tips for ordering Una Storia Immortale
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jaime marzol
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beware of IMMORTAL STORY. my dvd copy has ordinary regular color. my worn out vhs copy has incredible, dreamy color. i'm not familiar with the process of developing color film, but the pastel AFRICAN QUEEN comes to mind. huston shot it a certain way so the the pastel colors came from the way the film was processed. welles probably did the same thing, but his processing changes were not observed for the present dvd, and every one is a disturbing pink color and none of the bouquet of color comments reviewers made about the film are present. the IMMORTAL STORY is not a revolutionary welles film in cutting, or framing, or character choreography, it's a film that welles experimented with color, and that is gone now.
others here are knowledgable about where to buy it, i'm not. my copy was a gift.
others here are knowledgable about where to buy it, i'm not. my copy was a gift.
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Jeff Wilson
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The DVD is to my eyes the best version of the film out there, so I wouldn't avoid it if you want to see it. No other edition is forthcoming at this time, either. I don't recall what e-tailer I got it from, but you can search back in the archives and check for the original thread when this was released.
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jaime marzol
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that's right, the dvd is the only version you can buy. it's clear, clean, and normal looking. i got the cool vhs from store hadji, and really liked the way it looked, and was surprised that the dvd did not have that dreamy look.
i have seen this happen a lot. in bogdanovich's documentary on john ford, there is clip of a scene from one of the cavalry pictures, john wayne walking away from a river and the exposure changes as he's walking away. it's dramatic, beautiful, and breathtaking. and the darkening sky signals us that things are about to change. in the restored version wayne just walks away from the river, no exposure change. which i suppose means that the effect was done in the processing. if it was on the negative the restored dvd would have that effect. the restorers should have watched the bogdanovich documentary, they left out a beautiful brush stroke.
i have seen this happen a lot. in bogdanovich's documentary on john ford, there is clip of a scene from one of the cavalry pictures, john wayne walking away from a river and the exposure changes as he's walking away. it's dramatic, beautiful, and breathtaking. and the darkening sky signals us that things are about to change. in the restored version wayne just walks away from the river, no exposure change. which i suppose means that the effect was done in the processing. if it was on the negative the restored dvd would have that effect. the restorers should have watched the bogdanovich documentary, they left out a beautiful brush stroke.
I purchased mine from dvd.it but the site no longer lists it. Here is one listing though at dvdland.it,
http://dvdland.it/nicom1/p_529838_Storia_Immortale.html
As was mentioned in the original thread though, the dvd has italian subtitles that seemed to be burned into the film. If they aren't, nobody seems to have figured out a way to get rid of them, at least not yet.
http://dvdland.it/nicom1/p_529838_Storia_Immortale.html
As was mentioned in the original thread though, the dvd has italian subtitles that seemed to be burned into the film. If they aren't, nobody seems to have figured out a way to get rid of them, at least not yet.
I probably have the same version as you, colwood, and face exactly the same difficulty. I have yet to test Jeff Wilson's suggested remedy in the parallel Chimes thread, however. If that works, great! If not - and if I ever get the time - I was going to record the English-version soundtrack separately and lay it over the soundtrack of the Italian-language version on the same disc, seeing as how the original's not that precisely synched, anyway - so "close enough" s/b good enough.
Perhaps jaime's considerable DVD editing insights might be called upon for guidance, here - in the event that I might be talking a fool's game with this idea..?
Perhaps jaime's considerable DVD editing insights might be called upon for guidance, here - in the event that I might be talking a fool's game with this idea..?
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Jeff Wilson
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The suggestion regarding getting rid of the subs won't work on the IMMORTAL STORY disc, as each version of the film is a separate entity on the disc and cannot be switched on the fly. For similar reasons, overlaying the English language track won't be feasible on the Italian version, as both the Italian and French tracked versions of the film run about 15 minutes shorter than the English version.
The story of the filming of that scene, the darkening sky, the cinematographer agreeing to film it "under protest" the correctness of Ford's intuition that the skies, which were naturally darkening would be memorable (it was not in any way a special effect) is well told in McBride's books on John Ford.in bogdanovich's documentary on john ford, there is clip of a scene from one of the cavalry pictures, john wayne walking away from a river and the exposure changes as he's walking away. it's dramatic, beautiful, and breathtaking. and the darkening sky signals us that things are about to change. in the restored version wayne just walks away from the river, no exposure change. which i suppose means that the effect was done in the processing. if it was on the negative the restored dvd would have that effect. the restorers should have watched the bogdanovich documentary, they left out a beautiful brush stroke.
I apologize for asking a question not 'directly' related to the discussion, but I am terribly interested in finding out something more about the color-issue of IMMORTAL STORY:
are there any further informations regarding Welles' intentions and íf yes, where?
When watching a print of the film in Locarno I was puzzled about how entirely different it looked compared to my own VHS copy recorded years ago from TV - 'brightness' could hardly be a useful word for desribing the print, the colors - in their sharpness - nearly 'divided' the images. Especially in the wonderful scene where the sailor sits down at Mr. Clay's table it stuck into my memory how the colors fused, the impression of light and the incredibly red was overwhelmingly beautiful, making me want to close my eyes - and than sitting there and watching the print - the illusion was somewhat lost. The colors were powerful in a truly new way - but the special sort of 'dreamy' effect - still only compared to the VHS - was missing.
I was extremly fortunate to have been able to exchange a few words after the screening with Joseph McBride and he told me that - regarding the colors and the brightness - the print was close to film when it was shown in the theatres back in the 60s - and that the dark look was originally intended by Welles.
Since I don't own a copy of the italian DVD, I can't tell ... but was anyone present at the (two) screenings and does have it?
When watching the images Jeff Wilson provided for the other thread on IMMORTAL STORY - I think that it comes close to how I remember the print to be like ...
I don't know how much it is worth, but Peter Cowie wrote that "in many prints the colours are overheated, even garish."
(I rather had the impression of cool-down!)
Apart from that - an observation by Naremore: "The colors are often rich and symbolic [...] whereas the characters themselves are dresssed in simple black and whites, their bodies making a subtle contrast to the passionate world behind them."
my dvd copy has ordinary regular color. my worn out vhs copy has incredible, dreamy color. ... huston shot it a certain way so the the pastel colors came from the way the film was processed. welles probably did the same thing, but his processing changes were not observed for the present dvd, and every one is a disturbing pink color and none of the bouquet of color comments reviewers made about the film are present.
I read somewhere that Welles had problems with the way labs did not respect the colors and brightness he wanted for The Immortal Story.
are there any further informations regarding Welles' intentions and íf yes, where?
When watching a print of the film in Locarno I was puzzled about how entirely different it looked compared to my own VHS copy recorded years ago from TV - 'brightness' could hardly be a useful word for desribing the print, the colors - in their sharpness - nearly 'divided' the images. Especially in the wonderful scene where the sailor sits down at Mr. Clay's table it stuck into my memory how the colors fused, the impression of light and the incredibly red was overwhelmingly beautiful, making me want to close my eyes - and than sitting there and watching the print - the illusion was somewhat lost. The colors were powerful in a truly new way - but the special sort of 'dreamy' effect - still only compared to the VHS - was missing.
I was extremly fortunate to have been able to exchange a few words after the screening with Joseph McBride and he told me that - regarding the colors and the brightness - the print was close to film when it was shown in the theatres back in the 60s - and that the dark look was originally intended by Welles.
Since I don't own a copy of the italian DVD, I can't tell ... but was anyone present at the (two) screenings and does have it?
When watching the images Jeff Wilson provided for the other thread on IMMORTAL STORY - I think that it comes close to how I remember the print to be like ...
I don't know how much it is worth, but Peter Cowie wrote that "in many prints the colours are overheated, even garish."
(I rather had the impression of cool-down!)
Apart from that - an observation by Naremore: "The colors are often rich and symbolic [...] whereas the characters themselves are dresssed in simple black and whites, their bodies making a subtle contrast to the passionate world behind them."
Well, I ordered today a vhs copy from www.moviesunlimited.com/ Jean
Well, admittedly I don't like to answer my own questions, but I fear I have to ... (from the Bill Krohn - interview, 1982)
BK: Well, your use of colour in THE IMMORTAL STORY is remarkable. I know it's often said as a chliché, but in scenes like the long travelling shot along the colonnade it is very much like modern painting. It is a new use of colour.
OW: I love working in colour. I was discouraged, always, by the terrible mortality of colour and I'm very grateful to people like Scorsese and people like that who are working on it. ... [...] The farthest remove from literal reality that a film can be is to its advantage. But now we have finally some better lenses and some better filters and so on, and I hope in the other Dinesen story to be able to do something interesting.
BK: You mean in the direction of stylising it, in getting away from the brute realism of colour.
OW: Yes, the problem is that the modern school of colour photography seems to consist of keeping all of the four million dollar actors in such total darkness that you don't know who is speaking. [...]
BK: The shot I wanted to ask you about is the first shot inside Jeanne Moreau's room. It's extraordinary, there's a scene that's lit so that its all green on the right and all rose on the left, or perhaps vice versa, and it always struck me as the most stylised touch in the film.
OW: Yes, we went pretty far.
BK: But is that sun and shadow, or is that ...
OW: I just thought it would be nice, you know.
BK: Oh dear, okay ...
OW: I thought it would be nice. The actual lovemaking scene, as it's shown in America, is much clearer than it was meant to be. In the prints that I control in Europe they were much harder to follow, literally. It falls a bit into the trap of that gynaecological point of view in the American prints.
BK: Hardly.
OW: It's very hard to get labs to do good work. That's one of our main tragedies that a decent lab becomes a sausage factory: You get exactly what you want once, and never again. This is more true of colour, of course, than in black and white. You have less control than in black and white.
and about IT'S ALL TRUE:
OW: IT'S ALL TRUE was more interesting from a colour point of view because in those days we had the three strip process and you could do more. ...
When watching the VHS copy I realized that in the middle of some scenes the color strangely changes from red to green ... anybody with ideas to that?
Below are a few screen captures from my VHS (regrettably they don't match the beauty of the version fully)...
How does the italian DVD compare to it?
NoFake - if you read this, please forgive me my curiosity, but if you have been to one of those screenings in Locarno, what was your impression of the print? It seemed to me that it was in a way dominated by black and blue and all the colors were somehow 'restrained' ... at least different from the examples below (the colors are, of course, more vivid than in the pictures). I still feel uneasy with McBride's comment that this dark look (in so many parts of the film) was intended ...
the travelling shot ...
the scene Bill Krohn commented upon, doesn't look here like green and rose, but rather like blue and soft yellow to me ...
BK: Well, your use of colour in THE IMMORTAL STORY is remarkable. I know it's often said as a chliché, but in scenes like the long travelling shot along the colonnade it is very much like modern painting. It is a new use of colour.
OW: I love working in colour. I was discouraged, always, by the terrible mortality of colour and I'm very grateful to people like Scorsese and people like that who are working on it. ... [...] The farthest remove from literal reality that a film can be is to its advantage. But now we have finally some better lenses and some better filters and so on, and I hope in the other Dinesen story to be able to do something interesting.
BK: You mean in the direction of stylising it, in getting away from the brute realism of colour.
OW: Yes, the problem is that the modern school of colour photography seems to consist of keeping all of the four million dollar actors in such total darkness that you don't know who is speaking. [...]
BK: The shot I wanted to ask you about is the first shot inside Jeanne Moreau's room. It's extraordinary, there's a scene that's lit so that its all green on the right and all rose on the left, or perhaps vice versa, and it always struck me as the most stylised touch in the film.
OW: Yes, we went pretty far.
BK: But is that sun and shadow, or is that ...
OW: I just thought it would be nice, you know.
BK: Oh dear, okay ...
OW: I thought it would be nice. The actual lovemaking scene, as it's shown in America, is much clearer than it was meant to be. In the prints that I control in Europe they were much harder to follow, literally. It falls a bit into the trap of that gynaecological point of view in the American prints.
BK: Hardly.
OW: It's very hard to get labs to do good work. That's one of our main tragedies that a decent lab becomes a sausage factory: You get exactly what you want once, and never again. This is more true of colour, of course, than in black and white. You have less control than in black and white.
and about IT'S ALL TRUE:
OW: IT'S ALL TRUE was more interesting from a colour point of view because in those days we had the three strip process and you could do more. ...
When watching the VHS copy I realized that in the middle of some scenes the color strangely changes from red to green ... anybody with ideas to that?
Below are a few screen captures from my VHS (regrettably they don't match the beauty of the version fully)...
How does the italian DVD compare to it?
NoFake - if you read this, please forgive me my curiosity, but if you have been to one of those screenings in Locarno, what was your impression of the print? It seemed to me that it was in a way dominated by black and blue and all the colors were somehow 'restrained' ... at least different from the examples below (the colors are, of course, more vivid than in the pictures). I still feel uneasy with McBride's comment that this dark look (in so many parts of the film) was intended ...
the travelling shot ...
the scene Bill Krohn commented upon, doesn't look here like green and rose, but rather like blue and soft yellow to me ...
I remember reading that Krohn interview - an unfortunately all too rare testimony (on film, or on paper) of Welles' use of color - If memory serves, in Graver's documentary - Working with Welles - he briefly mentions some of Welles' technical color methods (use of blue and red-or orange filters...):cool:
...and blest are those whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, that they are not a pipe for fortune's finger to sound what stop she please. Give me that man that is not passion's slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core...
If anyone's interested, Jeff Wilson did a comparison of a vhs bootleg with the dvd on the second page of this thread.
http://www.wellesnet.com/cgi-bin....l+story
http://www.wellesnet.com/cgi-bin....l+story
jaime marzol wrote:i'm not familiar with the process of developing color film, but the pastel AFRICAN QUEEN comes to mind. huston shot it a certain way so the the pastel colors came from the way the film was processed. gone now.
Jaime, would that means that the first CBS/Fox laserdisc of The African Queen is closer to Huston intentions?
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