The verdict is in and...I honestly, truly, to the naked eye, cannot make out any discernible difference between the U.S. Sony 4K disc and the French Fidelity in Motion encode on the French 4K disc. Here’s a quick and dirty iPhone camera comparison of the two. Any subtle differences you see (like the very slightly redder tone to the U.S. disc on Arnie’s close-up) are surely due to the vagaries of using an iPhone camera to take pics off a TV screen. To the naked eye, color, detail, grain precision, white balance, framing, etc. appear exactly identical to me. This is no slight on the amazing David M., who remains an industry titan, just confirmation that of any studios in need of his special touch, Sony ain’t one of ‘em. My purchase was not a total waste, though, because the included Blu-ray features the exclusive THE GOLD CARROSSE 2019: CONVERSATION WITH JOHN CARPENTER - (74 minutes): “Filmed at the 2019 Prix du Carrosse d'Or by The Society of Film Directors at the opening of the 51st Directors' Fortnight, a conversation with John Carpenter led by SRF filmmakers Katell Quillévéré and Yann Gonzalez.”
