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GreenCine Movie Talk
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"Come and See" -- poor picture quality?
	Topic by: DBalogh Posted: September 14, 2004 - 7:52 PM PDT Last Reply: September 17, 2004 - 3:11 PM PDT

author	topic: "Come and See" -- poor picture quality?
DBalogh	post #1  on September 14, 2004 - 7:52 PM PDT   I have heard some negative things about the picture quality of Kino's DVD of the Russian war film "Come and See". Has anyone in here rented this film from GreenCine? If so, how was the picture quality? Thanks, Dan
hamano	post #2  on September 16, 2004 - 6:21 PM PDT   This film? Anyone seen it? I haven't.
underdog	post #3  on September 17, 2004 - 10:40 AM PDT   > On September 14, 2004 - 7:52 PM PDT DBalogh wrote: > --------------------------------- > I have heard some negative things about the picture quality of Kino's DVD of the Russian war film "Come and See". Has anyone in here rented this film from GreenCine? If so, how was the picture quality? > > Thanks, > > Dan > --------------------------------- Hey Dan, I recall seeing this amazing film twice, once on VHS and once on DVD (quite some time ago, so my memory may be faulty). But what I remember is being blown away by the film, and not at all by the DVD. The picture quality is passable enough to still have a great experience watching the film, but far less than it deserves. Here's what DigitallyObsessed wrote about the picture quality in their review of the Come and See DVD: "The film is presented in 1.33:1 full-frame format, which appears to be the original aspect ratio - no cropping or matte-aware compositions are in evidence, and the Soviet movie industry may have retained the Academy ratio for an extended period. The transfer, unfortunately, appears to have been drawn from an older laserdisc master - analog noise and smeariness is frequently apparent in complex backgrounds, edge enhancement is common and the transfer is rendered at 30 frames per second with 3:2 pulldown. Darker scenes exhibit significant amounts of detail-obscuring grain, and a new film-based transfer would have been an improvement here, as bandwidth limitations should not have been an issue for this two-hour and 15-minute movie spread across two dual-layered discs." That sounds about right from what I remember. Hopefully Criterion or someone will come along and issue a better transfer some time down the road, though there may be rights issues I'm not aware of... Hope this helps! I'd still watch it; just keep the above in mind. Craig of GreenCine
DBalogh	post #4  on September 17, 2004 - 3:11 PM PDT   > On September 17, 2004 - 10:40 AM PDT underdog wrote: > > Hope this helps! I'd still watch it; just keep the above in mind. > Thanks for your very informative response Craig. Yes, it sure does help. I definitely plan on watching it. I recently learned about it in a brand new book called The Story of Film by British film critic Mark Cousins. In it, he called "Come and See" one of the greatest war movies ever made. Dan