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Monday, June 20, 2011

BD impressions: M (80th anniversary edition)

2:09 PM / BD Impressions / 10 Comments

Few films can claim to have as troubled a history as Fritz Lang's M. Heavily cut by the censors, altered by a succession of distributors and subjected to numerous incorrect presentations on video, LaserDisc and DVD over the years, it's thanks to the efforts of various dedicated restorationists and preservationists that it survives at all, in any state.

The version I'm reviewing here is the new 80th anniversary edition released by German label Universum Film, which features a new restoration created by the people at TLE Films. For the most part, this new version consists of a new scan of the 35mm archival preservation fine grain positive supervised by Martin Koerber in 2000/2001, which was also the basis for the Criterion (US) and Eureka (UK) BDs, though there are some quite significant differences which will make this release of interest even to those who own one of the previous versions. Perhaps most significant of all is the inclusion of additional, previously lost material, sourced from the French preservation negative and making this the most complete version of M released on home video to date - a cause for considerable celebration.

Much work has also been done to remove dust, tears and scratches, as well as perfect colour timing, reduce flicker and improve the stability of the image. The latter is particularly noticeable when viewed in comparison with one of the various earlier releases - in my case the Criterion 2-disc DVD set from 2004. While the DVD contains a significant amount of weave, both horizontal and vertical, particularly during cuts between different shots, this is largely negated on the Universum BD. A by-product of this has been the need to slightly crop the image in comparison with the Criterion and Eureka releases, but the effect is fairly minor (not to mention well within the safe action area, which defines the area of the frame that is meant to be visible when projected - see this reproduction of the SMPTE frame, kindly provided by Torsten Kaiser) and the improvements to the image's overall stability make it a price worth paying. The clean-up work, incidentally, extends to the film's audio, which comes in two flavours: a cleaned-up version in which the silent parts of the film truly are silent, as per Lang's intentions, and the preservation master created in 2001, in which age-related background noise is audible even during the silent sections.

The encode, which has a very healthy bit rate hovering at 36 Mbit/sec (excluding the audio tracks), is solid throughout, and for the most part detail is very impressive indeed. That said, it's worth noting that only around 70% of M's negative still exists, resulting in a need to draw upon other less optimal sources to assemble the most complete version possible. It's clear that as much as possible has been done to bring this footage in line with that of the bulk of the film, but it's fairly obvious whenever material had to be inserted from a poorer quality source. This is particularly apparent during the scene in which Gustaf Gründgens' Safecracker character is introduced (see Example 14).

A degree of damage remains visible, though never to the extent that it becomes distracting, and no doubt vastly preferable to the artefacts that would have resulted from attempting to create a completely "clean" image. (TLE Films' commitment to restore all 160,000 of the film's frames by hand, without resorting to any form of automated clean-up, can only be described as daunting.) More noticeable to me are instances in which the film grain varies in intensity around different parts of the screen - Example 4 shows a particularly clear instance of this. I discussed this at some length with Torsten Kaiser, senior producer at TLE Films and the guiding hand behind this new release, and he explained to me that in the case of Example 4, the inconsistency of the grain results from a heavily damaged frame having had to be reconstructed, with the "patchwork" effect stemming from inconsistencies in gradation and density between different frames from the same element. Torsten also mentioned that the effect is less pronounced on the master and is likely to have been accentuated to a degree by the encoding. Given the massive difference in size between the uncompressed DPX files (with a bit rate of over 1,200 Mbit/sec) and BD (with its upper limit of 36 Mbit/sec for video bit rate), "something's gotta give", as the saying goes - particularly with grain this coarse. To be clear, these issues seem to have been unavoidable, and I'm not for a moment suggesting that they hamper the presentation unduly. I noticed them during normal playback, but it's worth pointing out that, as far as I'm aware, no other reviewer has mentioned them. Unfortunately, not having access to either the Criterion or Eureka BDs, I'm unable to confirm whether similar issues occur on them.

It's incredibly difficult to assign a numerical score to a release such as this. M is eighty years old and that it looks as good as it does is quite miraculous. The presentation undoubtedly has flaws, and despite being unavoidable, unavoidable flaws remain flaws nonetheless. This, however, makes the review less an exercise in calling anyone out on perceived failings and more an opportunity to point out that the film must be understood within the context of its age and history. Basically, you can't compare this with, say, a modern DI title, and it would be foolish to try. The improved audio-visual presentation, coupled with numerous insightful extras (many of them in English or German with English subtitles), makes this a very impressive release of a landmark film. Strongly recommended.

M (80th anniversary edition)
label: Universum Film; disc country: Germany; region code: ABC;
codec: AVC; aspect ratio: 1.19:1

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