The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978)

[Scottie]

A painterly and sensual immersion in late nineteenth-century Italian farm life, Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs lovingly focuses on four families working for one landowner on an isolated estate in the province of Bergamo. Filming on an abandoned farm for four months, Olmi adapted neorealist techniques to tell his story, enlisting local people to live as their own ancestors had, speaking in their native dialect on locations with which they were intimately familiar. Through the cycle of seasons, of back-breaking labor, love and marriage, birth and death, faith and superstition, Olmi naturalistically evokes an existence very close to nature, one that celebrates its beauty, humor, and simplicity but also acknowledges the feudal cruelty that governs it. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1978, The Tree of Wooden Clogs is at once intimate in scale and epic in scope—a towering, heart-stirring work of humanist filmmaking.

Disc Features
New 4K restoration, created in collaboration with The Film Foundation at L’Immagine Ritrovata and supervised by director Ermanno Olmi, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Alternate Italian-language soundtrack
Ermanno Olmi: The Roots of the Tree, an hour-long episode of The South Bank Show from 1981, featuring an interview with Olmi on the film and a visit to the farm where it was shot
New program featuring cast and crew discussing the film at the Cinema Ritrovato film festival in Bologna, Italy, in 2016
Archival interviews with Olmi
Trailer
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: An essay by film critic Deborah Young

New cover by F. Ron Miller

https://www.criterion.com/films/2859...f-wooden-clogs

[javi92]

I'm wondering if this has a similar feel to Troell's The Emigrants and The New Land. Can anyone who has seen this give an idea of the feel of the film? It sounds pretty fantastic.

[I KEEL YOU]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71hzpzVY2Wg

[RiFiFi1955]

Yes I remember that above statement from Pacino, never have seen the film but that was where I first heard of it from that interview.

[I KEEL YOU]

Another one who absolutely swears by this movie is director Mike Leigh. Watch at around 47:05, where he also gives some background info about the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xkh982zFm8

So if you know and like Mike Leigh's work and what he strives for, you should get the idea of what kind of movie it is. Yeah, it is similar to The Emigrants/New Land type of film, portraying the harshness and ups and downs of life, etc. Also, I believe that there are some real animals slaughtered in the film so those who are sensitive to that sort of thing might be turned off.

[Nuck Horris]

Took forever to track down a decently priced OOP copy of the DVD... now the BD comes out.

[javi92]

Delayed until Feb 14, 2017, according to Criterion's site.

Hating this because it's probably my most anticipated title I have preordered right now.

[ShellOilJunior]

Originally Posted by javi92

Delayed until Feb 14, 2017, according to Criterion's site.

Hating this because it's probably my most anticipated title I have preordered right now.

That explains why they didn't give it a spine # yet.

[JohnCarpenterFan]

May want to keep expectations in check regarding PQ. Ritrovata managed to get their hands on this one too.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film6/blu-r...gs_blu-ray.htm

[arou54]

For those who felt the color timing of this new restoration was strange, it turns out the Arrow release has a massively different color timing. They say it's based on an original release print.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/123877
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/123878
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/123879

[I KEEL YOU]

Good post. They look very different to say the least. The colors, brightness, contrast and even framing look different. Criterion seems to have plenty of black crush:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comp...3877/picture:3

Not sure if I should double dip and get the Arrow.

[MifuneFan]

I don't understand how they're so drastically different when both come from the same Film Foundation restoration. Did Arrow alter the color timing? I don't imagine Criterion did that with their transfer, especially when we know Ritrovata was involved, and this is often how their color gradings look like.

edit: Yep, I'm right. Arrow regraded it themselves

Originally Posted by MichaelB

Akihiko is absolutely correct. While the source is the same Film Foundation restoration as featured on the Criterion disc, Arrow had it regraded to match the timing and palette of the original release prints.

http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/...ic.php?t=14859

[arou54]

I don't have the Criterion booklet to compare with, but here is what's written in the Arrow booklet :

The movie was restored by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna at L'immagine Ritrovata with funding provided by The Film Foundation. Additional support was provided by Fundazione Cineteca di Bologna and The Criterion Collection.

The movie was restored from the original 35mm camera negative and scanned in 4K resolution. A 35mm vintage print preserved by Cinecitta was used as a grading reference.

Special thanks to Ermanno Olmi and Paolo Cottingnola for their consultation.


On Arrow's release, the movie opens with the same text :

"The movie was restored by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna at L'immagine Ritrovata with funding provided by The Film Foundation. Additional support was provided by Fundazione Cineteca di Bologna and The Criterion Collection.
Special thanks to Ermanno Olmi and Paolo Cottingnola for their consultation."

then followed by :

"The movie was restored from the original camera negative, scanned at 4K resolution, using a 35mm vintage print preserved by Cinecitta Luce as a reference.
Ermanno Olmi's active participation resulted in a new color grading."

[nitin]

Whatever it is, I am surprised it has not been publicised more by Arrow.

[arou54]

Originally Posted by nitin

Whatever it is, I am surprised it has not been publicised more by Arrow.

Criterion states the new 4K restoration was supervised by Olmi, so I'm wondering where that leaves Arrow's new color grading.

Olmi can't have supervised both, or even approved both, and simply be done with it. Maybe they strongly disagreed with the 4K color grading but also didn't want people to go to Olmi and say "look what they did !".

[MifuneFan]

Yes, Arrow didn't agree with the color grading, and took it upon themselves to regrade it. They've done that before with other releases.

[JohnCarpenterFan]

Originally Posted by arou54

Criterion states the new 4K restoration was supervised by Olmi, so I'm wondering where that leaves Arrow's new color grading.

Olmi can't have supervised both, or even approved both, and simply be done with it. Maybe they strongly disagreed with the 4K color grading but also didn't want people to go to Olmi and say "look what they did !".

It's a Ritrovata "restoration". They're really shady and insist on pawning off their poorly color-corrected masters to companies even if they're told not to do any color timing.

No doubt Arrow's color timing is infinitely more accurate than Ritrovata's botchjob.

[arou54]

Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterFan

No doubt Arrow's color timing is infinitely more accurate than Ritrovata's botchjob.

But then, what does it say about Olmi's supervised color timing ? That he's gone senile ? That he supervised something but that isn't what's on Criterion disc ?

Arrow regraded stuff before, but I don't think they ever did so with something that was so much advertised as having someone like Olmi supervising the original timing.

They re-graded some gialli but the original timings were solely on Bologna. They also regraded Deep Red, but the consulting was from Tovoli (who didn't photographed the movie to begin with) and the grading wasn't as deep as on Wooden Clogs.

So this one certainly is interesting, because in some ways, it throws away Olmi's input, or implies that what he did and what ended up on the disc are 2 very different things.

[javi92]

Already watched the Criterion disc once, but God I love this film. Might have to watch again sooner than I thought just to see the difference in the Arrow grading.

[thinredline]

Congratulations to Arrow for addressing the Ritrovata/teal colors and giving us this version which surely looks more natural and probably closer to what the film was originally.

@arou54

i didn't understand something.
This text:
"Ermanno Olmi's active participation resulted in a new color grading"

refers to the teal grading?

By the way, i haven't seen this film and I wonder if I should blind buy it.
it looks impressive and interesting by the trailer.