[versions] Last Of The Mohicans — Existing Masters?

[shiftyeyes]

I love this movie too, but don't really have any knowledge or expertise about the different cuts. Just thought I'd offer some support though.

[LucasGodzilla]

I would say that any references to 'graded to answer prints' or 'Director approved' have to be taken with a considerable pinch of salt these days.

Anecdotally I have heard that Thief did indeed have a cold blue look on 35mm, I just think that the DC grade is incredibly heavy handed (as are a number of Criterion's own colour graded releases), and digital grades just don't behave the same way as photochemical grades with regards to secondary colours/tones etc.

To a degree, I agree that the digital grading of the Director's cut is a bit quirky in ways that you don't see photochemically. I seem to recall that specifically it was mentioned by some in the past that the skin-tones were the most flawed aspect of the restoration—which ties with what you've said about photochemical grading handling secondaries—as they came off much more pallid than a print did.

However, I will say that the cyan-teal push is generally something I consistently hear matching up with what people have seen over the years from the odd unfaded print screenings of the movie. I'll be leaving this post from the Blu-Ray forum in regards to this subject:

Apparently according to Lee Kline (from Criterion) on the Team Deakins podcast (wish I knew the timecode. It’s a wonderful podcast) he made a comment about how Michael Mann was adamant that the color transfer matches to his specific answer print. Kline said anyone who thinks it doesn’t look like the original film is wrong because it looks exactly like that print.


So there’s that. Not a huge fan of the ultra teal and rather have a more natural look during the daytime scenes. but I guess we know now that factoid. It’s supposed to be ultra teal. it’s been such a debate that without Deakins asking Kline he just off hand offers that nugget.

Fortunately more people are more educated and accepting of stylish lighting, filters and grading compared to when the Criterion Blu-ray came out, so we're not seeing as much absurd outrage when a film doesn't look "Natural" or like a home video transfer from the '90s.

I can attest that the 35mm prints of Thief contained a lot of cyan (aka nightmare-inducing revisionist teal). I believe another user saw a 35mm print projected a year or so ago and also stated that it looked very much like the Blu-ray.

Even the 35mm trailer of Thief I owned had the characteristics of the Blu-ray, most likely because the "Teal" was introduced even before the grading stage via uncorrected lighting and the like. Mann would also shoot tungsten without the use of 85 filters which would create such an appearance.

Needless to say, the theatrical cut of the film which was released on Blu-ray in the UK and perhaps Germany which was from an older MGM master, looks nothing like how the original prints looked despite the people trying to convince others that it has the "Original" colors. Virtually all MGM's HD masters from that time were graded to look the same with a strong magenta push, clipped highlights, etc. A lot of those masters were done without consultation from the filmmakers, although the DP of The Long Goodbye wasn't happy with what MGM did by trying to naturalize a very stylistic film and got them to do it properly.

Not only do I generally take JohnCarpenterFan's word as he was right about many different photochemical timing situations in the past, but I would also like to drop in that I discovered a—presumably unfaded—German 35mm trailer scan of the movie that does line-up with what's being described.

It's not quite as extreme as the Director's cut restoration, however it does definitely boast a fair bit of the color tones I've come to expect from the movie overall even with its own photochemical timing—which does skew a couple of scenes closer to neutral.

It does make me wonder what'd happen if a blanket adjustment based off of that trailer would yield when applied to the Director's cut to retain the shot-by-shot timing, which would likely keep in the supposedly answer print-based teals, but like with the idea regarding Last Of The Mohicans, hopefully, curve the image off in such a way that it all comes off more naturally and filmic than a digital blanket.

Course in that theoretic, I'd rather try to get my hands on a trailer of my own to scan and work off of to produce such a grade, but given the movie's age, it'd be a miracle an unfaded / non-Eastman source can be located, making that black-crushed YouTube-encoded (unless I get ahold of a copy of the German BD) trailer the best we've got for such testing.

Admittedly though, this has been making me also think that Thief would also make for an interesting seamless-branching project in theory since there's also the Special Director's cut that's been abandoned since DVD, but of course, like Last Of The Mohicans, I suppose the first step would be compiling as many LD releases as possible to sync up for reconstructions of the Theatrical [ID6468MG] and Special Director's [ML105114] cuts.

[zoidberg]

I finally listened to the Deakins podcast with the Criterion guy, amused at his mentioning of 'the forums' more than a couple of times. Man needs to log off

[dvdmike]

Thief is very wrong due to the way it was done, it is a blanket teal mess.
Just shoddy, things van be blue and green and more, never ever did it look like the Criterion garbage

[Endocryne]

So I found an Open Matte Version Streaming On HBO Max

[maksnew]

Cinematographic Process Panavision (anamorphic)
this movie does not exist in Open Matte

[LucasGodzilla]

Cinematographic Process Panavision (anamorphic)
this movie does not exist in Open Matte

Arguably an anamorphic movie CAN be seen in open-matte (if one showcased the entire width–height of the film), though you are right that—as far as I'm aware of—this movie doesn't have any master that is particularly open-matted.

So I found an Open Matte Version Streaming On HBO Max

As far as I can tell regarding this HBO Max version, it's the older HD master of the movie that has been cropped to fit the modern 16:9 ratio.

Comparing to the Definitive Director's Cut (which although is a different master, it illustrates the point):

[dvdmike]

Arrow will have both cuts out very soon I would bet

[Endocryne]

Arrow will have both cuts out very soon I would bet

How'd you know that?

[dvdmike]

They have had the rights in the UK for years, same as Robin Hood and True Romance