7.9 | / 10 |
Users | 3.8 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.8 |
Tom Ripley travels to Italy to visit his playboy friend Philippe Greenleaf and Philippe's new fiancé, Marge Duval. What Philippe doesn't know is that his father has paid Tom to convince his son to abandon Europe and return to his family responsibilities in San Francisco. But when Philippe's family cuts off their funding of Tom's extravagant lifestyle during his covert mission, he discovers another way to maintain his newfound standard of living.
Starring: Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet, Romy Schneider, Marie Laforêt, Erno CrisaForeign | 100% |
Drama | 98% |
Psychological thriller | 12% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.67:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
French: 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 | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Rene Clement's "Plein soleil" a.k.a. "Purple Noon" (1960) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the disc include original trailer for the film; archival interview with actor Alain Delon; archival interview with writer Patricia Highsmith; and an exclusive new video interview with film historian and writer Denitza Bantcheva. The release also arrives with an illustrated booklet featuring an essay by film critic Geoffrey O'Brien and a reprinted interview with director Rene Clement. In French, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".
Believe me, I do have a plan...
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.67:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Rene Clement's Purple Noon arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.
The following text appears inside the booklet provided with this Blu-ray release:
"This new high-definition digital transfer was created in 2K resolution on an ARRISCAN film scanner from the original camera negative; two original 35mm prints made at LTC, Paris, were used for color reference. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using MTI's DRS and Pixel Farm's PFClean, while Image Systems' Phoenix was used for small dirt, grain, and noise reduction.
Transfer supervisor: Lee Kline.
Colorist: Gilles Grainer/LTC/Technicolor, Paris."
I don't have the old R1 DVD release of Purple Noon which Miramax produced years ago to run some direct comparisons with the Blu-ray release, but considering the fact that the DVD did not even used an anamorphic transfer I think it is fair to assume that gap in quality between the two is probably quite dramatic.
Generally speaking, detail and depth are very good, especially during close-ups where natural light is in abundance (see screencapture #1). The panoramic sequence also boats very pleasing fluidity (see screencapture #10). Color reproduction is very good - there are plenty of warm but lush yellows, blues, greens, and browns. However, during the second half of the film there are a couple of sequences where some extremely light color fluttering is present. There are no traces of excessive sharpening and denoising corrections. Unsurprisingly, light grain is easy to spot throughout the entire film. However, again during the second half of the film there are a few sequences where some light sharpness and contrast fluctuations are present (see sreencapture #11). None of them, however, appear to be a byproduct of a transfer weakness; rather, they appear to be directly related to source limitations. Lastly, debris, dirt, specks, and large scratches have been effectively removed. All in all, Purple Noon has a very pleasing, very convincing organic look. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).
There is only one audio track on this Blu-ray disc: French LPCM 1.0 (with portions of Italian and English). For the record, Criterion have provided optional English subtitles for the main feature.
The lossless track has good depth and a very good range of dynamics. Nino Rota's soundtrack definitely benefits a great deal, but there are also portions of the film where simply fluidity and balance impress. The dialog is crisp, very clean, stable, and easy to follow. As usual, Criterion have also removed background hiss as best as possible. There are no pops, audio dropouts and distortions.
Purple Noon is a classic European thriller and arguably director Rene Clement's most beautiful film. It is lensed by the legendary cinematographer Henri Decae and complemented by a beautiful soundtrack composed by the great Nino Rota. Purple Noon was also the film that made Alain Delon an international star. I honestly believe that it is absolutely impossible to dislike it. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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