Possession 4K UHD (1981) (Second Sight)

[Mr. Thomsen]

I wonder when Mondo Vision will be announcing theirs? Of course, Jesse from DiabolikDVD claimed last year that Mondo had lost the rights to that one, but nobody else have corroborated this since.

I'll probably end up buying whichever version that includes the soundtrack CD. IIRC, while there were minor color timing differences between the old SS BD and the Mondo Vision one, both were approved by the director and both were mastered by Michael Mackenzie.

Hell, I might even end up getting both, if there are some exclusive interesting special features.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Mr. Thomsen

I wonder when Mondo Vision will be announcing theirs? Of course, Jesse from DiabolikDVD claimed last year that Mondo had lost the rights to that one, but nobody else have corroborated this since.

I'll probably end up buying whichever version that includes the soundtrack CD. IIRC, while there were minor color timing differences between the old SS BD and the Mondo Vision one, both were approved by the director and both were mastered by Michael Mackenzie.

Hell, I might even end up getting both, if there are some exclusive interesting special features.

Its going to be pretty interesting how these releases turn out.

The color grading people seem to like are the releases that used the old 2K master. The releases that used the new 2020 4K master (LCQF 4K UHD, Umbrella 1080p Blu-ray) people have not liked as much. But Umbrella insists their upcoming 4K release is sourced from the only director-approved 4K transfer that exists (which may or may not be the exact same LCQF used). Other releases may tweak that master, and people may even like those tweaks better - but since the director has passed its hard to argue that any tweaks to the sole 4K director approved restoration wouldnt be more revisionist than the aforementioned director approved 4K transfer untouched.

Second Sight's comments on their release are interesting, because they basically state upfront they are going to make tweaks with a new restoration, and get them approved by other people involved with the film who are still alive (but obviously not the director). Umbrella on the other hand has stated they are going to release the director's approved intention in 4K untouched. SS has a great track record and I assume they are reading peoples comments and are going to deliver something that maybe fans will like better - but wouldnt that be more revisionist than just delivering the straight director approved transfer?

Again to simplify, so far we have the following two upcoming 4K releases and what companies have said about them-

Umbrella - We are releasing the only director-approved 4K restoration that exists
Second Sight - We are making a new restoration based on directors grading notes and the camera operator's approval

It may be a case where a fan might want both, especially a purist

[Kyle15]

He never approved a 4k master, only a 2k master. If your new 4k master is "director approved" it's using the old restoration work as a base. Thusly it's "director approved" but with an asterisk.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Kyle15

He never approved a 4k master, only a 2k master. If your new 4k master is "director approved" it's using the old restoration work as a base. Thusly it's "director approved" but with an asterisk.

I mean, Umbrella's statement is pretty straightforward:
https://twitter.com/UmbrellaEnt/stat...153364480?s=20

I personally don't know how they got to that point, but I'd think for purists it is a more reassuring statement than Second Sight's "we're gonna do our own thing based on notes and approval of the camera operator". I certainly wouldn't be comfortable saying Umbrella is lying.

[Kyle15]

Originally Posted by Ruined

I mean, Umbrella's statement is pretty straightforward:
https://twitter.com/UmbrellaEnt/stat...153364480?s=20

I personally don't know how they got to that point, but I'd think for purists it is a more reassuring statement than Second Sight's "we're gonna do our own thing based on notes and approval of the camera operator". I certainly wouldn't be comfortable saying Umbrella is lying.

Well yea, they're not saying anything of the contrary. He didn't approve a 4k master but if one uses his approved restoration parameters then it's thusly approved by him, Umbrella isn't lying either way.

[JohnCarpenterFan]

I'm not sure exactly what to think regarding those statements, "transfer" is such a vague term and doesn't necessarily mean completed master. Transfer has been used before to describe a basic scan of a film element to digital which filmmakers have been asked to sign off on that even before the grading stage which they'll then be asked to sign off on again once the master is actually completed. Unfortunately some labels have posted seemingly straightforward statements previously for other releases only for them to be full of technicalities so I don't put too much stock in such statements.

I know there's been controversy with this film in the past. Weren't there two distinctly different HD grades supervised and/or approved by the director or am I misremembering?

Anyway, I'll be interested in seeing how these releases turn out. I wonder if the notes SS are using were notes for the film's initial release or what was done for the Mondo/SS Blu-ray grade. 35mm prints of this film still get shown and seem to look bluer and more desaturated compared to the Mondo Blu-ray so I wonder what the deal is with that too.

[Mr. Thomsen]

Originally Posted by Kyle15

He never approved a 4k master, only a 2k master. If your new 4k master is "director approved" it's using the old restoration work as a base. Thusly it's "director approved" but with an asterisk.

That is also what makes me wonder about Umbrella's statements. I have NEVER, not even once, in none of the boards and groups, heard or read anything about Zulawski approving a new 4K transfer before his death. All everybody has ever said is that he approved the previous 2K transfers before he died. That is it.

So, either this means the new release is, as you say, "director approved" with an asterisk, i.e. they use the old restauration as a baseline for their tinkering with the 4K transfer, or the French rights-holders are lying and claiming that he approved the 4K transfer.

Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterFan

I know there's been controversy with this film in the past. Weren't there two distinctly different HD grades supervised and/or approved by the director or am I misremembering?

No, that is true, and there was a bit of controversy around this. Michael Mackenzie did the encoding on both, and he explained in a post that the Mondo and the Second Sight BD releases were based on the same transfer. IIRC he said that even though they did have some differences in their grading, one being darker than the other, they had both been sent to and finally approved by Zulawski shortly before his death. Which just goes to show that color timing is not the exact science some of us would like it to be, but rather there is spectrum within which a film can look right or right enough.

[kmhofmann]

Originally Posted by Mr. Thomsen

That is also what makes me wonder about Umbrella's statements. I have NEVER, not even once, in none of the boards and groups, heard or read anything about Zulawski approving a new 4K transfer before his death. All everybody has ever said is that he approved the previous 2K transfers before he died. That is it.

Indeed, he couldn't have. Possession was only scanned in 4K after Zulawski's death.

Originally Posted by Mr. Thomsen

No, that is true, and there was a bit of controversy around this. Michael Mackenzie did the encoding on both, and he explained in a post that the Mondo and the Second Sight BD releases were based on the same transfer. IIRC he said that even though they did have some differences in their grading, one being darker than the other, they had both been sent to and finally approved by Zulawski shortly before his death. Which just goes to show that color timing is not the exact science some of us would like it to be, but rather there is spectrum within which a film can look right or right enough.

That was probably David Mackenzie, not Michael

And yeah, the Second Sight BD is based on the same transfer but is a bit brighter than the - in places quite dark - Mondo Vision. The differences aren't huge and they're certainly smaller than the difference between either of these and the LCQF master.

See caps here: https://caps-a-holic.com/c_list.php?c=1332

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Mr. Thomsen

That is also what makes me wonder about Umbrella's statements. I have NEVER, not even once, in none of the boards and groups, heard or read anything about Zulawski approving a new 4K transfer before his death. All everybody has ever said is that he approved the previous 2K transfers before he died. That is it.

So, either this means the new release is, as you say, "director approved" with an asterisk, i.e. they use the old restauration as a baseline for their tinkering with the 4K transfer, or the French rights-holders are lying and claiming that he approved the 4K transfer.



No, that is true, and there was a bit of controversy around this. Michael Mackenzie did the encoding on both, and he explained in a post that the Mondo and the Second Sight BD releases were based on the same transfer. IIRC he said that even though they did have some differences in their grading, one being darker than the other, they had both been sent to and finally approved by Zulawski shortly before his death. Which just goes to show that color timing is not the exact science some of us would like it to be, but rather there is spectrum within which a film can look right or right enough.

Originally Posted by Kyle15

Well yea, they're not saying anything of the contrary. He didn't approve a 4k master but if one uses his approved restoration parameters then it's thusly approved by him, Umbrella isn't lying either way.

Originally Posted by kmhofmann

Indeed, he couldn't have. Possession was only scanned in 4K after Zulawski's death.


That was probably David Mackenzie, not Michael

And yeah, the Second Sight BD is based on the same transfer but is a bit brighter than the - in places quite dark - Mondo Vision. The differences aren't huge and they're certainly smaller than the difference between either of these and the LCQF master.

See caps here: https://caps-a-holic.com/c_list.php?c=1332

Here is an alternate theory.

What if, hypothetically, the Le Chat Qui Fume 4K disc *is* the closest to the most accurate restoration of the film's look per the director's wishes, but people simply don't like that look! I have seen this many times, where folks despite having a substantial lack of information on the topic other than what they read in forums and marketing materials, make definitive conclusions despite not having the full story - because it better supports the look they like. For some film fans this creates cognitive dissonance, because on one hand they want to have the film "the way its supposed to look," but on the other hand they like the way the film looks better a different way. So then a label comes along and listens to those complaints, tweaks the film to the way the people complaining like it, and then that release is deemed "better," despite potentially being less accurate to the filmmakers wishes. This may not be the case here, but it has happened plenty before.

Here is what Le Chat Qui Fume had to say about their 4K restoration, which I know isn't the most popular. It certainly doesn't sound like they just winged it - note, it also details why their research discovered that the "warm" look people like is wrong in their belief:

Originally Posted by Le Chat Qui Fume on 2020 4K restoration of Possession

(translated from French)

A few words about the restoration of POSSESSION because the hustle is in place right now and that everything should happen before the end of the month.

The film was first restored a few years ago by Zulawski himself but the master had colorometry problems. Problems fixed, for the majority, on previous BLURAY releases abroad.

When we started working on this title we asked ourselves how to approach it and decided to start from 0. It's been almost 8 years since the previous restoration. It's little but in restoration it's pretty huge. We've already set out on one of the best scanners right now, the Lasergraphic 10k, to scan the film in 5K at VDM. We then looked back at previous versions, then listened to some of the people in the film, listened to Zulawski's interviews of his work, and even scanned a 35mm-era copy. Then an analysis of the negative allowed us to see that light is cold most of the time, especially during scenes between Adjani and Neill to support their separation. Zulawski says in one of his interviews, dating from the release of the film, that Berlin's colors are blue and yellow and Adjani had porcelain skin.
The film was stalled without filters, plan by plan, without burying the blacks to artificially contrast the film and most importantly by giving it that late '70s patina. This took a few weeks of calibration.

The frame has been redone and there will be a little more pic than before.
The restoration took quite a while and you will see that we left a flaw in the image during a scene. Defect present on existing copies and negative. Sometimes societies remove these flaws that have always existed, we preferred to leave them.
The existing subtitles have been reworked and we have translated some forgotten German words.
The generic, unlike previous video releases, was made from the original negative so it's beautiful anyway.
Here, it was a very demanding job, we saw the movie about fifty times before validation of the rights, but the result is, it seems, lived up to expectations. Many thanks to Sébastien and Mathieu for their work.

In any case, it's not tomorrow that we're going to restore a classic again and we admit that going to the restorations of Michel Lemoine or Eddy Matalon films is still easier

[Kyle15]

So it seems as if like LCQF essentially did what Second Sight is going to do, which can still be as accurate as anything the director would have or could approve. Yes.

[Lutz]

I hope one of the releases will include the old DVD soundtrack with all the music cues that Zulawski decided he didn’t like and removed. I get that Zulawski wanted to make the movie more minimal but I just love the histrionics of the soundtrack blasting to Adjani’s pained reaction shots.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Kyle15

So it seems as if like LCQF essentially did what Second Sight is going to do, which can still be as accurate as anything the director would have or could approve. Yes.

Yeah i wanted to do some research because the whole situation seemed odd, and found the above on their FB page in a Jan 8, 2021 post.

It is just worth pointing these things out, because people seemed convinced LCQF just did whatever and it was wrong and the Mondo Vision warm color timing was right. But as you can see from this, quite a massive amount of research from all different sources went into the color timing of the LCQF to make it as close to what appears to have been intended by the director as possible. People actually might not like it despite it being more on-target, but that isn't too uncommon when you watch a film with the same look for 20 years and then this new version comes along that looks a lot different; that doesn't make the new version wrong or worse though, and technically it might just be more accurate than the one you thought was accurate all along.

MY hypothesis, is that the Umbrella 4K is going to be the LCQF resto untouched, while the Second Sight 4K will be something different that makes changes based on the complaints people had about the LCQF and then justifies them by getting them blessed by the camera operator; this would be the financially intelligent thing to do to make their resto stand out from the crowd... Which could make people like the Second Sight better because it is more familiar... But would those tweaks in place result in a better or more accurate transfer to what was originally intended based on all that research LCQF did? Maybe, maybe not! Perhaps own both?

[Yami]

I think EddieLarkin summed it up pretty well a few years ago

Originally Posted by EddieLarkin

I find it quite strange that the Smoking Cat are basically calling "the Americans" out for changing the master, even though it was David M and Zulawski himself that worked on the changes... This was all laid out nearly 9 years ago in David's post that I linked to before:

https://www.criterionforum.org/forum...393650#p393650

He specifically says there that the blue tints and nuked highlights inherent in the master were revisionist and he would be working with Zulawski in Warsaw to fix things up.

Zulawski died in 2016 so of course didn't help with or approve anything in relation to this UHD. It sounds like the Smoking Cat have based their disc on the original untouched master, ignoring the fact Zulawski approved major changes to it for the Second Sight and Mondo Vision releases.

Second Sight had this to say at the time when their release was coming out:

How can the Smoking Cat say their version is right and the Blu-rays wrong when only the latter was approved by Zulawski "on a shot-by-shot basis"?

[Kyle15]

Originally Posted by Yami

I think EddieLarkin summed it up pretty well a few years ago

Exactly. And seeing this, Second Sight is likely going to match this work as previously approved. The cinematographer being there to make sure it's being done right.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Kyle15

Exactly. And seeing this, Second Sight is likely going to match this work as previously approved. The cinematographer being there to make sure it's being done right.

According to IMDB Bruno Nuytten is the credited cinematographer and second sight have not mentioned him. Instead they are using the camera operator. Given the variations of "right" for this film I am not faithful in any one person's assessment of that TBH

The above post explaination doesn't line up with LCQF's restoration notes which consulted multiple sources to get the color timing they landed on. Second sights explanation also doesn't say much other than instructing people that an OCN doesn't have a baked in color timing which is obvious for anyone who has worked with film negatives or digital raw files

Again, a lot of the arguments about this (and other films) comes off as "i like the way this one looks better, so to make myself feel better that its the way its supposed to look even though I really have no idea, here is the explanation on why this look is definitely the right one: <insert label marketing spiel here>" I mean, none of these labels are gonna want you to purchase their competitors product instead, so they are all gonna try to convince you theirs is the real deal.

[JohnCarpenterFan]

Yes, a cameraman in most cases isn't going to be present during the actual photochemical grading process or asked to approve an answer print so that's not really much of an assurance that it's going to look how it was originally intended to look.

I think LCQF had the right idea by referencing a 35mm print although of course unless the 35mm print is the approved answer print then multiple 35mm prints should ideally be compared to identify any discrepancies between prints. What LCQF do have going for them with how their edition looks is that the 35mm prints that have been shown for years are much bluer than how Mondo and SS's Blu-rays looked so I seriously doubt they are lying about the print looking that way.

The SS comment explaining color correction also doesn't provide much in the way of answers. They don't mention any sort of reference at all except that it's being graded to "meet the filmmaker's goals" which doesn't necessarily mean how it was originally intended to look.

I think this is going to be a case where we have multiple editions of the same film in great quality but with very different looks that is not just a simple black/white or right/wrong situation. The look of the prints is its own thing and the Mondo master which looks very different in places was approved by the director so it's not really "incorrect" either unless the goal of that master was to match the look of said prints.

It does seem like there's quite a bit of "marketing spiel" though. The old SS comment kind of reminded me of the James White comment regarding the remastered Phenomena Blu-ray release where he criticized other presentations for being too blue because they came from sources further along in the photochemical printing chain and that since Arrow were working from the original negative they could see how much blue should be used. Of course since you can't tell these things by looking at an ungraded negative and sources further along in the photochemical chain are needed in order to correctly grade a negative scan, Arrow's remastered Blu-ray was completely inaccurate with the blues not looking anything like they did on 35mm. They thankfully fixed this for their UHD though with the blues looking much more like the master White criticized.

[Mr. Thomsen]

I would think that David M. is probably the ultimate authority on how it should look, since according his post linked above, he actually sat down with Zulawski in Poland to finish off the grading of the previous transfer.

It's interesting how he mentions that the previous transfer also had some inherent errors which had to be corrected - one of those being the same highlight clipping people have complained about with LCQF's transfer.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Mr. Thomsen

I would think that David M. is probably the ultimate authority on how it should look, since according his post linked above, he actually sat down with Zulawski in Poland to finish off the grading of the previous transfer.

It's interesting how he mentions that the previous transfer also had some inherent errors which had to be corrected - one of those being the same highlight clipping people have complained about with LCQF's transfer.

Did David M do this independently for charity, or was he paid by one or more of the labels in which the "error" was "fixed"? If it is the latter, and he was speaking in regards to that release, it can be considered marketing. Like when an actor talks up a remake of a movie and why the new version is worth seeing. That being the case, if a release is put out and it looks largely the same as the previous one, it likely won't sell as well; so it is in the best interest of everyone involved in the new release to find "errors" or "intention" that the old release didn't capture so that the new release sells better.

Also, there are tradeoffs to making tweaks like that in SDR, which the 4K master of possession is. While the Mondo/SS discs have less blown out highlights, as a result of that change the whole scene is much darker - it looks like he is standing in a dim room instead of a room illuminated by natural light. Looking at the bright reflection on the desk near the window, the tamed highlights dim-room look doesnt make as much logical sense honestly. Thus its not an error, but a tradeoff. HDR on the other hand you can make tweaks like that with minimal side effects (other than seeing more of what was behind the highlight, which has created issues for some 4K transfers).

[kmhofmann]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Did David M do this independently for charity, or was he paid by one or more of the labels in which the "error" was "fixed"? If it is the latter, and he was speaking in regards to that release, it can be considered marketing. Like when an actor talks up a remake of a movie and why the new version is worth seeing. That being the case, if a release is put out and it looks largely the same as the previous one, it likely won't sell as well; so it is in the best interest of everyone involved in the new release to find "errors" or "intention" that the old release didn't capture so that the new release sells better.

Far too much speculation and weird hypothesizing.

Originally Posted by Ruined

Also, there are tradeoffs to making tweaks like that in SDR, which the 4K master of possession is. While the Mondo/SS discs have less blown out highlights, as a result of that change the whole scene is much darker - it looks like he is standing in a dim room instead of a room illuminated by natural light. Looking at the bright reflection on the desk near the window, the tamed highlights dim-room look doesnt make as much logical sense honestly. Thus its not an error, but a tradeoff. HDR on the other hand you can make tweaks like that with minimal side effects (other than seeing more of what was behind the highlight, which has created issues for some 4K transfers).

No one has claimed with certainty that Second Sight was delivered the finished SDR-graded 4K master for Possession, in which case the latitude for corrections would indeed be limited. Why exclude the possibility they got a log scale master on top of which they could make sensible grading choices? I would assume that the 4K scan and most restoration work were performed with the widest possible latitude (and then grading being the last step) and as such, these materials should be readily available.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by kmhofmann

Far too much speculation and weird hypothesizing.


No one has claimed with certainty that Second Sight was delivered the finished SDR-graded 4K master for Possession, in which case the latitude for corrections would indeed be limited. Why exclude the possibility they got a log scale master on top of which they could make sensible grading choices? I would assume that the 4K scan and most restoration work were performed with the widest possible latitude (and then grading being the last step) and as such, these materials should be readily available.

Conversely, if the "blown out" highlight was in one transfer by one group, taken out by David M, and now also was put back in for the newest restoration for which multiple sources were consulted, maybe the "blown out" highlight being discussed is actually just as "correct"?

Bottom line, relying on the word of someone working on a restoration who is going to financially benefit from said restoration is essentially relying on that release's marketing bullet points.