Their stuff was great compared to what was out on VHS, and their attention to detail was terrific... in the 1980s. Those laserdiscs do not hold up well today, in my opinion. (And I was involved in the mastering of a couple of them.)

 

Coppola is THE MAN, and I won't argue with him-- if that's what he wanted, then that's how it should be and I will graciously and gratefully stand corrected. I'm guessing this is all stemming from me wanting to see things how I remember them and my confusion over it all. Of course, then again, I don't have the equipment necessary to extract all that these new versions are capable of delivering, so my perception is probably faulty.

Your comments on the LaserDisc of Kane are very interesting, as well as the LaserDiscs in general. When they did these, would they have done any restoration (as such for the time) beyond a good cleaning of the actual film? Now I'm even more curious to see before/after versions of these films. It's really quite fascinating!

When you talk of the grain in the film, are you referring to the actual grain of the film or are you referring to grit, dirt, scratches, etc.? If it's the actual grain of the film they're removing digitally, is the removal of that causing things not to look "right" to me? It's been a long time since my 7th grade photography course, but I remember something about higher film speeds and higher "grain" in film, but it's in the cobwebs somewhere.

 

Sorry to sidetrack...I agree about those Criterions, but I've run across many instances of music LDs being far superior to their later DVD counterparts. (Compare any Rundgren title which is available on both formats.) Maybe these are instances where the company is too lazy to go back to the original elements.

 

Also, just out of curiosity here too... I read a post Steve made a while back that he had or had seen an original nitrate print of Kane. Is there a visual difference between nitrate film and safety film regarding what you see on screen and is one better visually than the other? I guess what I'm trying to ask would be is it like hearing the orchestra perform and then hearing a playback recording of an orchestra perform? This stuff is so new to me and I just wonder what the difference would be.

For instance, if you had a nitrate negative that was printed to a nitrate reel as well as a saftey reel... would that nitrate print be better/different than a safety film print?

 

You're right Steve... I'm really getting sidetracked into technical aspects here and I'm derailing my own thread... I'm interested in this technical stuff too, so maybe one of the Gorts would be willing to expand/change the title to reflect that as well?

 

Probably the last DVD version for the deluxe edition. I agree with you that it wasn't the optimal presentation and they went a bit overboard on the grain management. When it came out it faced some criticism for making the presentation look too glossy much like Fox did with "Patton".

I'm hoping the Blu-ray will be better. Warner has done some marvelous work on a lot of films where the interpositives and negatives have gone missing. One of my fav films.

To the original poster--wait for the forthcoming Blu-ray and I'm sure if you don't own Blu-ray you'll also see it reissued on DVD as well.

By the way I love the latest version of "Night of the Hunter" and "Paths of glory"--both were well done and were done in collaboration with my old stomping ground the UCLA Archive. There is a minor glitch in "Paths" but I honestly don't recall it before (although it's possible it was there--it's like there are a few frames missing due due to some damage to the source. If that's the case they may not have introduced those few frames from another source simply because of the radical difference in quality).

It would depend on the source for the safety print, it's condition, etc...a fair amount of variables and the condition of the nitrate print.

 

Naaa, no interpositives with B&W. They had all kinds of finegrain prints, though, and that's what was used for the transfers; some of the finegrains were struck from the nitrate camera negatives in the 1940s. I think they scanned six different finegrain prints, and one of them came from the BFI. Every shot in the film was evaluated for damage and picture quality, and they conformed the final 4K scan with the best individual pieces that survived.

I would agree that a lot of the RKO stuff is scattered all over the place, and that's a very disorganized vault.

None of the raindrops were removed -- they actually did a very good job with DRS (the MTI dirt-removal system). There is an "off" button, and they know out to use it over at Warner's.

 

@wayneklein - I recently picked up the new "Night Of The Hunter" Blu-ray, the picture looks good to me but the grain looks odd, more like noise than film grain as it's so uniform-looking. Thoughts?

 

For Casablanca:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare/casablanca.htm

For Citizen Kane

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcompare/citizenkane.htm

 

There's only been one DVD of "Kane", but they've put out at least two versions of "Casablanca".

I thought the Blu-ray used too much noise reduction - it looks too clean, IMO.

Though I gotta admit I don't understand why the OP wants DIRT in the film presentation. Natural grain? Great. Specks/marks/scratches that come with ratty old prints? Bad. Unless you're dying to recreate the drive-in experience, why would someone want to see all that muck?

And for the record, I was pleased with the restored "Godfather" DVDs - and the Blu-rays were even better. They definitely don't like all new 'n' shiny to me...

 

In many cases LaserDiscs in general used the same exact prints and transfers as their VHS counterparts, but people (including myself) went crazy for them because of the LaserDisc format's extra resolution compared to VHS, and also to get OAR prints of movies that were only pan'n'scanned for VHS.

There were certainly some efforts to produce superior prints to further utilize the LaserDisc's extra resolution, but looked at on today's high-definition displays, they pale in comparison to resolution of DVD and Blu-Ray.

Harry

 

I read somewhere the guy from Lowery Digital said that Citizen Kane was their first major restoration title and they went a bit OTT with it.

He said they went a bit crazy with the toys and cleaned it up so much it looked like video.

They learnt their lesson.

 

I recall reading something about that as well. In retrospect (if memory serves) there were several areas of the initial Lowery restoration where corrections are needed for a proper BD release:

1. grain balance for a more filmlike presentation

2. contrast (opening film-room sequence should be darker in keeping with the noir-ish nature of the film and to cover the fact that Joseph Cotton is clearly used as one of the reporters)

3. raindrops from window accidentally removed during clean-up

There may be other areas where digital correction could improve the presentation, but I believe these were the most egregious errors critics pointed out.


Cat

 

LD's are gonna look their best using front or rear projection. Fixed pixel sets can raise havoc with them, how much depends on the display device's de-interlacing abilities.

On the new Godfather discs, I'm not partial to the orange/brown tint that they're using but that's what the director wanted.

 

I think the 2 disk Kane DVD is worth it for Roger Ebert's commentary track and the documentary on the second disk.

 

I hope they include it on the BD. It's like going to film school with one of the greats.

IMHO it's too clean but not a disaster. I'm hoping for a lighter touch on the BD though. Give me grain!

dan c

 

Casablanca on Blu-Ray looks great.

I have a DVD version that displays heavy handed noise reduction and some artifacts. I think it was a $3 bin special though.

 

Are you sure about that? I haven't seen the R2 DVD, but...

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcompare/citizenkane.htm
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