The Great Silence (1968) BD FAO Eric

[Brent_Reid]

The Film Movement BD's booklet is 16 pages.

There are three video glitches on both the (identical) ltd ed. and standard (B09TMWP9WC) Eureka BD:

- https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.ph ... st19583627
- https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.ph ... st19623977

There are many complaints in the above thread of it also suffering from frequent posterization (black crush). It's also slightly cropped all round, compared to the US BD with the same 2018 restoration.

The German BDs' Cuts listings say "reglecting" when they clearly mean "reflecting". But it would be clearer amended to "grindhouse version" of the German cinema cut."

Speaking of which, is there anywhere to ask why the main German transfer runs a minute shorter? I don't own it but have had a good look and can't find out either.

While I'm here, various special characters have dropped out throughout the listing but I expect you already know about that as it appears to be a site-wide issue.

[Darrel_Griffin]

Hi Brent. I thought I'd add my $0.02 worth...

1. Regarding picture quality:

a. I don't own this movie myself, so cannot comment on the video glitches you mention.

b. I checked a couple of the images on the Caps-A-Holic page, and, compared with the German Filmjuwelen releases, the UK Eureka does appear to suffer from some black crush in the darkest portions of the images, although the Eureka seems to have better detail overall.

c. I also noticed slightly different framings of the Eureka and Filmjuwelen "Original Version" images, with, in some cases, each containing some image missing in the other. So it is not quite as straightforward as saying that the Eureka is cropped all round, although on average the Filmjuwelen probably has more image overall. Also, it seems that the Filmjuwelen "Grindhouse Version" contains even more image than the Filmjuwelen "Original Version".

I wonder if Eureka are aware of the above issues - perhaps they have issued a replacement disc.

2. I expect the (non-)word "reglecting" is a typo, and was meant to be "reflecting". I don't think replacing it with "omitting" would make sense in this context.

3. You mention a missing comma in the Eureka extras. I am guessing you are referring to the Notes section. There seems to be a missing full stop:

Blu-ray credits -> Blu-ray credits.

However, if you mean the apostrophe in the phrase: "...film�s original artwork...", then this seems to be part of a larger issue, something which has occurred during the recent time when the database was down for maintenance. Since then, many characters are not being displayed properly, including various punctuation marks, some accented letters, and probably other characters too. My guess is that, for some reason, characters that are not part of standard ASCII character set are affected, but I am not sure. What I do know is that many pages are affected by this. Hopefully someone is already working on fixing this...

[Brent_Reid]

Hi Darrel, there are two distinct full-length transfers on BD and I was explicitly comparing the Eureka's to the same one on the Film Movement disc; I've added further clarification. The German and Japanese have have an older, differently framed and slightly less detailed transfer.

The discussion in the links I posted says Eureka are aware of the issues but don't think it worth repressing the disc. I've brought them up as it's relevant to the comparison.

Personally, I'm more offended by the Eureka's overt tealing, with blue snow and fringing everywhere. FWIW, I own the US and Japanese discs, so have both main transfers.

You're right about "reglecting" which I misread as "neglecting" and have now corrected my OP!

Reckon you've also nailed it, re the characters display issue, and I meant to say "apostrophe" (also corrected). I'm sure the admins are well aware but don't know if they're working on a comprehensive fix, so mentioned it in passing.

[Darrel_Griffin]

Oops, apologies, for some reason I thought you were referring to the German release, not the American one. But since you have edited your OP, I now cannot work out why I thought this! I have now compared a few images for UK Eureka vs US Film Movement on Capa-A-Holic, and yes, it seems the UK Eureka is indeed slightly cropped on all 4 sides.

The US Film Movement, to my eyes, looks slightly washed out i.e. low contrast, but the colour balance looks quite natural.

The UK Eureka looks richer in colour, although probably too saturated. It is also a bit dark overall, with some crushed blacks. It looks sharper, but perhaps slightly overly sharpened, and yes the snow looks pale blue instead of white, indicating that the colour balance is off. I must admit I am not sure exactly what people mean when they refer to "tealing" or "the teal effect". My understanding is that objects that are meant to look either blue or green all end up somewhere in between i.e. somewhat teal or cyan. I am not sure if that is the case here, and on Caps-A-Holic there do not appear to be any images with bright green in them, so it's hard for me to judge, although the sky in image 6 still looks blue to me, just too saturated. Skin tones look to have roughly the right colour balance, but again too saturated. So it might be more accurate to state that, apart from the oversaturation of all colours, the blue is simply too bright, rather than blues looking a bit green and vice versa. But certainly the snow doesn't look white, which surely is not correct.

Both releases seem to have a similar level of detail, which would make sense if they are sourced from the same original scan of the film materials, which I think is what you stated.

Overall, I think a version similar to the US Film Movement release but with slightly more contrast would be ideal. But unless yet another, better edition is released, I guess people will have to pay their money and make their choice between the current non-optimal versions, according to taste.

I also admit I did not previously take the time to follow the links to the Blu-ray.com forum pages. If Eureka are not doing replacement discs with the issues fixed, that is a real shame.

Having said all of this, this site does not usually report in much detail regarding comparing the relative picture quality of various releases on the main database pages (it is different for the detailed reviews). There are exceptions, such as when the difference is really stark e.g. a VHS sourced image vs a transfer from film, and sometimes scans from the original negative and 4K scans are mentioned, but not usually further detail regarding such things as contrast, saturation and so on, because such comparisions tend to be very subjective in terms of which is superior. However, in this case, I do think that it would make sense for the page to at least mention the frame glitches on the UK Eureka, as they are clearly errors.

For me personally, although I do occasionally buy Westerns, they are not among my favourite subgenres, and I will be unlikely to be buying this movie, so it's all academic anyway. That's not to say that I don't care about movie restoration in general, nor about fellow movie lovers!

[Brent_Reid]

Another thoughtful and considered reply - thank you!

I simply added the words in parentheses to the sentence in question: "It's also slightly cropped all round(, compared to the US BD with the same 2018 restoration)."

I agree that ideally the US BD could use a touch more contrast but it's still preferable to the UK. Both have exactly the same level of detail but greater contrast often gives the illusion of more.

The upshot of tealing is any blues become unnaturally darker, blue is introduced where it shouldn't be (as in the ubiquitous fringing in this film) and pure whites usually disappear, to be replaced by yet more pale blue. Much like DNR was more prevalent up until a decade or so ago, orange and tealing is having its (extended) moment but it's still hopefully a passing fad. There's more on it here, with several more detailed explanatory links and screenshots.

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

Maybe Eric can confirm about the UK disc.