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The Big City(1963-1965)Set in contemporary Kolkata, the film follows the personal triumphs and frustrations of Arati, who decides, despite the initial protests of her bank-clerk husband, to take a job to help support their family. For more about The Big City and the The Big City Blu-ray release, see the The Big City Blu-ray Review published by Dr. Svet Atanasov on September 9, 2013 where this Blu-ray release scored 5.0 out of 5. Director: Satyajit Ray Writers: Satyajit Ray, Premendra Mitra Starring: Madhabi Mukherjee, Haradhan Bannerjee, Soumitra Chatterjee, Anil Chatterjee, Santi Chatterjee, Jaya Bachchan Producer: R.D. Bansal This Blu-ray bundle includes the following titles, see individual titles for specs and details: The Big City Blu-ray, Video QualityPresented in aspect ratios of 1.33:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted 1080p transfers, Satyajit Ray's The Big City (Mahanagar) and The Coward (Kapurush) arrive on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The screencaptures included with this review appear in the following order: 1. The Big City: Screencaptures #1-19. 2. The Coward: Screencaptures #20-29. The following text appears inside the booklet provided with this Blu-ray release: "This new digital transfer (for The Big City) was produced from a restoration undertaken by RDB Entertainments, under the supervision of Kamal Bansal and Varsha Bansal. For their restoration, a transfer was created in 2K resolution on an ARRISCAN film scanner from the original 35mm camera negative and a 35mm print at Pixion in Chennai, India. Due to several instances of severe warps in the original negative, a few sections were replaced using original 35mm safety fine grain belonging to the Academy Film Archive. The original monaural soundtrack was restored from the original sound negative. Project supervisor: Mr. Balaji/Pixion, Chennai, India. Lead restorers: Mr. Chandrashekhar, Mr. Kiran/Pixion. Colorists: Mr. Mathews/John Tharyil/Pixion." The restorations and presentations of the two films are very good. As it was the case with the recently released Charulata, which was also restored by RDB Entertainments, there are dramatic improvements in every single area we typically address in our reviews, from detail to image depth to contrast stability to overall fluidity. The few outdoor sequences, in particular, look remarkably vibrant and healthy, despite the fact that the original camera negative wasn't in perfect condition. Some minor contrast fluctuations are present during select indoor sequences where light is restricted, but image depth is always very pleasing (see screencapture #2). Where some fading has occurred, stabilization improvements have been made to re-balance the image as best as possible. There are no traces of problematic degraining corrections. However, during the stabilization improvements some appropriate adjustments have been made. Edge-enhancement is never an issue of concern. There are no serious stability issues. Also, there are absolutely no debris, cuts, warps, or stains to report in this review. All in all, The Big City has a solid and very healthy organic look. The high-definition transfer for The Coward has been sourced from the same recent restoration of the film Artificial Eye were able to access when they prepared their Blu-ray release in the United Kingdom. I did some direct comparison between the two releases and they look virtually identical. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content). The Big City Blu-ray, Audio QualityThere are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: Bengali LPCM 1.0 for The Big City and Bengali Dolby Digital 1.0. for The Coward. For the record, Criterion have provided optional English subtitles for each film. The lossless track has good depth and at times even surprisingly good fluidity. However, you should not expect to hear a well rounded and consistently lush audio - many of the limitations of the film's original sound design are quite obvious (see the mob sequence). However, the dialog is clean, pleasingly stable, and easy to follow. Also, there is no heavy background hiss, distortions, or audio dropouts to report in this review. The Coward comes only with a lossy track. Here depth is probably not as impressive as it is on the lossless track from the Artificial Eye Blu-ray release, but I think that only people who have both discs might be able to tell. The most obvious discrepancies are during the few jazzy themes, but even there the overall dynamic movement and depth on both tracks are fairly similar.
Similar titles suggested by membersThe Big City Blu-ray, News and Updates• Criterion Announces August Titles - May 15, 2013 The Criterion Collection has announced five titles for Blu-ray release in August. On August 6th, the studio will release Max Ophuls' The Earrings of Madame de... (1953). On August 13th, it will release John Frankenheimer's Seconds (1966). On August 20th, it will ...
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