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SubscribeWell, I've got some good news, and some not so good news.
The good news is this: The Blu-ray edition of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific is a great transfer of a classic film. The glorious TechniColor is rich and sumptuous (if anything perhaps a bit too saturated). There is excellent high resolution detail resulting from 1080p scans of the original super resolution Todd-AO 65mm film negative. South Pacific is only the third of 16 feature films ever to have been produced in Todd-AO. (see list)
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Due to the large negative original, the picture is abundantly clear, with low levels of digital noise. It is natural looking, with no sign of overdone artificial processing. The audio is brilliant, as one might expect from the source's six channel audio that won the Oscar for Best Sound in 1958. If you are collecting classic films in HD and you want to include major musicals from the 1950's, this Blu-ray version of South Pacific is an excellent rendering of the film that definitely belongs in your collection.
South Pacific was a historic production both on stage and in the cinema. The original Broadway play won 10 Tony Awards in 1950, back when they only gave 16 awards total. Joshua Logan was the co-writer and director of the 1949 stage play. He also directed the film adaptation which came out in 1958. South Pacific had a production budget of $5.6 million, making it the most expensive musical film yet produced in its day. It had terrific commercial success as the # 1 box office hit in that year. However, the film version of South Pacific did not garner as much love at the Oscars as the play did at the Tonys. It was nominated for just three Academy Awards--Cinematography, Music, and Sound--and it won for Sound. Some thought it had been snubbed by the Academy due to its blockbuster box office success.
The famous logo is a dramatic opening to the film.
And now for the not so good news.....
People buy Blu-ray discs because they want excellent resolution, color, and sound. And while the Blu-ray of South Pacific is true to the source, the source itself is what some will consider to be an artistic disaster.
If you are not familiar with the film, here's what happens....you fire up your Blu-ray player (we used the Oppo BDP-83 for this review) and believe it or not, you go straight to the menu screen. There are, thankfully, no advertisements of other movies to fast-forward through first. You hit the play button, and the screen goes black while an overture plays for the first 3.5 minutes. Yes, this is odd for a Blu-ray or DVD experience. But after all, this is a film adaptation of a stage play, and it replicates the cinema and theater experience. This is just the first of many elements that give it the look and feel of a stage play on the screen, rather than a piece designed for film to begin with.
So far, no problem. This is what the director wanted, and it's fine with me. Once the overture concludes (which you can skip by hitting the chapter forward button), the magnificent opening title scenes splash on the screen with the famous South Pacific logo. This is one of the most dramatic opening sequences you'll ever see. Color is magnificent, and you are drawn immediately into the world of the Pacific Islands (actually, it was filmed on location in Kauai.)
Color is beautiful -- when the color filters are not there.
For the first 22.5 minutes of the film, you get beautiful high resolution imagery in blazing TechniColor. But then...just as Bloody Mary begins to sing Bali Ha'i....it suddenly appears as though your projector has suffered a catastrophic failure of the green channel. The picture goes pure magenta. Contrast drops to nothing. You sit in shock, wondering what sort of technical failure just occurred.
Actually, nothing happened. Your projector is fine. What you have just experienced is the first of the notorious color filter effects that have been a source of controversy since the day the film opened. As it happens, the first one is the worst one. But what is going on here?
The idea was this: When South Pacific was performed on stage, the color of the stage lighting shifted to create a mystical mood during the more romantic scenes. The director Logan and the cinematographer, Leon Shamroy, thought, "Hey, why not create the same effect in the film?" So Shamroy fitted his camera with external color filters in front of the lens. This way, scenes could be rendered in magenta, or blue, or yellow, or gold, or whatever was deemed appropriate.
None of the color filters are particularly attractive,
but the heavy magenta used in the performance of
Bali Ha'i is horrible, the worst in the entire film.
The bottom line is this: In South Pacific, scenes which are supposed to depict everyday reality are rendered in beautiful color. On the other hand, scenes that represent fantasy, romance, or a dream-like state are rendered with color filters. The light-hearted and comedic tunes (There is Nothing Like a Dame, I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair) are presented in natural, vibrant color. Romantic songs (Bali Ha'i, Some Enchanted Evening, I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy) are color filtered. The visit to the mystical island of Bali Ha'i is done entirely in warm/gold tint. Back in 1958, these color filters did little to diminish the public's enthusiasm for the film. Though the color filters were controversial, many people liked the effect.
However, for today's home theater enthusiast, the effect of the color filters will be at least off-putting, and probably offensive. For one, they are heavy-handed. They appear to have been applied with no finesse whatsoever. Worse yet, not only do they destroy the color that is so good in the non-filtered scenes, but they substantially reduce contrast and detail definition as well. Some of the gold-tinted scenes on Bali Ha'i look as if they were done in standard definition.
Mitzi Gaynor is beautiful in this movie, but in this scene
the yellow filter and blurred vignetting on the corners
is extremely annoying.
One is tempted to blame all this on the incompetence of the cinematographer, but that would be hasty. Shamroy was nominated for 18 Academy Awards in his career, and he won four of them. He died in 1974, and to date, no one in the history of the Academy Awards has ever been nominated for an Oscar more times than Leon Shamroy. His talent was widely respected and acknowledged. All indications are that the director Logan was enthused about the color filter effects at the time of the filming, though he attempted to disavow responsibility for it after the fact.
In one sense, one can appreciate what they were trying to achieve, whether they were successful or not. Bali Ha'i was supposed to be a tranquil paradise populated by natives from a world different than the one the American troops were used to. They did not have the computer technology back then to render the natives tall, skinny, and blue like they did in Avatar. So they used color filters to create a similar mystical effect.
Come to think of it, parallels between South Pacific and Avatar do not end there. South Pacific explored the topic of inter-racial romance, while in Avatar it is inter-species romance. Both depict idealized fantasy worlds that the Americans are unfamiliar with. Both contain romances that are threatened by the intrusion of war. Both condemn racism. Both use novel and groundbreaking visual effects to support the story. Both were shown in theaters that needed to be equipped to handle the new film medium in which they were produced. Of course, the two films are radically different in many respects, so the parallels only go so far. But the common elements are intriguing.
The Road Show Version
The film was originally released in what they called a "road show" edition. It was screened only in the largest and finest movie palaces in downtown locations. People bought hard tickets (seat and row numbers) in advance for the limited screenings. They would dress up and make it a night on the town. Seeing the road show version of South Pacific in the movie theater in 1958 was like seeing a Broadway show or concert today.
Disc Two's "Road Show" version contains an extra
14 minutes of footage. The extra material that has
been spliced in has muted color with a sepia tone.
The Blu-ray edition of South Pacific contains two discs. Disc One contains the general release of the film in 1080p/24. The general release is the version of the film that went to full theater distribution. It is the version that most people saw back then. However, if you lived in a major metro area and were able to acquire advance tickets to the limited road show screenings, you saw the "road show version." Disc Two gives you the road show version, which you might think of as the director's cut. This version is 14 minutes longer, but much to the chagrin of HD enthusiasts, it is not in HD.
Part of the problem with the road show restoration is that the original 70mm negative no longer contains those 14 minutes that were cut. Thus, restoration had to be done from positive prints. On Disc Two, the segments that have been spliced back into the film are of lower quality; color is substantially muted, and they have a sepia toned look to them. Thus, as you view the film, the color characteristics jump back and forth between full color and soft color/sepia tone. If you happen to be a student of film, and want to study how the road show version was edited for general release, this presentation is quite handy. You can tell immediately which segments were reinserted, and which were part of the general release.
The general release of the film runs about 2 hours 50 minutes, so the additional 14 minutes does not make a dramatic difference. There is a bit more continuity in the storyline, but when you view the road show version, then view the general release afterward, you don't get a sense that anything of substance is missing. In fact, one gains an appreciation for the fact that the editing for general release was done with great care.
Warning: Very Large Screen Required
As with the movie Patton (see review), there is not a lot of rapid camera cutting in South Pacific. It is not unusual for a scene to run 30 seconds, 45 seconds, or even a minute or more between camera cuts. In some instances one gets the feeling that they planted the camera in front of the stage and create a video of a live performance. This means that South Pacific MUST be viewed on a very large scale screen for it to have visual staying power over a three hour sitting.
Compositions are designed for very large screen viewing,
but don't work well on smaller TV screens.
It looks spectacular on our 11-foot wide Da-lite JKP Affinity screen. With this type of display the picture pulls you in, and your eye can move around comfortably in the scene. The eye cannot do this if the whole thing is being viewed on a 42" flat panel TV. If you have tried to watch South Pacific on a TV before and found it to be visually tedious, try upgrading to a larger screen. This is not the only movie that benefits from very large scale display.
Conclusion
If you happen to be a fan of the great Broadway musicals of the 1950's and 60's, and you have the home theater rig to take full advantage of it, the Blu-ray edition of South Pacific is probably one that you'll want in your collection. Be forewarned that most of the color filter effects are heavy-handed, counterproductive, and sometimes just flat annoying. But the controversy over the color filters is an integral part of the history of this film. In the end, you would not want to see this film with the color filters digitally removed, any more than you'd want to watch a Ted Turner colorized version of Casablanca.
(ps. as a side note, in researching this film I found one curious factoid that I feel obligated to pass on in case you need it for a bar bet: Oscar Hammerstein, of the duo Rodgers & Hammerstein, is the only person named Oscar to ever have won an Oscar.)
As for the color distrubances that upset you. Those were done on purpose in the original photography and are well documented in an American Cinematographer Magazine story covering the orginal photography back when the film was made.
That doesn't mean you have to like it, it's just the way it was made and those filter were placed in front of the camera lens in photography and not added later in processing.
John
I tried to be clear in the review that the color filters were used intentionally. Though it is part of the artistic design of the film, I believe most home theater enthusiasts these days will find the effects problematic. Nevertheless, as I stated in the conclusion, you wouldn't want to see the film without them, even if you could, as they are part of the original production.
This film was created for wide-screen viewing. If you want a fast-cut, close-up driven film, this is not it. Many of us find long shots much more involving.
Overall, I find your review to be uninformed about the film in general and to fail to understand how the film was designed to be seen in the first place. Films are created for a certain time and place, and one can greatly benefit in one's viewing by trying to understand that context. The grand road show presentations of the 50's and 60's have their own aesthetic.
Most of the readers on this site are particularly sensitive to color accuracy, contrast, and high definition resolution. Those buying Blu-ray discs for use on 1080p home theater projectors do so to get the maximum video performance in those areas. Therefore, since the color filters in South Pacific compromise not only the natural color, but contrast and resolution as well, I feel it is appropriate to alert readers to these effects. That is not to say that the color filters should not have been used. But many, including me, will feel they are overdone. I agree that many people enjoy the effects of the color filters. Obviously, they are still a source of controversy to this day, as they have always been.
I certainly understand that the film was made for widescreen viewing, but not only that, it was for large-scale widescreen viewing. I've read several complaints that this film is tedious to watch. I suspect that those complaints come from people trying to watch it on TVs rather than large format home theaters. I feel it is vital to see it as it was originally intended--on a grand scale. So I wanted readers to be aware that the size of the video display they view it on will have an impact on their ultimate satisfaction with it. It was not my intent to suggest that the film should have been made with rapid camera cuts and close ups to accommodate small screen viewing.
There also is insufficient mention of the film's well-deserved Academy Award for achnievement in sound, which the blu-ray version comes close to duplicating.
One very important information about the color filters - special with Bali Ha'i. When I have buyied this BD my projector bulb (an Optoma top model) was in the end of its life; and the colors were almost horrible as refered in this review. Meanwhile I'v buyied a new bulb and everything have been changed dramatically. Only the magenta in the very begining of the song appears with a little distortian. And the whites brilliant and clear without any saturation. All the other filters included in the full film function very well.
I'm very happy with this BD restoration and edition.
I will enjoyed if we have a Smilebox disc of the show "malgré" that South Pacific was the first TODD-AO film planed to be projected in a flat screen and not in a huge curved one as it was idealized in the beginnig of TODD-AO productions.
It is a pitty also that we haven't yet seen a good transfer with full image and perfect focus of the THE MIRACLE OF TODD-AO. The Oklahoma DVD restoration that icludes the refered short film is a tremendous disaster including the main film in TODD-AO)(The Cinemascope version was the only good work of 20th Century Fox with that titled of R & H opereta)
18 APR 2010 LISBOA PORTUGAL
Yes, in the "South Pacific" titles, the title card says, "Color by TECHNICOLOR." That is different from "Filmed In TECHNICOLOR," which would indicate the three-strip 35mm Technicolor process, which ran three strips of 35mm black-and-white film through a refrigerator-sized camera, and made dye-transfer imbibition prints.
"Color by TECHNICOLOR" indicates the film was shot in Eastman Color Negative, and chemically DEVELOPED at the Technicolor lab.
Many other color processes (like Warnercolor, for example) were Eastman Color Negative, developed at whichever studio or company was in the name. (In this example, at Warner Brothers).
A similar code is employed in marketing for other Hollywood film processes.
For example, some films are "Filmed in PANAVISION," which means they employ Panavision's Anamorphic lenses.
Other films are credited, "Cameras and Lenses by PANAVISION," meaning Panavision rented the production company those items. The lenses, in those cases, were usually spherical lenses, and not anamorphic.
Sam Longoria http://samlongoria.blogspot.com
The first time I saw this film was on TV, and I thought there were actually problems with certain reels, and found it hard to believe they couldn't mix and match a decent set of reels to make a decent color print. Imagine my surprise when I considered this movie for my BR collection, Googled the problem, and found the poor color was INTENTIONAL. I think it was a horrible choice, and does nothing to improve the film and, in my opinion, really detracts from the scenes where they were employed.
As far as adding an alternative version without the color filter scenes, since Blu-ray, and some DVD players, have a capability for the player's software to be upgraded, including via the Internet, why couldn't special player software be created (along with changes to the original disk's content) to allow swap in of specific scenes from a separate file on the disc?) In fact, such an innovation would allow a Blue-ray or DVD disc to have different versions without having to create a complete full-length film file for each version..
Maybe the approach for eliminating the filter-effect might be to convert the color filter scenes to black and white and reduce or eliminate the filter effect in black and white and then re-colorize them using colors from other scenes (using costume colors, and landscapes, etc. as seen in non-color filter scenes).
Then there is the approach of maybe using CGI to recreate the color-filter scenes.
I am only talking about technology solutions without taking into consideration cost.
I am not a film technologist, but a film lover and systems engineer, who was, like others, dismayed to see the color-filter scenes. (They should have made a sample color filter scene or two, together with regular color scenes, and then had a thousand movie-goers recruited to view the samples and get their reaction. I am confident that the vast majority would have said "Color-filters are a bad idea.") Experts and creative talents are not always right!
The first, often 'one-light', print struck from a negative for viewing the rushes immediately following shooting and then synced with sound and used during the editing process for the cutting copy, would be superseded once the negative had been cut to match the final edit of the film. A progressive series of answer prints would then be graded, often shot by shot, until the grading was finalised satisfactorily for making the end show prints.
I have just seen South Pacific (1958) for the first time via the 2006 DVD standard cinema release version and had no idea that the colour filters were going to be used. This was a regular practice in the days of silent films. I saw Douglas Fairbanks snr in a toned version of the Thief of Baghdad (1924) at the Academy Cinema in Oxford Street, London, during the 1970s. It looked tremendous but had a rather pounding organ-music soundtrack. Toning involved retaining whites and blacks at the extremes, with single-colour graduations in between. However, South Pacific uses tinting via a single colour filter, presumably 'in camera', and therefore true blacks and whites are lost.
I picked up that the creative reason for the tinting in South Pacific was to emphasise the projection of a state of mind or a dream. Although the colour balance is going to be affected by the calibration of the screen on which the film is displayed, it should be borne in mind that in the cinema the print colours had to be made more intense to stand up to the colour temperature of the arc lamps being used for projection - in order for the image not to end up looking washed out on screen. I think it is an extremely interesting idea and the only way to judge the effect fairly, if it is felt to be too intense on a small display screen, would be to see the image projected at the correct colour temperature across a large screen surface, as was originally intended.
There is one effect which has me mystified and that is during the theatrical performance where the members of the military audience, when shown from the viewpoint of the performers on stage, appear in black and white, except for the Frenchman at the back with his bouquet of coloured flowers. The soft edging to the frame on some shots would be to increase the dream-like nature of the images. This could be achieved using Vaseline on a glass plate placed in front of the lens. An otherworldly aura was given to the village scenes in the musical Fiddler on the Roof (1972) through the use of an out-of-focus gauze (such as a nylon stocking!) placed over the front of the lens or even between the back of the lens and film negative.
The representation of Bali Ha'i in South Pacific is indeed mystical and I thought it must have been a glass painting, but the trees in front help make the illusion into a convincing reality. A truly magical film with memorable songs from days gone by and a surprise ending!
