2020-10-08
Part of a series: Exploring the “Poirot” restoration
[This post contains tons of spoilers about this episode], but it won’t spoil other ones.
In the video clips below, the pre-restoration versions are on the left, and the restored versions are on the right. The videos are HD and they’re best in fullscreen!
Showing and Hiding
As with last week, there are a few examples of details being washed out by the restoration, like the dirty face of the kid who repairs cars being strangely clean…
…or expressive details (do I dare say lines?) missing from faces…
…or shimmering light cast from a swimming pool…
…but that’s all I’ll say about that this time. We don’t need to catalog every example. We can also look at the opposite phenomenon: times when details were revealed by the restoration, sometimes losing a mood in the process.
For example, I’ll take a dark dramatic shadow over being able to see the fuzz on the rug any day (best in fullscreen!):
Similarly, I find the pre-restoration version stronger here:
Same goes for inside the cupboard, in the shots where we’re not actually looking in:
There are a bunch of these examples throughout the episode. I much prefer the shadowier, more abstract and mysterious feel of the pre-restoration. Fortunately, in some upcoming episodes I think the restoration sometimes does a better job of capturing that mood while bringing it into HD.
Nighttime and Blues
The story starts in the nighttime, and I think the pre-restoration version gives a more natural night feel: a bit ominous, a bit celebratory.
(By the way, notice the changed “W” and “M”s in the title - too bad! Clive Exton loses his cool dagger-y “V” in the next title card too.)
Another nighttime change (again, clearer in fullscreen!):
One reason, I think, is that the restoration seems to tend to remove “cool” colors like blues, and add or accentuate “warm” colors like oranges and yellows.
I’ll talk more about the blue-orange thing in future posts – hopefully after I understand it a bit more deeply. Here are a couple examples of reduced blues, though:
Pre-restoration here is much more dramatic! At the end of the clip, though, I’d probably prefer her face to be a bit more visible (as it is in the restored version):
His face, the shadows, the wall behind him:
Suspiciously vivid colors
In the golfing scenes, green seems to be cranked to 11, giving a slight Wizard of Oz color feel. It’s hard to believe that with all the dead brown grass, grass that’s green is blasting that brightly.
Same thing here - check out how much the background has changed. Also, the colors of the mens’ outfits – especially the vest – feel “deeper” pre-restoration. I would love a more scientific way to examine that “deepness.” Any color scientists out there? (By the way, fellas, nice matching of your ties with each others’ vest/jacket colors!)
Soundstages and shadows
There are a few interesting things about this one, but before saying anything I’ll let you look for yourself (fullscreen really helps!):
Start by looking at the red camera cloth in the center of the room. In addition to the darker shadows (noticing a pattern?) there are a couple things to notice:
- In the restoration the color is brighter and stands out more distinctively from the things around it.
- It also for various reasons seems to “pop” out of the frame a bit more - it looks a bit more 3D.
Don’t we want eye-popping visuals and vibrant colors? Could the author of this blog be some sort of hipster snob?
In this case, I really think the pre-restoration scene works better. Being more subdued in color and “3D-ness” helps make the room feel like a coherent whole, and helps hide some of the artificiality. Look, for example, at where the red camera cloth overlaps with the harp behind it. Pre-restoration, the colors of the cloth and harp are a bit similar, and the line where the camera stops and the harp starts is a bit blurry. On the right that line is sharp as a knife. Then look to the left at the chair next to the staircase. The slight blending of objects makes me read the scene as an artist’s apartment, but when they’re all clearly distinct it feels too much like they were all placed there by a set designer. The floor is perfectly – artificially – clean, feeling too much like a soundstage. Too much of that and you can feel like you’re looking at a CAD drawing, or The Sims.
And when colors cohere, you can get more of the feel of a painting – something subtle and well-composed.
Ironically, in other ways the pre-restoration “pops” more, too. Look at the staircase in the upper left of the frame and the contrast between it and the dark shadowy wall behind it. Plus, besides popping to me it just looks cooler and more ominous.
Here’s a simpler example of how shadows help to reduce the “soundstage look”:
And another – the complex shadows on the wall in the pre-restoration help it look like it plausibly could be a darkly-lit club (have I mentioned fullscreen lately?):
Mood
Here are a couple long clips demonstrating a few things we’ve seen before.
First, Japp and Poirot walk up to see the body, ascending from the light into the darkness of a murder scene:
Here’s a long one that has both the “soundstage” thing and also the mood – check out the shadow as she closes her hand over the cufflink, making up her mind about the deed she’s about to do, and then the shadow on her face as she becomes resolute:
Showing and Hiding, Part II
I like the habit of ending on a “high note,” talking about positives of the restoration to balance out some of the critique.
This time I’m going to cheat a bit by talking about scenes where both the pre-restoration and restoration versions have positives.
As I mentioned, there are some later episodes which seem to have hit on a better fusion of what’s good about the old and the new versions.
First, the fireplace. We’re watching the hand as it throws paper into the fire, so on one hand the view of the dragon on the left is plenty, and the shadows help the mystery. People who like seeing interesting decor, though, will probably be glad they can see the details of the fireplace in the restoration: In this next one, I’d mostly say the restoration version is just better here: it’s a choice between seeing the background at all or not: Like the fireplace shot, if we’re focusing on the action (people talking), the pre-restoration is better at directing our eye, but for people who like looking at classic cars, the pre-restoration is too murky: Pre-restoration I prefer the color of the table, shading of the bannister, etc, but some details are more visible in the restoration and some things pre-restoration are too dark:
Next episode soon!
Last week: “The Adventure of the Clapham Cook”
Next week: “The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly”