Cinema Paradiso (Nuovo Cinema Paradiso): Prestige 4-Disc Collectors Edition (1989) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Drama |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Theatrical Trailer CD-Soundtrack Featurette-Giuseppe Tornatore: A dream in Sicily Awards-Text Trailer-Malcolm; Shallow Grave; My Beautiful Laundrette Additional Footage-Scenes From The Directors Cut Trailer-Jean De Florette; Manons Des Sources; The Bicycle Thief Trailer-My Life As A Dog; Cyrano De Bergarac Collection Trailer-Miracle In Milan; Indochine; Europa Europa Production Notes-Enrico Morricone Biographies-Cast & Crew |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 1989 | ||
Running Time | 285:31 (Case: 290) | ||
RSDL / Flipper |
RSDL (88:44) Multi Disc Set (4) |
Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 1,2,3,4,5,6 | Directed By | Guiseppe Tornatore |
Studio
Distributor |
Franco Cristaldi Umbrella Entertainment |
Starring |
Jacques Perrin Phillipe Noiret Leopoldo Trieste Salvatore Ascio |
Case | Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual | ||
RPI | $34.95 | Music | Ennio Morricone |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.66:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.66:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles | English | Smoking | Yes |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | Yes |
Cinema Paradiso, which won the 1990 Best Foreign Film Oscar, tells the story of Salvatore (played at different ages by Salvatore Cascio - child, Marco Leonardi -adolescent and Jacques Perinn - adult). It explores his deep friendship with local film projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret), his love of film and of his love affair with Elena (Agnese Nano). For an excellent, in-depth review of this film please see our original review of the Director’s cut written by SeanA which can be found here.
Released initially at a running time of 155 minutes in Italy it was subsequently trimmed down for its international release to 123 minutes. Subsequently a 170 minute Director’s cut of the film was created, the main extensions being (SPOILER ALERT: highlight with mouse to read) the additional scenes showing Salvatore’s meeting up again with Elena after the death of Alfredo.
Overall I feel that the theatrical cut works better. At almost 3 hours in length I feel that the Director’s cut over stays its welcome, although I know there are many people that will disagree with me.
Cinema Paradiso is a charming and warm-hearted film that is rightfully loved by many. The inclusion of both the Director’s cut and the theatrical version in this set is most welcome and I’ll leave it up to you as to which you prefer.
The track listing below outlines the content of the bonus audio CD.
1. CINEMA PARADISO 2. MATURITY 3. WHILE THINKING ABOUT HER 4. AGAIN 5. CHILDHOOD AND MANHOOD 6. CINEMA ON FIRE 7. LOVE THEME 8. AFTER THE DESTRUCTION 9. FIRST YOUTH 10. LOVE THEME FOR NATA 11. VISIT TO THE CINEMA 12. FOUR INTERLUDES | 13. RUNAWAY,SEARCH AND RETURN 14. PROJECTION FOR TWO 15. FROM AMERICAN SEX APPEAL 16. TO THE FIRST FELLINI 17. TOTO AND ALFREDO 18. FOR ELENA 19. LOVE THEME 20. BICYCLE THEME 21. VISIT TO THE CINEMA 22. MATURITY 23. CINEMA PARADISO |
This transfer seems to have been recycled from the single disc realise back in 2002. In fact the whole disc, menus and all, seems to be recycled from that earlier release. While back then it may have been considered quite good, it just doesn’t quite come up to the higher standard we generally expect now.
The image is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.66:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.
The image was a bit soft overall and fine detail was only average. Black levels and shadow detail were also only average. It would appear the brightness has been boosted a bit which gives the image a slightly washed out and flat look at times.
Colours seemed fine, although skin tones sometimes took on a slightly too pinkish tone.
Very little grain is evident which I suspect has been result of the use of image noise reduction. Film artefacts are seen throughout although these are mostly small black specks.
The only available subtitles are English, which are yellow and easy to read.
This disc is RSDL formatted with the layer change occurring at 88:44 which is fairly well placed.
If the Director’s Cut doesn’t quite come up to the standards we expect today then the theatrical cut fares even worse.
The image is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.77:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.
The image is fairly soft and fine image detail is only average. Black levels and shadow detail are quite poor.
Colours are not as strong as in the Director’s cut and sometimes the reds seemed oversaturated compared to other colours.
Compression artefacts are prevalent throughout and a lot of video noise reduction appears to have been applied to remove grain. One undesirable side affect of this is slight picture instability such as at 79:48 when window shutters shimmer excessively.
The only available subtitles are English which are yellow and easy to read.
This disc is RSDL formatted with the layer change occurring at 95:21.
Sharpness | |
Shadow Detail | |
Colour | |
Grain/Pixelization | |
Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
Film Artefacts | |
Overall |
The audio soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 encoded at 224 Kb/s on the Directors cut and at 192 Kb/s on the theatrical cut. This essentially seems to be a mono soundtrack. I felt the overall sound was rather lo-fi and sounded a bit flat.
Dialogue was usually clear but was often out of sync. I strongly suspect large chunks of the movie were looped in after filming and the result is sometimes not as good as it should be. I also felt the dialogue often contained a distracting echo-like effect, especially when compared to the music in the film. I also noticed a low frequency hum during many of the scenes.
The original score by composer Ennio Morricone is very effective but sometimes the themes are overused and repeated a bit much.
Given the encoding of the soundtrack there is no surround or subwoofer activity to report.
Dialogue | |
Audio Sync | |
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
Surround Channel Use | |
Subwoofer | |
Overall |
While on paper the inclusion of a feature length documentary might seem a good thing the actual result is quite disappointing. You can read more details below. The rest of the extras are really just filler.
The menus on disc 1 and disc 2 are 16x9 enhanced, with music. The disc 1 menus are also animated. The disc 3 menus are static.
Presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, this documentary, as best I could make out, explores film maker Giuseppe Tornatore and some of the influences on his work. I use the term ‘as best I could tell’ because this documentary is so haphazardly put together and edited that it is often very hard to understand what is going on. Interview subjects start speaking without any sort of introduction and when their name and who they are appears, it is in Italian with no English translation. Film clips appear with only the film title and year of production shown (again in Italian and no English translation). It was only when I recognised some of the clips that I realised not all the clips are from Tornatore films. Maybe if you understand Italian and have a deep knowledge of Italian cinematic history you might be able to make sense of this documentary, but I couldn’t. Overall it's a very disappointing effort. Take my word for it and don’t waste your time with this poor excuse for a documentary.
Theatrical trailer for Cinema Paradiso.
Brief text screens about the film's soundtrack and its composer Enrico Morricone.
Text screens with brief biographies of some of the cast and crew.
Text screen listing awards won by the film.
This begins with a series of text screens that list some of differences between the Director’s Cut and the Theatrical cut and the presents a list of 5 scenes to select. These scenes are all presented 16x9 enhanced. They are:
My Beautiful Laundrette (4x3), Shallow Grave (4x3) and Malcolm (4x3).
Jean De Florette (4x3), Manon Des Sources (16x9), The Bicycle Thief (4x3) and My Life as a Dog (4x3).
Cyrano De Bergerac (4x3), Miracle in Milan (4x3), Indochine (4x3) and Europa Europa (4x3).
For those who enjoy the music contained in this film then the inclusion of the CD soundtrack as the fourth disc will be a most welcome one. The actual technical quality of each track is a little variable but on the whole the quality is average at best. Quite a bit of tape hiss is present and the sound had an overall nasal-quality to it. Listen for example to the violin on track 4 and especially track 8 to hear this. I also noticed a bit of a rumble in the bass at times, most noticeably on track 1. Overall the sound lacks a certain presence which I think is highlighted by the lack of any real soundstage depth. That said, I’m sure fans of this music will be able to overlook the technical limitations of the recording.
(Equipment: Source (CD Player): Musical Fidelity A3.5 (Redgum Interconnects), Amplification: Redgum RG120i, Speakers: Ambience Superslim 1400S (AudioQuest speaker cables)).
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
There have now been no fewer than 3 releases of Cinema Paradiso in Region 1. For the purposes of comparison I will focus on the most recent two-disc set. Like the Region 4, it is available as a limited edition set with the audio CD.
The Region 1 release misses out on:
The Region 4 misses out on:
From the reading of reviews and online screen shots I believe that the Region 1 also has a superior transfer to the Region 4. On this basis I feel that the Region 1 is the version of choice.
Cinema Paradiso is a charming and warm-hearted film that is rightfully loved by many. The inclusion on this DVD set of both the Director’s cut and the theatrical version is most welcome and I’ll leave it up to you as to which you prefer.
The video transfers are a bit disappointing and the audio transfer is somewhat on the lo-fi side, but not enough to hinder one’s enjoyment of this lovely film.
Despite being a 3 DVD and 1 CD set I must say the actual extras are a bit of disappointment.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Pioneer DV-696AV-s, SACD & DVD-A, using HDMI output |
Display | Panasonic PT-AE900E HD LCD Projector onto 90" 16x9 Screen. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 720p. |
Audio Decoder | Logitech 5500 THX. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Logitech 5500 THX |
Speakers | Logitech 5500 THX |