The Draughtsman's Contract (1982) - Le Chat Qui Fume

[thomasomalley]

Was able to order this quite easily from the official website. Doesn’t seem to be sold out. https://lechatquifume.myshopify.com/...jardin-anglais


Unless my translation is all bad and I got the bluray edition but I doubt it.

[andreasy969]

Originally Posted by brainofj72

Got my copy today and did a little spot checking.

First of all, at least in the bits I sampled, I can confirm that subtitles are NOT forced.

Also, though I'll reserve any opinions until watching the film in full, I looked at both the UHD and BD and I will say that the colors are drastically different between the two, with the UHD looking FAR more muted than the BD, which is much brighter and more colorful. Interesting.

I received this today and can't confirm. As in not at all. And re. muted, if anything, it's the other way round and the BD is more muted. Sooo... really don't know what you were looking at.

Some random samples to prove my point:

BD (upscaled) | 4K (100 nits)

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[nicwood]

Originally Posted by andreasy969

I received this today and can't confirm. As in not at all. And re. muted, if anything, it's the other way round and the BD is more muted. Sooo... really don't know what you were looking at.

Some random samples to prove my point:

BD (upscaled) | 4K (100 nits)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Are your BD caps from the BFI BD? I have this edition and definitely plan on watching it before eventually getting the UHD. I have a broad range of what films I can appreciate but what I’ve seen of Greenaway showed me my limits.

Great for all of his fans that this is the second 4K disc arriving remarkably close together.

[andreasy969]

Originally Posted by nicwood

Are your BD caps from the BFI BD? I have this edition and definitely plan on watching it before eventually getting the UHD. I have a broad range of what films I can appreciate but what I’ve seen of Greenaway showed me my limits.

Great for all of his fans that this is the second 4K disc arriving remarkably close together.

No, the BD caps are from the Le Chat BD that came with the 4K.

[Shaw24]

I ordered this from France to USA, and it came in only a week (which is nice as ordering from England usually takes forever!). I confer with @andreasy969 that the UHD didn't seem muted. In contrast, the Le Chat BD seems kind of washed out.

The restoration is insanely grainy and they leave it all intact, which I don't mind at all, but the BD has a really hard time managing it, especially in the opening scenes which were all shot using just candle light. I didn't think the black levels on the BD were great, nor is the encode, as some of the grain in the bluray causes digital artifacting if you look closely.

The 4K's color and contrast are way better (the HDR really pops in the candle scenes), and it does a much better job of resolving the grain, although I don't think it's a perfect encode as I did notice some slightly "digital" looking patterns caused by the grain if I looked closely in some scenes, and I will say that I've seen better 4K transfers of super grainy films from this era (and before).

I'd rate it a solid 4/5, though, especially given the source materials. I do not have the BFI BD to compare, so hopefully someone will post pics to compare soon as I'm curious. However, the Le chat UHD blows the Le chat BD out of the water, and given how insanely grainy the source material is and how the restoration left it all intact, I can't imagine that the BFI BD would look better than the Le chat UHD, as super grainy films almost always look better in 4K.

My biggest complaint with it is that per usual for Germany and France they don't include optional English subtitles. I'm not deaf, but I always watch all movies with subtitles, so it pisses me off a bit when they do that.

[Jorvic]

Really tempted to get this 4K UHD as it's such an intriguing, unique film with truly gorgeous, lush visuals and landscapes, but the BFI Blu-ray I have has a very nice transfer and there's so many other titles to buy at the moment. I could really do with some comparisons between the 4K disc and BFI BD.

[senseabove]

Originally Posted by Jorvic

Really tempted to get this 4K UHD as it's such an intriguing, unique film with truly gorgeous, lush visuals and landscapes, but the BFI Blu-ray I have has a very nice transfer and there's so many other titles to buy at the moment. I could really do with some comparisons between the 4K disc and BFI BD.

Given that the BD in the French set is the same transfer, the above caps likely give a good idea... but I'll say that the Dolby Vision layer is well worth the splurge. I did a comparison by switching inputs between the French BD in one player and the French UHD in another, and the prior caps do not do the UHD justice, at least not as demonstrated on my Panasonic 820/Sony A80J set-up.

[asmodeux21]

Originally Posted by senseabove

Given that the BD in the French set is the same transfer, the above caps likely give a good idea... but I'll say that the Dolby Vision layer is well worth the splurge. I did a comparison by switching inputs between the French BD in one player and the French UHD in another, and the prior caps do not do the UHD justice, at least not as demonstrated on my Panasonic 820/Sony A80J set-up.

Yeah, in motion, the UHD looks wonderfully cinematic with lots of beautiful grain.

[Ikari]

UHD appears to be mostly out of print, I just missed it on Amazon, then e-mailed LCQF, if there's any chance they'd add my country to the shipping list and they told me they'd be removing the listing for the UHD shortly, luckily I ordered it, since it's gone now.

[CelestialAgent]

Originally Posted by Ikari

UHD appears to be mostly out of print, I just missed it on Amazon, then e-mailed LCQF, if there's any chance they'd add my country to the shipping list and they told me they'd be removing the listing for the UHD shortly, luckily I ordered it, since it's gone now.

Thanks for alerting me to its low stock, I ordered it from Librairie Ombres Blanches (hadn’t heard of them before - VAT was taken off but UK shipping was €12) on Monday, it arrived swiftly this morning and packaged well in bubble wrap, no customs issues and sent by ParcelForce. Think I’ll watch The Greenaway Alphabet first before delving into the feature.

[CelestialAgent]

Not watched the film yet but sampling the disc.

The digipack is nicely designed with stills from the film.

A flyer is included advertising books from hometeam.fr, including B-Movie Posters, Sang pour sang glamour, Video Violence, Cocoricobis, Fred Olen Ray, Sexy Starlettes, Horror Porn (including tits and cocks!)

The menu features clips from the film in a green border and a sample from the Nyman score.

The audio defaults to the French dub but this can be changed on the menu/remote and subtitles are optional. The UHD seems to handle grain well, though it doesn’t feel like the most obviously UHD title ever as it’s not HDR used to make vivid colours pop, it’s more subtle. If the BFI (or Zeitgeist) is encoded well I’m not sure if there would be a massive difference between them, but it certainly doesn’t look bad. It still has a BFI National Archive restoration credit at the beginning, while the trailer (exhibiting different colours) is from the 2022 UK theatrical rerelease, and not the original 1982 trailer.

The encode on the Blu-ray could look better, it struggles to handle the grain, though it looks worse when pausing it (closer to a DVD) than in motion.

While there are no forced subs on the film, The Greenaway Alphabet and some of the interviews do have them (there are no subtitles on the short films - not listed on the back cover but listed on the menu.) H is for House looks to be SD, while A Walk Through H and Insight look like they might be HD with grain, but with a weaker encode. I’m pretty sure Insight looked better on the COI set. With the brief interview extras and deleted scenes coming from video/DVD sources, they look fine.

The Greenaway Alphabet has stereo audio (not sure as a recent documentary if it would have been mixed for 5.1, though it did have some theatrical/festival play) and looks good but there are signs of macroblocking and posterisation. Being shot in the Netherlands, where he has based himself rather than London or Wales, it keeps coming back to Rembrandt. Despite the banding, the clips from Nightwatching look HD though it’s only been released on DVD. It’s quite a good documentary, covering most but not all of his films with lots of clips, often deploying Greenaway’s style with overlapping frames and faces monologuing, showing the relationship with his 16 year old daughter (the film is directed by his wife who doesn’t intervene much except in the opening narration), and his philosophy around art, existence and film. Similar to Godard, he keeps insisting he’ll get a lethal injection at 80 (unlike the UK, the Netherlands has some limited allowances for assisted dying) - he’s 81 now.

[CelestialAgent]

Just upgraded from a 2016 Samsung to a 55” LG B3, spent an hour going through the settings to turn off AI and sharpening and noise reduction and turned on filmmaker mode (not sure if there are calibration settings to be aware of, but I did research reviews, and my player only handles HDR10 and not DV - the TV handles DV but not HDR10+) so I can offer some thoughts. First off I sampled First Blood, which looks good although the skies seem a bit muddy.

I haven’t seen the film before, so I don’t know how it compares to the DCP or BD, and I’m trying to approach it more as a viewer than a videophile. I’m not performing a Capsaholic comparison by zooming into the minutiae of the grain on the TV. There are hints of Greenaway’s later works as a elegant period costume drama, painting like tableaux, a visiting Dutchman, a naked man pissing and carnal relations.

There are a few brief moments of dialogue in German and Dutch, but I don’t know if they’re subtitled on the UK release, and are ultimately inconsequential. When the English soundtrack is selected from the menu, the subtitles are disabled via the remote during playback.

It’s not the showiest HDR grade, but I certainly noticed it with the red titles in the opening scene, cloak on a painting, lips and trousers, orange candlelight and flames and sunrise/sunset hitting the human form, the yellow fur on a dog, the red brick of the house, green bedposts, gold accenting, purple flowers, red leaves and the greenery of shrubbery/grass (not the brightest with shadows falling on it) and the way the nighttime blacks are rendered. The discovery of the body and the burning papers feel especially visceral, as does the animated painted statue against the night. The flickering grain feels swarm like and not filtered, apparent from the names appearing at the beginning of the film, it’s particularly noticeable in cloudy grey/off white skies (though the sky appears more white in one shot through a window) and a blue sky that feels more dusk than a bright summer’s day. It feels authentic to a filmic source, and doesn’t hide the grainier moments. There are a few brief moments of lines appearing to the right of the frame and in the middle, a few tiny scratches and reflections in the corner of the draughtsman’s sketches, but these seem to be inherent to the source.

The film ends with a BFI logo.

I found the audio ever so slightly out of sync, but I don’t think it’s an issue with the film itself, but probably more down to passing through the receiver.

Watching the trailer, the grain isn’t as refined compared to noticeable it is in the film itself. Sampling the Blu-ray, the grain is less apparent, the blacks don’t stand out as much, the fruits on the table feel duller but the sky and grass seems a little brighter.

It definitely feels like an improvement on Blu-ray, even if it isn’t night and day, although it depends on if you need English subtitles or the commentary track (or German dub/AD), wider availability and how much you want to spend on the film compared to a British release for a third of the price.

The introduction is quite informative to Greenaway’s roots as a filmmaker from art school and shorts, being a Christie-esque country house murder mystery with clues but without a dénouement explanation and showing a different master of the film (from the DVD) and delivered in his style (like with J’accuse) with multiple video screens and his face against a black background.

The interviews (more EPK/short making of) only has some brief comments from Greenaway, was shot on film with scratches but comes from a video master, with some enthusiasm shown for the screenplay, mystery elements and Greenaway’s work with the BFI. The BTS is valuable for showing Greenaway directing his actors and consulting reference polaroids.

A shame the deleted scenes (presumably open matte with ample headroom) are in 1.33:1 not 1.66:1 - first one is the longest, and they’re individually selectable with no play all. The chairs and rain were probably best left on the cutting room floor, but I did like the bed chamber conversation. The headshots from the UK release are missing, as is the gallery.

The Nyman interview transitions in nicely from the menu with the iconic theme, he discusses his roots as a musicologist and music critic in the 60s. A shame it’s only an excerpt rather than the full length Guardian talk, as has appeared on other BFI releases. The full Angela Carter episode missing from the disc can be found on YouTube.