Prints of Darkness: Settling on a "look" for CPET

While it was impossible for us to achieve one uniformed color palette for the entire presentation, we did concentrate on making the core theatrical footage match the original negative as closely as possible.

When the 2008 Restoration was completed, Paramount destroyed the original negatives and had them replaced with the new restoration prints. From now on, the 2008 versions will be the "official" prints from which all future theatrical and home video versions will spring from.

This infuriated many film historians, who feel the 2008 restorations err too far from the original prints to be considered "authentic". On one side of the aisle, we have director Francis Ford Coppola and Cinematographer Gordon Willis claiming that the original prints looked just like the 2008 remasters. On the other hand, we have hundreds of film buffs that point to the fact that in the last 40 years, not one single original print that in any way resembles the 2008 remasters has ever surfaced, leading them to conclude that Willis and Coppola's memories are faulty.

We've come to a separate conclusion based on the evidence we've amassed. We do believe that the 2008 restorations are how Willis and Coppola intended the original print to look like, but limitations in film stock and lab processing of the era created an entirely different look to the films and these versions, right or wrong, are what we've been viewing since 1972.

The Dilemma

Which version should we use? Personally, I liked the 2001 DVD set the best, while TheRegencyElf preferred (for the most part) the 2008 remasters. But which one was the more accurate representation of Coppola's original vision?

To solve this problem, we purchased several thousand feet of 35mm film stock of all three films. This gave us a wide array of different prints to work from and would help to rule out aberrations unique to one set of film. (For example, if one scene looked overly "brown", we could compare it to other prints and determine if this was due to aging or processing). NOTE: we did not compare film stock taken from the 1997 THX remaster, as it was essentially the same as the 2001 DVD transfer. All comparison film stock used was from original, non-matted, pre-THX prints.

The screengrabs that are labeled here "35mm" are not the actual celluloid frames, but as close an approximation as possible that was achieved by digitally processing the DVD/BD footage to match the 35mm film as it was being projected side by side with our monitor.

35 mm

2001 DVD

2008 Coppola Restoration

GF Saga: Complete Epic Trilogy

As you can see from the pics, we tried to match the look of the 35mm film stock as closely as possible. This particular scene was excellent in helping to highlight the differences between the various sources. The 2001 DVD set, which we call the "red/brown look" is quite different from the 2008 "golden black" look. What both are missing from the film stock is the Kodachrome neutrality of color and the soft focus grain that are only present in the earliest VHS copies.

What we did with this particular scene was to desaturate the 2008 footage and add a slight noise mar to recreate the original underexposure and soft focus that are mostly missing from the digital prints.


Here's another comparison:

35 mm

2001 DVD

2008 Coppola Restoration

GF Saga: Complete Epic Trilogy

The wedding sequence was originally overexposed in order to give it the look of 40's era color photography. In this case, the 2008 Coppola Restoration came closest to matching the look of the 35mm stock. Very little needed to be done to this sequence, but we tweaked the white exposure in order to give it the "gloss" that was present in the 35mm stock. (Compare the white of Connie's dress between shots: the 2008 restoration lost quite a bit of "shimmer" present in the first two examples).

And finally, we have this indoor scene from Part II:

35mm

2001 DVD

2008 Coppola Restoration

Godfather Saga: Complete Epic Trilogy

This scene serves to illustrate the major problem with all of the interior sequences in the 2008 Restoration: they were too damned dark!

While it's true that Gordon Willis' nickname is "The Prince of Darkness", none of the 35mm footage we reviewed was as dark as the 2008 footage. Here's one possible explanation:

"When we got the first prints back from the lab, Paramount sent them back and ordered them to be lightened up by about 3 degrees. What happened is that when we sent out the first exhibitor copies, our phones started ringing off the hook. These theaters with old projectors were basically exhibiting a black screen- it was too muddy. Same thing with the Drive-ins: all you could see was the occasional flesh tone. So Paramount had the negative lightened up a little, just so you could watch the thing in a typical theater." -Fred Fuchs, Cinemascope interview

All of the original "ultra dark" prints were recalled and destroyed, so we can't accurately compare them here. But it's a safe bet that the 2008 Restoration is very similar to the original negative that was quickly replaced as per Paramount's demands. (Side note: this situation was rare, but not uncommon for the era. Similar incidents happened with Alien, Blade Runner, The Exorcist and Taxi Driver in which the original negative was deemed too dark for drive-in screens and walk-ins with old equipment, so a new negative was restruck. As the drive-in theaters had died off by the 1980s and multiplex theaters with standardized equipment had replaced the local Nickelodeon, such concerns gradually disappeared.)

What we did with most of these indoor sequences was to brighten them just a tad to match the 35mm copies and add the tiniest bit of grain, which was almost completely eradicated in the 2008 Restoration.


But In The End...

We asked ourselves several times if it was even worth it to color correct the core footage when so much of the film would be made up of clips taken from outside sources that in essence, could never be brought up to match the quality of the core footage.

For example, even though we did our best to optimize analog footage (like that taken from the VHS and Laserdisc edits) there is only so much you can do to low-resolution video before it looks worse for the effort. Therefore, glaring inconsistencies like these spring up throughout the presentation:

Extra Footage

Core Footage

 

 

 

 

Extra Footage

Core Footage

Extra Footage

Core Footage

There was just no way to make most of the analog scenes match up with the core footage, despite our best efforts. So unfortunately, the added scenes taken from other sources should stand out fairly easy compared to the BD/DVD material. (I'm not even going to go into the joys of transferring 35 year old Betamax footage to digital and trying to make it look presentable...)