Huh?

Supposedly a restored print was screened at Cannes, or will be.

This is already on the schedule as part of the summer midnight movie series at an arthouse in Royal Oak, MI, about an hour north of me. I don't know if this is the restored print or not--I'm ASSUMING it would be--but either way, I have to check this out on a big screen.

I guess this means we'll be seeing an HD-DVD release of SUSPIRIA sometime down the road. Sweet!

But I'd really like to hear more about the restored print- according to Alan Jones over at Dark Dreams, it went over really well at Cannes, but there was an odd credit on the poster- "Music by Goblin and Philip Glass"- HUH? As much as I usually enjoy Glass's soundtracks, hopefully that was a misprint and they haven't actually done any rescoring.

EDIT: RE: Philip Glass- this appears to be the answer. I guess those Goblin fellows appropriated a bit of his music way back when for the SUSPIRIA soundtrack and now he's being credited for it: http://www.darkdreams.org/dd_forum/showthread.php?t=9751

Vincent

The possibility of Suspiria on HD DVD? I think I just soiled myself with excitement.

Michael, how has The Weinstein Company done with their HD releases so far? I seem to remember you blasting WOLF CREEK over at your site, and since that was *shot* in HD, well, ya gotta work to screw it up, I would think...

Wolf Creek was over-compressed. It would have looked pretty much perfect if they'd just increased the bit rate. I haven't actually seen any of their other HD output, so I can't really say how it fares either way. Either way, getting Suspiria in HD AT ALL would be a cause for celebration in my opinion, even if the compression isn't brilliant.

It will probably just be the same edited version that Fox pseudonymously released in '77.

I don't know all the logistics - I found out about this myself just this morning - but here's my hypothesis:

This year marks the 30th anniversary of SUSPIRIA, for the U.S. anyway. So it's quite possible that Fox's original U.,S. deal for the movie has expired anyway, putting it back into play for the Weinstein Company to acquire it. I'm sure that the remake that they had announced years ago probably put them in a pole position to make this purchase when the opportunity came about, since to do a remake you have to deal with whoever owns the intellectual property, i.e. Argento.

However, before this deal took place, Fox (or, more appropriately, Criterion Pictures, a nontheatrical booking outfit that handles their library, and is not affiliated with the Criterion DVD company) likely was allowed to take bookings on the film until a predetermined date. The Nuart in L.A. played it back in April, and the Royal Oak is a Landmark theatre as well. But until the Weinsteins announce their plans, this could likely be the last screening for a while. The print was pretty beat up - Criterion only has one now - but the color on it was very very good; maybe it was an IB Tech print.

I just hope that they are smart enough to do some sort of release this year to commemorate the 30th, be it theatrical or DVD, and to learn from the mistakes of the Lustig DVD remix and try not to tinker with it too much. What would be great is if they synthesized a Dolby Digital soundtrack from the original 4 track mag sound - there must be a surviving print of that in the Fox vault somewhere.

*Maybe* - but mag strip was prone to flaking right outta the lab. I doubt it stores well at all.

The master soundtrack would be stored as full-coat 35mm mag, no? I doubt they'd use a 35mm print with mag stripe to restore the sound, they'd go back to the 35mm full-coat mag masters. Full-coat mag holds up pretty darned well and sounds really sweet.

Vincent

Good point - I don't know why I was thinking about release prints.*






*Oh yeah - I did recently re-read an interview with Gary Kurtz reminiscing about the whoas he had getting a usable premiere print with mag sound of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK out of the lab. I think that's why it was on the brain.

I'm still wondering what they're restoring. Anchor Bay's DVD had a phenomenal visual transfer. With Luciano Tovoli's supervision. Of course, the audio is another story.

A film restoration is a whole different thing than a video one. Think of it this way, now they'll be able to strike pristine 35mm prints for those occasional midnight shows...

Oh yeah, that would be wonderful. I have a second run theater that I'm helping out and there's been some talk of running midnight moves. And one of the first run theatres around here has a free midnight movie series.

The Anchor Bay DVD looks very good, and is one of the best-looking DVD I own, but it's not perfect. Few DVDs are.

Since upgrading to a 40" 1080p screen, I've become a lot more aware of the AB transfer's failings. Chiefly, the whole thing has been quite heavily noise reduced, which leads to frozen grain patterns, especially when the camera is panning (the first shot, as the camera pans away from the airport arrivals board, is particularly distracting for me). In addition, a handful of shots are inexplicably much softer and more edge enhanced than the rest of the film (a good example being the slow crawl towards the Tanz Akademie; another is the initial shot of the BMW building where the parapsychology conference is taking place). At one point I thought this might have been something to do with the way they were shot, but these shots look fine on the Italian DVD.

On the set up I'm currently using (Samsung DVD to Samsung DLP*) the compression on the red velvet walls of the ballet hall is near-unwatchable.

*I set this up for my folks while I was out of the country. They're happy with it, but now that I see how it up-converts DVDs, I'm looking into other solutions for my own imminent purchase...

Cannes Film Festival:
Cannes Classics 2007
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/index.php/en/article/55436

Wild Side Films:
Suspiria [old entry]
http://www.wildside.fr/films/fiche.php?id=188

Visual Factory [international sales agent]:
Suspiria
http://www.visualfactory.co.uk/filmpic.php?cle=36

Comme au Cinema .com:
Suspiria
http://www.commeaucinema.com/film=1748.html

That Visual Factory poster is really beautiful.

Vincent

Agreed! Though "absolute classic" makes me think of liquor.

Here is the French trailer for the restored SUSPIRIA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7UhtZ2IEs4

Did they tint the swimming pool scene? I haven't seen the film in a bit but I seem to remember that scene being lit more conventionally.

Uh-oh.

Edit: Psst! There's a link up there! :ph43r:

Speaking of SUSPIRIA in general, I was watching the Anchor Bay disc last night and I was wondering if anyone knew what instruments were used in the Goblin score. I know they used a Bazuki and a Glockenspiel but what others were used? For instance, what is that instrument that throbs underneath the main theme?

I wouldn't take the image quality of a DVD as a definitive answer to how the HD master actually looks. While Whiggles says he can't imagine how such a screw up could happen in the DVD mastering stage, these things have happened on high-profile DVD releases before. For example, both the 2002 "10th Anniversary Edition" and the new "15th Anniversary Edition"s of Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS used the same HD master, and yet they look vastly different, with the 2002 release looking really ugly and having grey blacks and flat contrast.

Tavolli himself is said to have supervised the SUSPIRIA restoration and retransfer to HD, and word out of Cannes was that it looked great projected in HD. I suspect it will indeed look different than the Anchor Bay release, but I also suspect the severe contrast boosting evident in Chris's screen grabs will not look the same in the actual HD source.

Vincent

LOL @ his Whistler's Mother.

Anyway, even if this is wrong (and I hope it is), I don't think I'll be replacing my AB disc for a very long time.

Click on the news link next to the permalink to go to the front news page and you'll find screencaps and a review of Fox's new Italian disc of INFERNO.

The Italian disc shows slightly more image and has more detail (and I'll still pick it up) but I prefer the saturation on the Anchor Bay disc.

Until a DVD of this is released without the audio mistakes and incorrect sound levels featured on the disastrous Anchor Bay DVD, I'll stick with my laserdisc.

I put together my own DVD-R marrying the image from the Anchor Bay disc with the sound from the Image LD*. Until an HD release of SUSPIRIA comes along, this works for me :)

Vincent

* Which took A LOT OF TIME since the Image LD and AB version came from slightly different prints, so at several points I'd lose sync. I had to break the video up into several different segments and sync each one individually, then edit them all back together. I have to say, though, I'm happy with the results. I was even able to go in and clean up a few errant audio "POPS" and other small errors on the LD's soundtrack :)

Something I just noticed (and I don't think its been mentioned before) is during the scene in the hallway where Suzy walks past the cook and Madame Blanc's nephew. The child has a blank stare. When the beam of light hits Suzy, the child is smiling. As the beam fades, he resumes his blank look. Not exactly subliminal but just one of those minute details...

I noticed this too, the last time I watched the disc. It seems very deliberate. I think an enterprising and thoughtful critic determined to tease some of the layers of meaning from SUSPIRIA could get some decent mileage out of that very sequence, as well as the various other key set pieces. The flash of light bursts out in synch with the "W-I-T-C-H!!!" on the soundtrack, as Suzy Banyon recoils. Is she recognising something about herself? Does the smiling child hint at the appeal of exploring something, quiet and subtle as a whisper, which shouldn't be explored? What an amazing movie.

http://www.filmsactu.com/test-dvd-zone-2-s...uvables-415.htm

Screenshots of the upcoming French DVD from Wild Side, also taken from the new HD master. It looks every bit as awful as the Italian "definitive" DVD.