Land of Whimsy

BD review: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

As far as the transfer goes, this BD release of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is a superb example of how to properly treat a catalogue title. In terms of audio however, the lack of the original mono mixes is a grave oversight and one that sullies this release considerably. It’s a delight to see Dario Argento’s landmark first film released in high definition and looking this good, but without it’s original sound this release can never hope to be considered definitive.

Dario Argento’s landmark first film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, arrives on BD courtesy of Blue Underground. I crack the case over at DVD Times.

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From what I understand, Techniscope and Cromoscope are only like Super 35mm in that they derive a widescreen image with non-anamorphic lenses. Super 35mm exposes all four perforations and the soundtrack area (so it is not a projection format) but only the middle 2 perforations are optically printed to anamorphic 35mm but video transfers can open the image up to the full frame (OPERA was shot in Super 35mm but with a 1.85:1 hard-matte allowing for matting to scope dimensions for projection but not as much cropping for video).

Techniscope and Cromoscope are 2 perf formats which only expose two perforations also creating a non-anamorphic but wide image. It also allows one to shoot twice as much footage on a single reel (which is likely why a lot of the lower budget Italian productions and a few American productions were shot in that format). It would still have to be optically squeezed for Cinemascope-compatible projection.

BIRD was apparently transferred from the 2-perf negative.

Some time ago, an Australian company was developing new 2-perf and 3-perf cameras and projectors but I can't remember the name offhand.

Posted by: , March 29, 2009 10:24 PM

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I suppose what I was (rather clumsily) trying to do was to compare Super35 to Cromoscope solely in the sense that both create a 2.35/2.39:1 image by shooting “flat”. I was aware that there were significant differences between the two, but wasn’t aware of the specifics. Thanks for the information - it’s very insightful.

Posted by: Michael Mackenzie, April 1, 2009 12:29 AM

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BD review: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

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