Le Mépris 4K UHD (1963) (60th Anniversary Edition)

[Pieter V]

Amazon.fr

[NeilZ]

Day 1 and I'm not a fan of Godard.

[sheri1983]

Originally Posted by NeilZ

Day 1 and I'm not a fan of Godard.

Same, this is probably the only film I'll buy from him. Not interested in watching any more Godard also.

[mazzyhope815]

I'm a fan of Godard and Bardot so looking forward to this a lot.

[Matt89]

FINALLY!

Absolutely a day 1 purchase. The BD from SC was taken from a dated master and has needed an upgrade ever since.

[mazzyhope815]

Is this the first BB movie to make it to a 4K disc? Would love ...And God Created Woman and La Verite to follow, among others.

[vinvanveen]

Do we know yet whether this has English subs?

[Cremildo]

Super!

[Gacivory]

Excited for this!

Fritz Lang’s 4K debut!

[CelestialAgent]

Originally Posted by vinvanveen

Do we know yet whether this has English subs?

This likely won’t be a multi-territory release, as the BFI are reissuing the film to UK cinemas in June. After Les 400 Coups, La haine, La regle du jeu, I wouldn’t be surprised if the BFI go BD only. Although, the BFI previously handled the 2016 UK theatrical reissue, so StudioCanal might still hold physical media rights.

[RDA]

The StudioCanal UHD is almost certainly going to be encoded for France, Germany and the UK. Not sure why the previous poster would suggest otherwise.

[CelestialAgent]

Originally Posted by RDA

The StudioCanal UHD is almost certainly going to be encoded for France, Germany and the UK. Not sure why the previous poster would suggest otherwise.

there have been StudioCanal UHDs only released in France/Germany like November, Goliath, Boîte Noire, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Serpico, 3 Days of the Condor, Night of the Living Dead, Only the Brave, Gunpowder Milkshake, Wrath of Man, Balloon, so it’s not guaranteed, even if it’s possible. but in their press release it seems BFI has streaming/VOD rights too.

[Yami]

Originally Posted by CelestialAgent

but in their press release it seems BFI has streaming/VOD rights too.

That doesn't really mean anything - it's already on BFI Player, along with most other Godards that StudioCanal owns the rights to like Breathless and Goodbye to Language.

[moreorless]

The BFI release could just be timed to match the SC UHD.

[Pieter V]

Jean-Luc Godard's LE MEPRIS - Newly restored in 4K - YouTube

[roiroiroi]

STUDIOCANAL announces the release of the 4K restoration of Jean-Luc Godard’s (Breathless, Pierrot Le Fou) new-wave masterpiece, LE MÉPRIS (1963), in celebration of its 60th anniversary. To commemorate the anniversary and the highly-anticipated restoration, LE MÉPRIS will be featured in the Cannes Classics selection at this year’s festival.

The new restoration will roll out theatrically and on home entertainment across UK, France, Germany and the US. The restoration is complimented by an exquisite new poster created by Belgian artist, Laurent Durieux, which will be available for purchase from May 2023.

A landmark in world cinema, and set around the extraordinary Villa Malaparte on Capri; LE MÉPRIS tells the tragic romance between Paul and his wife, Camille. Paul is enlisted the task of re-writing a film script. Whilst he becomes engrossed in writing, he appears oblivious to the film producer’s interest in his irresistibly beautiful wife, Camille. In turn, we witness the hurtful unfolding of Paul & Camille’s marriage.

LE MÉPRIS features highly-acclaimed style icon; Brigitte Bardot (And God Created Woman, Viva Maria!) as Camille, and legendary French talent Michel Piccoli (Belle De Jour, The Things of Live) as Paul. As well as, strong supporting cast featuring ‘master of darkness’ German-speaking Director, Fritz Lang as himself, renowned American actor Jack Palance as Jeremy, and the infamous Giorgia Moll as Francesca. The restoration also features the original and unforgettable soundtrack, ‘theme of Camille’, which has gained worldwide admiration in its own right, by multi-award winning composer, Georges Delerue.

ABOUT THE RESTORATION

LE MEPRIS was restored by STUDIOCANAL, with the support of the CNC. The image was scanned and restored in 4K at the HIVENTY laboratory. In order to optimize the 4K restoration, the original 35mm negative and the interpositive were used, as well as the reference print re-worked in 2002 by Mr. Raoul Coutard, Director of Photography on LE MÉPRIS. The restoration took 220 hours, allowing to compensate for the defects linked to the wear of time, such as deviations in colours and lighting. This new restoration will enable audiences to discover LE MEPRIS as it was intended to be viewed.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Il était une fois… Le Mépris (52mn) on the Blu-ray UHD
An introduction by Colin MacCabe (6mn) UHD
Paparazzi by Jacques Rozier (22mn)
Le parti des choses by Jacques Rozier (10mn)

THEATRICAL RELEASE DATES

France: 24th May 2023 via Carlotta
UK: 2nd June 2023 via BFI, (British Film Institute) as part of their Michel Piccoli retrospective
Germany: 8th June 2023
US: 30th June 2023 via Rialto Pictures

HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASE DATES

France: 14th June 2023
UK: 26th June 2023
Germany: 29th June 2023
US: September 2023 via Lionsgate

.

[nicwood]

I received my French SC UHD today. It’s a nice packaging with a digibook in a (albeit flimsy) slip case.

A few infos right away. UHD-66 with DV for the feature. The film and bonus features are on both discs.

Infos about the restoration (auto-translated from French):

This film was restored and digitized in 4K by Studiocanal from 2021 to 2023 at Hiventy, with the participation of the CNC.
To optimize the 4K restoration, the original 35mm Negative and Interpositive were used, as well as the reference print reworked in 2002 by Mr. Raoul Coutard, the film's cinematographer.
Previous digital versions showed a lack of detail in the highlights and lowlights, and colors far removed from the director's choices.
Thanks to documented references, we were able to restore the film's original contrast, detail and saturation.
This project was supervised by the Studiocanal team, Sophie Boyer and Jean-Pierre Boiget.”

I haven’t seen the entire film yet but can confirm that this is mostly true. The trailer SC posted on YouTube doesn’t give an exact impression of this restoration and the colors I see on my TV are also far from the heavily saturated yellow and green look we typically associate with Hiventy.

In many scenes, colors are surprisingly neutral and very carefully graded. In others, they lean more saturated but never to the point of total madness like La Piscine.
The colorist did their homework and probably timed the entire thing according to Coutard’s print. This film has never looked this good. The restoration is also immaculate.

And then, very very unfortunately comes the catch straight away. The encoding is atrocious. We have another Le Cercle Rouge situation with a wildly adventurous bitrate graph ranging from single digits (!) into over 100 Mbps.

It’s notable that great and horrendous moments alternate regularly but from what I saw, good and bad moments each start and end with edits in the film. For example, one long take which is part of the famous apartment dialogue between Brigitte Bardot and Michel Piccoli looks bad for the entirety of the shot when the next one could then look gorgeous also for the entire time until the next cut.

The painful thing is that the good moments look astoundingly beautiful. Impeccable grain, remarkable detail, beautiful colors, no highlight clipping since the HDR / DV is never excessively bright in general (don’t worry, it’s far from dim - perfectly balanced). You feel like you look at a DCP in these moments as if encoded by Fidelity in Motion.

The bad moments look bad but not unwatchable. Why? Because the "grain" doesn’t become a macroblocking mess, but takes on more a consistently filtered, buzzing appearance. I obviously hate how this looks but the eye adjusts and it’s still better than the horrendous old BD. If no one else does, I’ll try and provide a bitrate graph and BDInfo scan. At the very least some screenshots.

I cannot comment that much on the sound other than it sounds slightly muffled. Not that bad, not excellent. A normal 60s soundtrack which is probably somewhat filtered.

At this time, I’d only (somewhat) recommend buying one of the European releases if you’re that big a fan of the film like I am. Lionsgate releases their edition in September. Who knows, maybe it’ll be a new encode but I believe it’ll be just the same with a different opening logo.

Edit: The short film Paparazzi by Jacques Rozier which is a bonus feature on both discs (1080p on the UHD) has also been restored (4K scan - 2K restoration) but has a consistently appealing organic appearance throughout and therefore looks better than the feature. How disappointing. The other Rozier short looks a bit worse but still comparatively better than Le Mépris overall.

[TheBondFan]

Originally Posted by nicwood

I received my French SC UHD today. It’s a nice packaging with a digibook in a (albeit flimsy) slip case.

A few infos right away. UHD-66 with DV for the feature. The film and bonus features are on both discs.

Infos about the restoration (auto-translated from French):

This film was restored and digitized in 4K by Studiocanal from 2021 to 2023 at Hiventy, with the participation of the CNC.
To optimize the 4K restoration, the original 35mm Negative and Interpositive were used, as well as the reference print reworked in 2002 by Mr. Raoul Coutard, the film's cinematographer.
Previous digital versions showed a lack of detail in the highlights and lowlights, and colors far removed from the director's choices.
Thanks to documented references, we were able to restore the film's original contrast, detail and saturation.
This project was supervised by the Studiocanal team, Sophie Boyer and Jean-Pierre Boiget.”

I haven’t seen the entire film yet but can confirm that this is mostly true. The trailer SC posted on YouTube doesn’t give an exact impression of this restoration and the colors I see on my TV are also far from the heavily saturated yellow and green look we typically associate with Hiventy.

In many scenes, colors are surprisingly neutral and very carefully graded. In others, they lean more saturated but never to the point of total madness like La Piscine.
The colorist did their homework and probably timed the entire thing according to Coutard’s print. This film has never looked this good. The restoration is also immaculate.

And then, very very unfortunately comes the catch straight away. The encoding is atrocious. We have another Le Cercle Rouge situation with a wildly adventurous bitrate graph ranging from single digits (!) into over 100 Mbps.

It’s notable that great and horrendous moments alternate regularly but from what I saw, good and bad moments each start and end with edits in the film. For example, one long take which is part of the famous apartment dialogue between Brigitte Bardot and Michel Piccoli looks bad for the entirety of the shot when the next one could then look gorgeous also for the entire time until the next cut.

The painful thing is that the good moments look astoundingly beautiful. Impeccable grain, remarkable detail, beautiful colors, no highlight clipping since the HDR / DV is never excessively bright in general (don’t worry, it’s far from dim - perfectly balanced). You feel like you look at a DCP in these moments as if encoded by Fidelity in Motion.

The bad moments look bad but not unwatchable. Why? Because the "grain" doesn’t become a macroblocking mess, but takes on more a consistently filtered, buzzing appearance. I obviously hate how this looks but the eye adjusts and it’s still better than the horrendous old BD. If no one else does, I’ll try and provide a bitrate graph and BDInfo scan. At the very least some screenshots.

I cannot comment that much on the sound other than it sounds slightly muffled. Not that bad, not excellent. A normal 60s soundtrack which is probably somewhat filtered.

At this time, I’d only (somewhat) recommend buying one of the European releases if you’re that big a fan of the film like I am. Lionsgate releases their edition in September. Who knows, maybe it’ll be a new encode but I believe it’ll be just the same with a different opening logo.

Edit: The short film Paparazzi by Jacques Rozier which is a bonus feature on both discs (1080p on the UHD) has also been restored (4K scan - 2K restoration) but has a consistently appealing organic appearance throughout and therefore looks better than the feature. How disappointing. The other Rozier short looks a bit worse but still comparatively better than Le Mépris overall.

Edit 2: SC usually uses a territory selection screen which comes up after you insert the 4K. The one I got was for France, the UK and Germany. Nothing about the US though. So there might still be a slim chance about a new encode by Lionsgate but I won’t get my hopes up. Maybe Eagle Italy could come for the rescue.

Hi, can you send pictures of the packaging please ?

[david hare]

I also received my French copy yesterday. I have to concur with your judgment. The restoration itself is flawless - everything that needed to be done has been. Hiventy’s work on this is gold standard. Color grading, saturation, grain management, stability. But as you observe, the encode just goes crazy on an edit point and stays bad for the length of the shot. In addition to your noting of the first lomg take in the apartment sequence I will add three short shots of up to a minutes each at ca. 25 minutes, 35 minutes and 1 hour 21 minutes in which dense foliage which covers the stone walls in the background gies into spasmodic dithering. At this point a readout on bitrate shows it dipping to near zero and fluctuating out of control as though the idiot running the compression had left the room to go fir a break. These compression ****ups from Canal are seriously damaging. At least Contempt is only subject to five to ten minutes of this. The Canal Breathless is appalling and also has a bitrate pattern that looks like it’s drunk. Also The Trial for which I find the first twenty minutes unwatchable. Who the hell does their encodes? It isn’t Hiventy, who end up taking the blame on this forum for rubbish they aren’t responsible for. But who is? Will Canal ever wske up to this?

[nicwood]

There you go, a couple of pictures. The edition is quite the fingerprint magnet. After ripping the disc (it’s still encrypted as of now), I’ll put the set into my collection right away.





By the way, I have to apologize. There’s no France Germany UK selection screen but French German English. I clicked on it too fast and misremembered it when I typed my post a while later. So there goes my small hope regarding a new encode. Sorry if I caused any false hopes - I edited my post accordingly.