"John W." <worthj1970@yahoo.com> wrote ...
> ggull wrote:

> > I guess Criterion is pretty variable.  I rented Ozu's "Tokyo Story"
> and the
> > subtitles were crap, plain white at the bottom of the screen that
> just
> > disappeared against the intricately patterned clothes in many scenes.
>  The
> > overall film quality was OK but not great (then I don't know what
> they were
> > working from), but my recollection is that there was stuff that
> should have
> > been removable if any real digiprocessing had been done.  (The
> commentary
> > kind of sucked, too much on camera angle details and not enough on
> meaning;
> > and the guys voice was like fingernails on blackboard.)
>
> My guess is the market isn't large enough to really put the time and
> effort into digging up old, higher quality versions of the film
> (assuming any exist), much less reprocessing them with better sound and
> correcting picture quality. I also wonder if there's not some folks who
> believe you shouldn't retouch the classics too much.

(A) Well, I thought the whole idea behind Criterion, and their high prices,
was 'best possible' production.
(B) I'm not saying 'retouch' as in alter (that's another argument :-), but
'restore' to the original quality.  Maybe with some judicious improvement to
what one hopes the director would have done with decent cameras, film, but
mostly to correct degradation.