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Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
I love Sergio Leone's last film and was excited when a new reconstructed 251-minute cut (22-minutes longer) premiered at Cannes in 2012 but Martin Scorsese (his 'Film Foundation' was behind it) said it was being withdrawn so they could have more time to fix the additional footage and secure the rights to further material. I resolved to wait for this promised better version but it's been 7-years, there's been no mention of it and it's now pretty cheap to buy on blu-ray (in a region-free 2-disc blu-ray, including both cuts)... so I caved .
The extra scenes stand out a mile but it's not so much the resolution, or condition, it's the grading. I'm sure with time and skill they could be digitally re-colourised. If you can colour black & white, you can fix the muted colours in these scenes with the same techniques. I can see why they pulled it from wide release. The most significant improvement comes with a new sequence just after the rape scene, it's as horrific as it always was but with the added 6-minutes showing the heavy impact it has on the characters, it mitigates that feeling that the movie used to have of just moving onto the next scene like it was almost nothing. Although the sharpness and detail of the new blu-ray is miles ahead of the old one, I'm not totally convinced by the new greenish-yellow tint to the footage. However, when they give you both cuts in the same set to choose from, you can't really complain too much about minor revisionist changes.
'Once Upon a Time in America' is as much about the themes of memory, regret, time, guilt, loyalty, love, hate, loss of innocence and childhood friendship, as it is about charting the rise of New York Jewish Prohibition Gangsters. Robert De Niro and James Woods give career best performances but they are actually out-shined by the young actors who play them so convincingly as teenagers, growing up in the rough tenements of Manhattan's Lower East Side in the 20s. How a 4-hour film can be this pleasurable to repeatedly re-watch is beyond explanation. Ennio Morricone's wistful score plays a big part in making it feel like a sepia dream. It's been interpreted as being the opium induced hallucination of the main character and Leone himself has confirmed the optional validity of this explanation. It's down to the individual viewer to decide.
A comparison of the same frame from both blu-rays:
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/DLGD7NNX
I love Sergio Leone's last film and was excited when a new reconstructed 251-minute cut (22-minutes longer) premiered at Cannes in 2012 but Martin Scorsese (his 'Film Foundation' was behind it) said it was being withdrawn so they could have more time to fix the additional footage and secure the rights to further material. I resolved to wait for this promised better version but it's been 7-years, there's been no mention of it and it's now pretty cheap to buy on blu-ray (in a region-free 2-disc blu-ray, including both cuts)... so I caved .
The extra scenes stand out a mile but it's not so much the resolution, or condition, it's the grading. I'm sure with time and skill they could be digitally re-colourised. If you can colour black & white, you can fix the muted colours in these scenes with the same techniques. I can see why they pulled it from wide release. The most significant improvement comes with a new sequence just after the rape scene, it's as horrific as it always was but with the added 6-minutes showing the heavy impact it has on the characters, it mitigates that feeling that the movie used to have of just moving onto the next scene like it was almost nothing. Although the sharpness and detail of the new blu-ray is miles ahead of the old one, I'm not totally convinced by the new greenish-yellow tint to the footage. However, when they give you both cuts in the same set to choose from, you can't really complain too much about minor revisionist changes.
'Once Upon a Time in America' is as much about the themes of memory, regret, time, guilt, loyalty, love, hate, loss of innocence and childhood friendship, as it is about charting the rise of New York Jewish Prohibition Gangsters. Robert De Niro and James Woods give career best performances but they are actually out-shined by the young actors who play them so convincingly as teenagers, growing up in the rough tenements of Manhattan's Lower East Side in the 20s. How a 4-hour film can be this pleasurable to repeatedly re-watch is beyond explanation. Ennio Morricone's wistful score plays a big part in making it feel like a sepia dream. It's been interpreted as being the opium induced hallucination of the main character and Leone himself has confirmed the optional validity of this explanation. It's down to the individual viewer to decide.
A comparison of the same frame from both blu-rays:
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/DLGD7NNX