Adding to Bill’s comments, I was also at last night’s “Zhivago” screening. The audio levels for the movie’s first half were cranked up a bit, but this was a case where “louder is better.” Listening to that wonderful overture (yes, there were people turning around and looking back at the projectionst’s booth with that “where’s the picture?” look on their faces), the sounds of trains roaring down the tracks (you could almost feel them whoosh by), even something as simple as the crack of a streetcar’s guidewire spark — the effect really hit you. When the audio became notably lower right after the intermission I thought there was a problem with just that reel, but then it continued through the end the end of the movie, hurting it —it sounded “less big.” Picture quality was excellent, except for maybe three spots where, for a couple of seconds, a bunch of crisscrossing black lines — like a spiderweb — popped up. The Intermission was very short — 3 minutes? — with music played over black and then the sound of a train as the black turned into a POV shot of the refugees' train coming out of a tunnel into the light. The Intermission seemed to be in the wrong place — I vaguely recalled it came right after Zhivago and Lara part at the hospital and there’s an interior shot of Zhivago going up the stairs in the background with the dying sunflowers on a table in the left foreground, instead of where the Intermission was last night, which was a few minutes later in the movie, right after the rescued peasant woman says “That’s Strelniknov!” and there’s a cut to a close-up of Tom Courtenay on his train. The movie ended with the 1999 restoration credits — “Presented By Turner Entertainment” — instead of the original 1965 release’s “An MGM Presentation.” Seeing “Zhivago” on the big screen you can again appreciate the Oscar-winning cinematography (Freddie Young), set design/art direction (John Box & Terrence Marsh) and score (Maurice Jarre), and the acting of Courtenay, Rod Steiger and the luminous Julie Christie. Looking forward to seeing it again Thursday night…and hope they leave the audio levels where they belong for the whole movie. Also saw “North By Northwest” Saturday afternoon, and while the picture quality wasn’t perfect (too many scratches on the far right-hand side of the screen), the Herrmann score and Ernest Lehman’s dialogue sounded great.
Caught the 1PM “WSS” screening today and, despite the blizzard, there was a good turnout. It was a beautiful print with wonderful sound, a huge improvement over the poor “MFL” print. Even the 5 minutes of commercials before the start of the movie looked better (much brighter than at yesterday’s 1PM screening). That’s the good news. The bad news: The movie stopped dead TWICE during the opening minutes — once during the overhead aerial shot of Manhattan and again just before the camera comes in on the Jets in the playground. I wonder what the problem was?
I was also at today’s sparsely attended 1PM “MFL” screening. It was a really beat-up print, with starts/ends of each reel in poor condition (scratches, jumpy, discolored, bad audio), the first half of reel one had some kind of synch problem, there was no intermission (just an abrupt cut/fade where the intermission title card used to be) and no walk out music. The series is billed as “Movies…The Way They Were Meant To be Seen!” Sorry, I don’t think so. What’s the point of promoting a special series like this and then you kill the experience by showing a crappy print? I’m hoping the “WSS” and “Ben-Hur” prints are in decent shape.
Adding to Bill’s comments, I was also at last night’s “Zhivago” screening. The audio levels for the movie’s first half were cranked up a bit, but this was a case where “louder is better.” Listening to that wonderful overture (yes, there were people turning around and looking back at the projectionst’s booth with that “where’s the picture?” look on their faces), the sounds of trains roaring down the tracks (you could almost feel them whoosh by), even something as simple as the crack of a streetcar’s guidewire spark — the effect really hit you. When the audio became notably lower right after the intermission I thought there was a problem with just that reel, but then it continued through the end the end of the movie, hurting it —it sounded “less big.” Picture quality was excellent, except for maybe three spots where, for a couple of seconds, a bunch of crisscrossing black lines — like a spiderweb — popped up. The Intermission was very short — 3 minutes? — with music played over black and then the sound of a train as the black turned into a POV shot of the refugees' train coming out of a tunnel into the light. The Intermission seemed to be in the wrong place — I vaguely recalled it came right after Zhivago and Lara part at the hospital and there’s an interior shot of Zhivago going up the stairs in the background with the dying sunflowers on a table in the left foreground, instead of where the Intermission was last night, which was a few minutes later in the movie, right after the rescued peasant woman says “That’s Strelniknov!” and there’s a cut to a close-up of Tom Courtenay on his train. The movie ended with the 1999 restoration credits — “Presented By Turner Entertainment” — instead of the original 1965 release’s “An MGM Presentation.” Seeing “Zhivago” on the big screen you can again appreciate the Oscar-winning cinematography (Freddie Young), set design/art direction (John Box & Terrence Marsh) and score (Maurice Jarre), and the acting of Courtenay, Rod Steiger and the luminous Julie Christie. Looking forward to seeing it again Thursday night…and hope they leave the audio levels where they belong for the whole movie. Also saw “North By Northwest” Saturday afternoon, and while the picture quality wasn’t perfect (too many scratches on the far right-hand side of the screen), the Herrmann score and Ernest Lehman’s dialogue sounded great.
Caught the 1PM “WSS” screening today and, despite the blizzard, there was a good turnout. It was a beautiful print with wonderful sound, a huge improvement over the poor “MFL” print. Even the 5 minutes of commercials before the start of the movie looked better (much brighter than at yesterday’s 1PM screening). That’s the good news. The bad news: The movie stopped dead TWICE during the opening minutes — once during the overhead aerial shot of Manhattan and again just before the camera comes in on the Jets in the playground. I wonder what the problem was?
I was also at today’s sparsely attended 1PM “MFL” screening. It was a really beat-up print, with starts/ends of each reel in poor condition (scratches, jumpy, discolored, bad audio), the first half of reel one had some kind of synch problem, there was no intermission (just an abrupt cut/fade where the intermission title card used to be) and no walk out music. The series is billed as “Movies…The Way They Were Meant To be Seen!” Sorry, I don’t think so. What’s the point of promoting a special series like this and then you kill the experience by showing a crappy print? I’m hoping the “WSS” and “Ben-Hur” prints are in decent shape.