Senso (1954)
Romance, Drama, War • 2h 3m
Director: Luchino Visconti
Cast: Farley Granger, Alida Valli, Massimo Girotti, Heinz Moog, Rina Morelli, Christian Marquand, Sergio Fantoni, Tino Bianchi, Ernst Nadherny, Tonio Selwart, Marcella Mariani, Franco Arcalli, Aldo Bajocchi, Ottone Candiani, Nando Cicero, Claudio Coppetti, Cristoforo De Hartungen, Tony Di Mitri, Eugenio Incisivo, Marianne Leibl, Ugo Mari, Jean-Pierre Mocky, Spartaco Nale, Ivy Nicholson, Mimmo Palmara, Winni Riva, Carlo Sabatini, Goliarda Sapienza, Renato Terra, Gustl Untersulzner, Mário Valente
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 10 months ago
Overview
A troubled and neurotic Italian Countess betrays her entire country for a self-destructive love affair with an Austrian Lieutenant.
Director: Luchino Visconti
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab)
BFI 4K Blu-ray is significantly better than older Blu-ray however the HDR grade is questionable as it introduces black crushes, see nic's review and caps
For Blu-rays, Germany StudioCanal Blu-ray > MoC Blu-ray see caps
All disc sourced from the 4K restoration use the same solid audio track. Older DVD releases are from a higher generation source with less detail and more hiss.
Kino Lorber Blu-ray doesn’t have good encoding, but according to BR, the English Cult Films Blu-ray is worse, and the original master just isn’t that good
Director: Luchino Visconti
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion resto bad? but no other BDs
Director: Luchino Visconti
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion, 4k transfer
Director: Luchino Visconti
Director: Ebrahim Golestan
Director: Ebrahim Golestan
Director: Ebrahim Golestan
Director: Ivan Passer
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Though note its different color grading from the IP-sourced but poorly compressed Fun City Editions US Blu-ray (caps)
Judging from spectrograms at https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=23933756&postcount=57, Fun City Editions US Blu-ray appears to have marginally less filtering than Radiance 4K Blu-ray (whose padded 16-bit depth is a non-issue). There are also loudness differences, though it's unclear whether dynamic range also differs. Caveat: need to A/B both tracks to confirm, but no one has posted actual A/B impressions.
More Romance on Blu-ray
Directors: Emeric Pressburger & Michael Powell
Imprint 4K Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · filmalert101.blogspot.com (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
FiM encode and none of the low-pass filtering present on the Criterion 4K, resulting in more detail and better handling of highlights on Imprint
Review, comparisons
All HD and 4K sources use the same 2009 restoration. Criterion's master (also used by Imprint) is a bit more rolled off, though the difference is minor.
Director: Norman Taurog
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Delbert Mann
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Garson Kanin
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Only Streaming has 1080p
Director: Roman Polanski
Kino Lorber disc has audio pitch errors
Director: Terrence Malick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Lovely underlying remaster by Criterion and Resillion but encode is sadly low-pass filtered by Pixelogic, and even then, the encode is still less than ideal. Still easily obliterates any prior disc release, but certainly wouldn't hurt to have a UK or German label take a crack at this same master.
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