to this:
Clearly something went wrong here. And what's funny is that NO ONE will speak up about it because everyone is afraid to. There are defenders, however. On www.dvdbeaver.com, an outside source told the website that the blue-ray (excuse the pun) was more accurate than the above shot, based on an IB technicolor print they had seen years ago. Ummmmmmmm? Can I just point out that being a DESK SET nerd, I have seen a 35mm print, two VHS, a laserdisc and a DVD transfer of this film and not once did I ever see the messy atrocity featured in that screenshot?
The paper Tracy is holding in this shot is blue. The posters are blue. His hair is blue. The walls are blue. Even the brown chairs are starting to look blue. And it's not just this one shot either!
Look! Even the damn title card's blue now! What in the world is going on? How is what is seen here any different than the Ted Turner colorizations of the early 1990s?
This isn't the first time this has happened with a Fox Home Video release. It's a recurring thing people have been noticing and pointing out regarding transfers but no one is really standing up and saying 'this is a problem'. Check out this screen shot from the Blu-ray of THE KING & I:
People did actually criticize this one, and 20th Century Fox made no effort to pull the release and fix the problem or address it, which makes me wonder if they acknowledge that this film was timed wrong. I will say this about THE KING & I though: a very intense restoration was done in the 1990s of the film for laserdisc, and the colors resembled the ones that people are most familiar with. In 2004, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences premiered a new restoration from the original Cinemascope 55 negative which toured the world and the color fading of the original negative was addressed. Anyone who has seen this 2004 restoration can also tell you that the film did not have this blue hue to it. So how can 20th Century Fox, for a minute, allow the slop in the screenshot above to get onto store shelves without so much as doing quality control of their product? By the way, for more information on that article that makes a big deal on the color correction of the 2004 restoration (which has the proper colors of the film), see this link:
http://articles.latimes.com/2004/aug/15/entertainment/ca-cinefile15.
So why does this bug so much? Isn't the content enough, lest some color timing issues? Nay, says this writer. People have been color timing film since day one, and everyone's interpretation of color is going to be a little different, but back in the day when filmmakers actually made films and didn't just have a shaky camera with special effects for two and a half hours, details that engage the viewer on a subconscious level (a foreign concept for most directors today) were minded. This balance of objects in a frame, the overall color palate of the frame, and even where certain colors are in the frame all equaled the great mise-en-scene formula of the film. When one starts to monkey with that to the extent of what you see above, the film as an art piece has been tainted.
Take for example the film REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. The presence of bright red in that film is so intricate to the story line due to its presence on Natalie Wood's lips, James Dean's jacket, the blood from Sal Mineo's flesh...all the same shade of bright red. Now imagine that someone with heavy influence in the restoration department had decided to improperly time the film's colors and that shade of red, which was a main theme of the film, was no longer visible....the relation of the three main characters might no longer subconsciously be reached by the viewer!
It's the same deal with THE KING & I. The presence of gold in the frame is so important. Gold represents the clash between the king and Anna. She is trying to teach her students that there is more to life than objects of monetary value. The king makes it a point, while surrounded by gold, to always talk about how expensive it is to have her there as a teacher. It is also intricate to their characters. In the screenshot shown above, he wears a gold vest, a symbol that he is about monetary value. She wears a white dress, symbolizing her pure heart. In a properly timed screenshot, this message comes across stronger. In the screenshot above, taken from the Blu-ray, it is completely lost.
We as an industry of film archivists, restorers, film theorists, and just as film enthusiasts who want to share these memories with future generations need to stand up and say enough is enough. These films need to be taken care of and ensured that in the transition from film to digital, we are doing our best to replicate a color experience similar to that of when the films were first shown-- if not identical, as close as we can get. So Fox Home Entertainment, please stop peeing on my childhood memories and hire a proper color timer.
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