Plus if it was intentional why are the first 21-minutes normal? I can only believe it’s a mistake but I am still stunned it wasn’t something that was noticed, and it’s a shame because this had the potential to be one hell of a presentation. That made sense then (though was no less annoying, and obviously widescreen would have been better) but doing the same thing here, when the image is actually presented in widescreen, makes no sense. But this was done mostly for the diopter shots and the split screen sequence, along with a few other moments where pan-and-scan wasn’t going to cut it. If no one noticed the problem is it intentional then? A VHS tape I had first seen the film on, cropped to 4x3 of course, actually did squish in the image at times throughout the film to aid in keeping some of the widescreen compositions (anybody who saw Die Hard on VHS will remember these effects). Take for example the scene where Michael Caine and Paul Margulies are conversing as they walk down a staircase, the camera circles them and creates all sorts of distortions in the frame as the geometry of the stairs change, becoming stretched or compressed with each turn of the camera. It was supervised and approved by De Palma but he didn’t see? And it’s not like it’s a subtle problem: it’s pretty obvious and you don’t need any sort of side-by-side comparison to notice, especially when weird artifacts show up because of it. It’s a bewildering issue more because of the fact no one seemed to notice this. I watched the film a second time to verify where the squishing occurs now that I was aware of it, and yes, a little bit after the 21-minute point the squeezing starts and never lets up. True, there are a few scenes where the problem doesn’t stand out as much as others, but this probably has more to do with framing and positioning. And this isn’t some mild annoyance that only becomes obvious here and there: it’s right there in your face. This of course creates the odd effect that causes everything and everyone to look unnaturally skinny with enlarged foreheads. If the colours to the film are debatable this next aspect isn’t: for whatever reason the rest of the film, a little bit after that 21-minute mark (I’m guessing after a reel change) the image becomes horizontally squished. It looks great… Until roughly the 21-minute mark-when Angie Dickinson’s character runs out after the man she was tailing in the museum-where the transfer makes a questionable turn. Even the clean-up job is impressive, wiping out just about all imperfections, the only real issue I noticed being some fading on the edges of the screen a few times. The transfer was clean and stable, presenting natural looking grain, no noticeable digital tinkering, and a wonderfully filmic quality. So, to a certain extent I was very pleased with what we got, and the first 21-minutes look great. Still, many will have their personal preference on this and will probably prefer the colours used for all of the other releases since the DVD. I was more than fine with it and I wouldn’t be surprised if colours were closer to this when it was released and the look works for the film. Black levels are also very good and crushing wasn’t an issue. They can still look fairly vibrant and the reds (found in the blood particularly) are the strongest aspect. Here the colours are noticeably washed out a little more, though they aren’t overly dull. It’s incredibly crisp, and easily the sharpest I’ve ever seen the film.Ĭolours do differ a bit in comparison to every release since MGM’s 2001 DVD. Textures are particularly superb, at times looking like you can reach out and touch them, and the sense of depth is also fairly strong (though this is hampered a bit by an issue I’ll touch on later). Touching on the good aspects first the image is razor sharp with stunning detail, improving over Arrow’s presentation which looks a little muddy and fuzzy in comparison. This may be one of the more frustrating presentations to come from Criterion because you can see how amazing it would have turned out if it wasn’t for one rather huge glaring issue. The new 1080p/24hz high-definition presentation, approved by De Palma, is taken from a new 4K restoration, scanned from the original camera negative, as well as a 35mm interpositive for a few sequences. The Criterion Collection presents the original unrated version of Brian De Palma’s thriller Dressed to Kill on Blu-ray in the aspect ratio of 2.40:1.
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