7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Two criminals on the run end up working in a rice field and decide to recruit other workers for their next robbery.
Starring: Vittorio Gassman, Doris Dowling, Silvana Mangano, Raf Vallone, Checco RissoneForeign | 100% |
Drama | 59% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Italian: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Nominated for Oscar Award for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story, Giuseppe De Santis' "Bitter Rise" a.k.a. "Riso Amaro" (1949) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the disc include an original Italian trailer for the film; documentary film produced by Carlo Lizzani; and archival interview with Carlo Lizzani. The release also arrives with an illustrated leaflet featuring critic Pasquale Iannone's essay "A Filed in Italy". In Italian, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".
The rice fields
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Giuseppe De Santis' Bitter Rice arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.
The following text appears inside the leaflet provided with this Blu-ray release:
"This new high-definition transfer was created on a Spirit DataCine film scanner from the 35mm original camera negative. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, and flicker were manually removed using MTI's DRS, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for small dirt, grain, and jitter. The original monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from the optical track print. Clicks, thumps, hiss, hum, and crackle were manually removed using Pro Tools HD and iZotope RX4.
Transfer supervisor: Lee Kline.
Colorist: Roberto Cesario/Cinecitta Digital Factory, Rome."
The new transfer is very good. I did some direct comparisons with the old R2 Italian DVD release and can confirm that the improvements in terms of detail, clarity, and especially depth are quite remarkable. Even in areas where it is obvious that time has left its mark the improvements are substantial. The image is also much better balanced -- there is a wider range of nuanced grays that is simply missing on the old DVD release. Grain is retained quite well, but there are some inherited density fluctuations. The most obvious ones occur before or after select transitions, though they never become overly distracting. There are no traces of compromising sharpening adjustments.
On my disc there appears to be a small mastering defect. There is a short sequence with multiple quick skips/dropped frames which begins at 01.17.59 and ends around 01.18.10. They can be seen as the ill girl slowly walks down the stairs. At the moment I do not know if the defect appears only on my disc, but I have contacted Criterion and will make a clarification when I have proper information. I have a market version of Bitter Rice.
Update: Criterion have informed me that there are missing frames on the element (original camera negative) they used to produce the master for the Blu-ray release. These frames are present on the earlier Italian DVD release from Cristaldi Film which was sourced from a print.
(Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Italian LPCM 1.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.
It is not surprising that the range of nuanced dynamics is quite limited. Like the overwhelming majority of the neorelist films, Bitter Rice has a unique organic sound design. Balance and fluidity, however, are clearly improved, and the high-frequencies are a lot more stable. There are no audio dropouts or digital distortions to report in our review.
The beautiful Silvana Mangano is mesmerizing as a naive country girl who travels to the rice fields in the Po Valley and falls in love with a dangerous thief on the run in this legendary film from the great director Giuseppe De Santis. Bitter Rice looks wonderful in high-definition, and on this upcoming release there is also a fantastic documentary from Carlo Lizzanni, who worked with De Santis on the film's script. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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