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Originally Posted by Jorvic
I saw a screening from a 35mm print a couple of days ago. Complete with lots of speckles and flecks. Quite rough but certainly watchable. Warner Bros. logo at the beginning and the "detritus" and "Ferocious, aren't I?" lines in tact.
What I noticed most is that it wasn't so much brighter than any of the home video presentations but that the colours were warmer, with orange shades quite prominent in certain scenes. In this sense, I thought the closest match wasn't the Warner Blu-ray (2009) that everybody always seems to mention when comparing these things, but the remastered BD from 2017. The blue tint was there, but didn't stand out to me to the degree that I might have thought. The 4K disc is my usual way of watching though for the moment.
It's hard to describe how great this film really is. After hundreds of viewings, I'm still amazed by it every single time.
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It is incredibly rare that anyone actually goes out to see an original print and posts about their findings on here. Usually people will just claim that their favorite home video release is "correct" or "faithful" and will come up with all sorts of nonsensical arguments to justify their preference. Sadly, it seems like people will go out of their way to
not find out the truth, and will try to squash any discussions which reveal their preferred presentation noticeably differs from the original theatrical look.
I remember the arguments over Heat's revisionism descending into Kafkaesque levels of absurdity, but here's some of what I was saying years ago regarding the home video releases (which sound similar to your observations):
[Show spoiler]
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterFan
Which I already did years ago and even posted comparisons in one of the Heat threads. Unfortunately the image hosting service I used to post the scans is no longer available so unless I do some digging then I can't easily repost them.
The old Blu-ray was given an overall "cool" color temperature, even in daylight scenes that were warm and vibrant on the 35mm prints. Some of those scenes that were warm on 35mm and cool on the old Blu-ray were made warm again on the remastered Blu-ray. That's not saying the remastered disc has the original colors, but in some ways it is more faithful to the original prints than the older Blu-ray. At the end of the day, neither reflect what was shown theatrically in 1995, and claiming any DVD/Blu-ray of Heat has the original color timing is false.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterFan
Absolutely. I remember saying as much when the remastered Blu-ray came out. The 2009 BD basically has a cyan cast from beginning to end. With the remaster, a lot of this still remains although certain scenes have been warmed up considerably. I found it strange when people were arguing with me at the time saying the 2009 BD wasn't revisionist and that all of Mann's remasters were revisionist except that Heat Blu-ray.
The one thing for sure is that neither the Blu-rays or the UHD reflect the grading seen on the prints. While the prints did have their cool cyan-leaning moments, there was a lot of vibrant warmth that just isn't present in the home video releases. The 2009 Blu-ray shouldn't be seen as the "Purist" option or non-digitally perverted version that everybody must buy for archival purposes.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterFan
Yet those particular criticisms are all based on conjecture from people who have no idea what they're talking about and probably haven't even seen the discs themselves.
The "Crushed shadows" are actually worse on previous discs and aren't technically crushed anyway. I imagine one could brighten the image and expose a lot more shadow detail on the UHD than one could on the 2009 Blu-ray. The image is dark, sure but not at any point was I thinking "Man, these black levels are crushed!"
Also, regarding the yellow hue: I can remember saying years ago when the remastered Blu-ray was released that the original 35mm prints and one I handled around that time also exhibited a strong warm (gold/yellow) look in certain scenes. I even compared screenshots of said 35mm print with the 2009 Blu-ray (unfortunately the image hosting site I used to post these comparisons no longer exists or has deleted the files or something). What the comparisons showed was that the 35mm prints had scenes that were dark and blue/green and also scenes that were vibrant and warm, and that the 2009 Blu-ray had a clear cyan-looking (TEAL!!! REVISIONIST TEAL!!!) color grade from beginning to end. As Geoff said, even the opening Warner logo is teal.
So any criticism that the remastered Blu-ray/UHD is somehow more revisionist than the 2009 Blu-ray because of the extra warmth and yellow hues in some scenes is completely unfounded and ridiculous. I find it mind-boggling that the 2009 Blu-ray was given a pass by a lot of people on here who seem to police against revisionism of any kind while trying to cover up and rationalize revisionism that they just so happen to like. Usually a release of a film which has a cyan-pushed grade for it's whole runtime would be accused of having a "Blanket tint", would it not? And the version whose colors would change depending on the scene would be more "Accurate"?
I can't but help but wonder how the 2009 Blu-ray would have been received if it was released a few years later than it was, once people really got their pitchforks out and were intent on lambasting anything that could be considered teal or having a blanket tint.
Please note: I'm not saying the UHD is not revisionist. All these releases are revisionist and admittedly so. If you're looking for an edition that represents the look of the original prints, then you're not going to find it. Your options are: How Michael Mann was happy with it looking in 2009 or how Michael Mann wants it to look now.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterFan
Yes, he did indeed say that about the remaster and nobody really seems to be denying it. However people seem to be downplaying the revisionism of the 2009 disc, which aside from having the same content changes as the remaster, also had a completely altered color scheme so it's no less revisionist either.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterFan
But, they were online. I posted them publicly and they were available for months at least. I'm not in control of what goes on at image hosting sites, besides other users saw them and commented on how they looked at the time:
Plus, I actually saw a print properly projected around this time and had scans done. This was shortly before the release of the remastered Blu-ray so I didn't really know what scenes/shots would be best to use for comparative purposes. So many people are going off of memories from decades ago or assuming that previous releases were faithful to the original theatrical grade when they absolutely were not.
Point is: ALL of these releases are revisionist. The UHD has a lot of technical improvements over previous releases and if people are being persuaded into buying an older release under the guise that it's less revisionist or more representative of how the film originally looked, then that's just misleading and wrong.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterFan
But the old Blu-ray is also completely revisionist and it may actually be more revisionist than the new master as the new master actually adds some warmth back into certain scenes absent in the older master.
This is one of those films where if you want it to look like how it did originally, then you'll need to get your hands on a 35mm print because no home video release is in the same ballpark of the original look.
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FWIW, I also agree that the remastered Blu-ray is probably the closest to the prints but it's still so different that it can hardly be called faithful. The extra warmth in parts really does bring it closer than the 2009 Blu-ray.
I can understand people getting familiarized with a certain home video release, but to pretend it is somehow completely accurate when home video releases rarely ever are is just peculiar. There's a similar phenomenon with Andrzej Zulawski's Possession where every single 35mm print I've seen has a very cold blue/cyan-looking appearance, and every archivist I've asked in archives around the world has confirmed that the prints all share this look in common. Wonderfully preserved and unfaded original prints are still shown now and then (with one being shown only last year), and even the Anchor Bay DVD was more faithful color-wise to the prints than succeeding home video releases. There's photos of 35mm prints which clearly show this look, yet despite all of this, people seem convinced that a Blu-ray release which doesn't resemble the prints much at all is "correct" for whatever reason and that the original look is "modern" or digital in origin. Second Sight in the UK will be releasing their own UHD of the film, and if they grade it to resemble the original prints then I can't wait to see the inevitable shitstorm it creates.
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