Press Release Paramount Presents! Once Upon A Time In The West (1968) (4k UHD) (1 Viewer)

[JoeDoakes]

Some, like myself, consider it to be the best western ever made, if not one of the

I'll go with "one of the". It's hard to top The Searchers. Post 1965, this and High Plains Drifter rocks. it's definitely Leone's greatest work.

 

[Lord Dalek]

"Clean" isn't the word I'd want to hear in regards to 2-perf.

 

[Robert Crawford]

And now it begins.

 

[Stefan Andersson]

Interesting info about the ending music:

For Italian version soundtrack, see post 567 here:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=371356&page=29

Quote from post 569:
"the track Finale is here in that video how it should be. I only checked it quickly for the music, without realizing that this is the longer Italian version (which is not a DC), the one which appeared in the 90s in Italy, and was later released there on DVD (and Blu I think). And that one has the credits later, after the Finale.
The credits start there at the point where the theatrical version ends. At 6:33 in that vid is the point where the Paramount version cuts the track Finale off, and replaces it with the Cheyenne theme.
In some theatrical versions there was exit music over a black screen, and that exit music is then indeed the Cheyenne theme.
And in the longer Italian version this exit music runs not over a black a screen, but over the credits and a freeze frame."

Quote from post 610:
"Bill Hunt has confirmed that the end credit music (when it cuts to Robard's theme) and the timing of the end titles matches previous Paramount U.S. editions and is NOT the Italian original."

The quote from post 569 refers to a so-called Director´s Cut, created after Leone´s passing. For relevant info about this version, see post 551:

"Originally Posted by Shane Rollins There’s allegedly an Italian DVD that tuns 171 minutes, with even more added to the beginning. I don’t know why those six minutes aren’t included here. Anyone have this disc or a clip of the additional footage?

That's probably the 177 minute so-called "Director's Cut" (accounting for PAL speedup). It was released on DVD after Leone's death and was probably never shown in theaters. There are no dubs other than Italian for the extended shots. You can find a list of the differences here:"
https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=4208

And post 555:
"that version was created in the 90s AFAIK and never released theatrically in Italy despite being branded the Italian Cut occasionally. You're not actually missing much with the extra 10-12 minutes. Except a snippet where a chess piece falls over on the train in some kind of symbolic moment."




The thread linked to above, from about page 28 onwards, contains detailed discussion of various versions of the film. Apologies if I may have missed some relevant post.

 

[tenia]

I remember hallways discussions about this restoration back in 2019 and how it seemed like the final result required a lot of back and forth to settle onto between the lab and Paramount. I suppose part of the matter just was about how nope, it shouldn't require artificial filtering of the grain, but Paramount insisted anyway, and that's what we got.

I hoped what was available as a 4K digital version might be some lesser version of the upcoming physical release, as it was obviously smoothed out in way too many places (I thought the colors weren't so different than the previous BD, which had its limitations both in how artificially sharpened it often was, but also in how its grading sometimes looked video-y, and that the new presentation seemed to fix in some places), but I guess it's actually baked-in the final restoration.

Oh well, I guess Paramount got to Paramount (this and not properly encoding the movie), and that the "definitive" presentation remains to be seen (though it's fixing some issues from the previous presentation).

What a shame some people thought this needed DNR.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I remember hallways discussions about this restoration back in 2019 and how it seemed like the final result required a lot of back and forth to settle onto between the lab and Paramount. I suppose part of the matter just was about how nope, it shouldn't require artificial filtering of the grain, but Paramount insisted anyway, and that's what we got.

I hoped what was available as a 4K digital version might be some lesser version of the upcoming physical release, as it was obviously smoothed out in way too many places (I thought the colors weren't so different than the previous BD, which had its limitations both in how artificially sharpened it often was, but also in how its grading sometimes looked video-y, and that the new presentation seemed to fix in some places), but I guess it's actually baked-in the final restoration.

Oh well, I guess Paramount got to Paramount (this and not properly encoding the movie), and that the "definitive" presentation remains to be seen (though it's fixing some issues from the previous presentation).

What a shame some people thought this needed DNR.

Not that I doubt "Paramount got to Paramount" at all -- that almost seems a given in most cases -- but how did you check out the 4K digital since you don't have 4K display?

I understand you feel your access to 4K-to-HD downconversion of discs and/or certain quality screencaps are generally good enough for assessing that (and I don't necessarily disagree... at least not nearly as much as some do as I've said before), but I'm not aware those being practical options for 4K digitals though. And anyhoo, I wouldn't wanna judge/presume too much based just on 4K digitals anyway (and certainly not having to also downconvert on top) even though they may (very) often provide good clues to what to expect on disc, especially in Paramount's case...

_Man_

 

[tenia]

I checked the 4K digital on a 2K display, and know the difference between compression issues and artificial filtering having been applied. As discussed on other topics these past months, I've done enough back and forth over enough different works to be able to retrieve what's what.
There are stuff that I saw on digital, BD and in DCP, and the whole chain was consistent.

And then, enough people with the relevant material have always formed a consensus in which I perfectly slid in. I have yet to find a case where, actually, it looked like poor compression but was something else, or it looked like sharpening but no, or it looked like artificial filtering but no.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I checked the 4K digital on a 2K display, and know the difference between compression issues and artificial filtering having been applied. As discussed on other topics these past months, I've done enough back and forth over enough different works to be able to retrieve what's what.
There are stuff that I saw on digital, BD and in DCP, and the whole chain was consistent.

And then, enough people with the relevant material have always formed a consensus in which I perfectly slid in. I have yet to find a case where, actually, it looked like poor compression but was something else, or it looked like sharpening but no, or it looked like artificial filtering but no.

But how exactly did you do that (to be sure you're actually seeing the 4K digital downconverted instead of the HD digital version instead)?

AFAIK, most streaming services/apps do not allow for downconversion most(?) of the time -- and I'm not sure how one can ensure one's getting the 4K downconverted instead of just the lower quality HD stream... other than perhaps putting in the effort to measure the actual data throughput to be sure (but still not have control over what's actually streamed/downloaded)? Certainly, that seems to be the case w/ the 3 highest quality (widely available) services, ie. Apple/iTunes, Movies Anywhere and Disney+ (and even Vudu)... and Paramount digitals are not available on MA nor D+.

_Man_

 

[tenia]

There are ways to make sure you're kooking at a 4k file. Considering what I was told first hand about it some years ago, I checked to see what was what, and understood indeed why I was told this was a "complicated" project.

Anyway, it doesn't change the source and its issues (I've already detailed why ), but it does mean that these were already present and visible on the digital version (some of the praise about the digital version also being was why I wanted to check, as it clashed with what I was told).