Press Release SPHE Press Release: Amélie (2001) (Blu-ray SteelBook) (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

THE MODERN ROMANTIC FAVORITE COMES HOME

AVAILABLE ON DVD AND AS A LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY™ STEELBOOK MARCH 26TH

SYNOPSIS Bursting with imagination and having seen her share of tragedy and fantasy, Amélie is not like the other girls. When she grows up, she becomes a waitress in a Montmartre bar run by a former dancer. Amélie enjoys simple pleasures until she discovers that her goal in life is to help others. To that end, she invents all sorts of tricks that allow her to intervene incognito into other people's lives, including an imbibing concierge and her hypochondriac neighbor. But Amélie's most difficult case turns out to be Nino Quicampoix, a lonely sex shop employee who collects photos abandoned at coin-operated photobooths.

DISC DETAILS & BONUS MATERIALS BLU-RAY DISC™ Feature presented in high definition French DTS-HD MA 5.1 Special Features: ALL-NEW: Jean-Pierre Jeunet Looks Back (Blu-ray Exclusive) Commentary with Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet The Look of Amélie Q&A With the Director Q&A With the Director and the Cast An Intimate Chat With Jean-Pierre Jeunet Fantasies of Audrey Tautou Cast Auditions Home Movie: Inside the Making of Amélie Storyboard Comparisons The Amélie Scrapbook Trailer DVD Feature presented in standard definition French Dolby Digital 5.1 Special Features: Commentary with Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet The Look of Amélie Q&A With the Director Q&A With the Director and the Cast An Intimate Chat With Jean-Pierre Jeunet Fantasies of Audrey Tautou Cast Auditions Home Movie: Inside the Making of Amélie Storyboard Comparisons The Amélie Scrapbook Trailer

CAST AND CREW Directed By: Jean-Pierre Jeunet Screenplay By: Guillaume Laurant and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Dialogue By Guillaume Laurant Produced By: Claudie Ossard Cast: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Lorella Cravotta, Serge Merlin, Jamel Debbouze, Claire Maurier, Clotilde Mollet, Isabelle Nanty, Dominique Pinon, Artus de Penguern, Yolande Moreau, Urbain Cancelier, Maurice Benichou SPECS Run Time: Approx. 122 minutes Rating: R for sexual content Blu-ray Feature Picture: 1080p High Definition, 2.35:1 Blu-ray Feature Audio: French (PAR) 5.1 DTS-HD MA DVD Feature Picture: Standard Definition, 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen DVD Feature Audio: French (PAR) 5.1 Dolby Digital

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[jayembee]

Dammit! I was hoping this was an announcement for a UHD. I recently ordered a copy of StudioCanal's UHD of Delicatessen.

Then again, we can hope that this is a last-ditch attempt to sell more Blu-ray copies before it's announced for UHD...

 

[Lord Dalek]

Dammit! I was hoping this was an announcement for a UHD. I recently ordered a copy of StudioCanal's UHD of Delicatessen.

Then again, we can hope that this is a last-ditch attempt to sell more Blu-ray copies before it's announced for UHD...

Its not happening. Jeunet reportedly doesn't care about 4k and intentionally restored the film in 2k.

 

[Robert Harris]

Its not happening. Jeunet reportedly doesn't care about 4k and intentionally restored the film in 2k.

This film was never restored.

Unless, of course, it suffered at the sharp side of an axe, akin to Out of the Blue.

Same culprit?

 

[Worth]

I'm pretty sure this was finished as a 2K digital intermediate, so what would there be to restore?

 

[Lord Dalek]

I'm pretty sure this was finished as a 2K digital intermediate, so what would there be to restore?

Apparently its a new scan of the negative.

...but in 2k again.

 

[JoshZ]

Apparently its a new scan of the negative.

...but in 2k again.

Did he have a new DI created? This was one of the first features with an end-to-end DI. Was he feeling it hadn't aged well?

 

[JoshZ]

Found a source for the claim Jeunet doesn't care about 4K. It's at the very end of this interview, at 42:45.



He says they remastered Amelie at 2K for technical reasons and it couldn't be done at 4K (no details given), but "it's exactly the same thing," "you don't see any difference," and "4K is an invention from TV sellers."

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Top post updated with official Press Release from Sony with specs

 

[James Luckard]

Jeunet also said in this interview that the film will be presented in its native 2K, NOT 4K. There will also be no 4K UHD, upscaled or not, because he thinks they're just a gimmick. Sigh.



Tech talk starts at 9:00

Direct quote at 9:38
"The 2K is enough, 4K is just bullsh*t. You know, 4K is an invention from the TV sellers. Sometimes it looks too much video, it's too much electric. When I go in the store with a lot of TV screen, I throw up. It's disgusting.

It sounds, sadly, like Jeunet has only seen 4K TVs with motion smoothing and it turned him against the whole format. I've seen that with other people too. The interviewer does try to call Jeunet on this, very politely, but Jeunet has gone on to talking about another topic and doesn't hear him say this.

Jeunet also explains why they couldn't remaster the film at 4K, when asked by the interviewer. It's a little confusing, so I'll just type out his direct quote:

"We did that for Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children, with Sony Classics, but unfortunately we couldn't for Amelie, because a guy, very mean with me, refused to pay for elements 23 years ago, and because of that we couldn't make a 4K restoration. But we make a beautiful restoration for the Blu-Ray, but not 4K. And I cannot kill this guy because he is already dead."

It sounds like they don't have the original 35mm film elements to rebuild the movie from scratch, they way they did recently with The Pianist. It sounds like they only have either the original 2K digital master, or perhaps only even a 35mm filmout of that.

The rest of the interview is about the film itself, this quote and the one above are the entire extent of the technical discussion.

 

[SD_Brian]

"When I go in the store with a lot of TV screen, I throw up. It's disgusting."

Note to self: Do not follow Jean-Pierre Jeunet into the Best Buy.

 

[James Luckard]

Apparently its a new scan of the negative.

...but in 2k again.

It was finished digitally, so there wouldn't be a cut, conformed negative. And it sounds likely that the 35mm raw film footage may no longer exist, depressingly.

 

[James Luckard]

There's a fascinating documentary on the new UHD for The Pianist, a digitally finished European film of similar vintage, about how they rebuilt it.

That film was digitally edited at 1080p and then upscaled slightly to 2K for the final master.

Instead of upscaling the original master for the UHD, they decided to entirely rebuild the film at 6K, from scratch, with the original DP overseeing the process in Poland. They had all 400 boxes of raw 35mm film sent from France to Poland and rescanned it all and found the takes and the portions of every shot used in the finished film and recreated the entire movie, cut by cut. The doc is really interesting.

 

[SD_Brian]

It doesn't sound like Jeunet is saying that he is against 4K in general, since there have been releases of some of his other films on the format. Rather he is saying he believes the benefit of doing a 4K upscale for this particular film, that was finished as a 2K, would be negligible.

 

[James Luckard]

It doesn't sound like Jeunet is saying that he is against 4K in general, since there have been releases of some of his other films on the format. Rather he is saying he believes the benefit of doing a 4K upscale for this particular film, that was finished as a 2K, would be negligible.

Hmm, that's not how I read his comments.

I know some of his older films that were finished photochemically are on UHD, but he seems pretty clear about dismissing 4K as a format entirely.

 

[SD_Brian]

Hmm, that's not how I read his comments.

I know some of his older films that were finished photochemically are on UHD, but he seems pretty clear about dismissing 4K as a format entirely.

I'm looking at the following quote, which would seem to indicate that, if the elements had been available, he would have done it in 4K (emphasis added):

"We did that for Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children, with Sony Classics, but unfortunately we couldn't for Amelie, because a guy, very mean with me, refused to pay for elements 23 years ago, and because of that we couldn't make a 4K restoration. But we make a beautiful restoration for the Blu-Ray, but not 4K. And I cannot kill this guy because he is already dead."

 

[James Luckard]

I'm looking at the following quote, which would seem to indicate that, if the elements had been available, he would have done it in 4K (emphasis added):

His quotes are pretty vague, confusing and contradictory.

I was going by him saying "The 2K is enough, 4K is just bullsh*t. You know, 4K is an invention from the TV sellers." That's a pretty stark denunciation of the entire format.

 

[JoshZ]

His quotes are pretty vague, confusing and contradictory.

I was going by him saying "The 2K is enough, 4K is just bullsh*t. You know, 4K is an invention from the TV sellers." That's a pretty stark denunciation of the entire format.

Yes, and from the previous video I linked earlier, he said that 2K and 4K are "exactly the same thing" and "you don't see any difference."

From his comment about going to the store with a lot of TV screens and throwing up, I agree that he seems to be conflating 4K with motion-smoothing, which is suprising and disappionting for a director who was once on the cutting edge of filmmaking technology - especially when discussing a movie that was a big technical breakthrough in its day, as the first full-length feature with an end-to-end Digital Intermediate.

 

[SD_Brian]

His quotes are pretty vague, confusing and contradictory.

I was going by him saying "The 2K is enough, 4K is just bullsh*t. You know, 4K is an invention from the TV sellers." That's a pretty stark denunciation of the entire format.

Get him on the phone and demand he explain himself!