The Wages of Fear 4K UHD (1953) (BFI)

[Stanshall]

Originally Posted by Rolling Dice

Pretty much what I expected.

Feels good to satisfy the confirmation bias but Svet is talking nonsense, as usual.

[Rayjg]

Can’t find this anywhere in the US right now. Either out of stock or completely removed from the boutique sellers’ sites.

[Ben_C]

Watched my copy this morning and thought it generally looked rather nice. The film probably could benefit from having a few minutes chopped off the runtime here and there in the first half, but the second half is just one super tense scenario after another.

Would love to have a 4K release of Sorcerer now, a film that takes the best bits of WoF and dials them up to 11. The Blu-ray already looks stunning, so a UHD could look absolutely breathtaking if done right.

[mclellandj]

Originally Posted by Rayjg

Can’t find this anywhere in the US right now. Either out of stock or completely removed from the boutique sellers’ sites.

https://www.amazon.com/Wages-Fear-Yv.../dp/B0CM9HVCVK

[Nitroes]

France release https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=376699

[ko8ebryant24]

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=1848

[Borges123]

Is it fair to say that Criterion will not be doing the 4K of this?

[moviemaker]

It is coming to theaters on Nov 27, 2024, courtesy of Janus Films. So IT SHOULD BE released by Criterion would be my best guess.

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=35495

I love this poster by Juan Esteban Rodriguez so much so that I want to buy a copy and frame it for my wall.



I wonder if we will have a BFI versus Criterion controversy similar to the Seven Samurai 4K release.

[Shanghai Express]

Selling a like-new copy of this for $15 if anyone is interested

[fkid]

The comparison below is meant to be viewed in HDR mode on an HDR display.

WAGES OF FEAR - 1953 - PQ - CRITERION USA UHD SDR BLU-RAY VS. BFI GBR UHD HDR BLU-RAY (30)

[JohnCarpenterLives]

Originally Posted by fkid

The comparison below is meant to be viewed in HDR mode on an HDR display.

WAGES OF FEAR - 1953 - PQ - CRITERION USA UHD SDR BLU-RAY VS. BFI GBR UHD HDR BLU-RAY (30)

To my amateur eyes BFI beats Crit. What is the consensus amongst the professionals here?

[nicwood]

Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterLives

To my amateur eyes BFI beats Crit. What is the consensus amongst the professionals here?

In my unprofessional opinion, it’s the other way round:

Originally Posted by nicwood

I’ve now received my Criterion 4K set and am now also convinced that the Criterion is the one to go - not because it appears slightly finer-grained than the BFI, which it does, but the vastly different grayscale the SDR and HDR versions have.

I imagine Fidelity did the HDR grade but can’t say for certain as there’s no info about that in the BFI booklet. Still, as much as I love and respect David’s work, I don’t think it’s an entirely convincing grade now that I’ve seen the (likely) original SDR grade. The HDR grade is flatter, leans more monochrome grey without real highlights rather than the contrasty black and white we see in SDR on the Criterion.

When the BFI came out, I highly praised their 4K disc and would do exactly the same again *because we didn’t have any other 4K disc to compare against*. Isolated from the Criterion, it’s still a beautiful encode and I would’ve been glad to ride into sunset with that release had we not received Criterion’s alternative.

Everything else’s been said re. the two versions and I believe the only thing that wasn’t mentioned is that the Criterion has minor blocking in the brightest of highlights here and there. Nothing I’d call substantial enough to pick another option solely because of that.

I also watched the restoration BTS video on the BD and it’s relatively insubstantial. They scanned the negative on a Scanity via wetgate and made sure to preserve and restore the original look of the film as much as possible without filtering or NR. According to the person speaking, they used a 35mm print from the time to base their grading on, which Guillaume Schiffman supervised as he’s an admirer / student of the film’s DP’s work. Sound was also restored from the original soundtrack negative (I believe) without altering the original mix. The sound neg scan was done to avoid the result sounding muffled or "metallic" depending on the settings. Afterwards they removed all the imperfections as usual.