Fellini's Casanova Blu-ray Donald Sutherland

(aka 'Casanova' or 'Fellini's Casanova')

Italy / USA 1976

Fellini recounts episodes from the life of Italy's greatest lover in his grandiose rendering of the memoirs of Casanova

According to Donald Sutherland, who embodies the eponymous 17th-century love machine in Fellini's Casanova, the celebrated Italian director was inspired to make the movie partly in response to a gruesome news story of the day: two Roman rich kids murdered a woman and while on their way to dispose of the body, stopped off at a friend's party to whoop it up.

The world of Casanova, peopled with Fellini's favored cast of degenerates, freaks and idiot crowds is a stylized transposition of this decadent contemporary landscape. The blasé, nouveau riche European sensibility which Fellini exposed a decade or so earlier with La Dolce Vita (1960) is distilled once more in the morally void Casanova and the grotesquery of his artificial surroundings.

Excerpt from Channel 4 located HERE

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Theatrical Release: December 7th, 1976

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DVD Comparison:

Fremantle Home Entertainment (2-disc) - Region 0 - PAL vs. Carlotta - Region 'B' - Blu-ray

(Fremantle Home Entertainment (2-disc) - Region 0 - PAL LEFT vs. Carlotta - Region 'B' - Blu-ray RIGHT)

DVD Box Cover

Distribution	Fremantle Home Entertainment - Region 0 - PAL	Carlotta - Region 'B' - Blu-ray
Runtime	2:27:45 (4% PAL Speedup)	2:34:01
Video	1.73:1 Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 7.6 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s	MPEG-4 AVC Feature 30.1 Gig Dual-layered Blu-ray
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate: FreMantle
Bitrate: Blu-ray
Audio	English (Dolby Digital 2.0), Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0) , French (Dolby Digital 2.0)	LPCM Audio English 768 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 768 kbps / 16-bit LPCM Audio French 768 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 768 kbps / 16-bit LPCM Audio Italian 768 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 768 kbps / 16-bit
Subtitles	English, None	French, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Fremantle Home Entertainment Aspect Ratio: Original Aspect Ratio 1.73:1 Edition Details: • Featurette: Casanova, Fellini and Me (53:24) • Featurette: The Magic of Fellini (45:22) • Photo Gallery DVD Release Date: October 31st, 2005 Double Slim Keep Case inside cardboard box Chapters: 16	Release Information: Studio: Carlotta Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 MPEG-4 AVC Feature 30.1 Gig Dual-layered Blu-ray Edition Details: • Featurette: Et Il Casanova de Fellini (1:12:36) • Featurette: Et Fellini Crea Le Casanova (28:32) • Autour De Casanova (Picture-in-Picture) • Photo Gallery Blu-ray Release Date: October 8th, 2008 Bookstyle Blu-ray sized case Chapters: 32

Comments:

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were ripped directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Carlotta Blu-ray November 08': Carlotta have produced a very strong Region 'B'-locked Blu-ray disc. The image improvement is one of the most dramatic we've seen. The dual-layered Blu-ray reinforces the boosting, cropping and vertical stretching of the Fremantle PAL DVD transfer. The 1080P image looks very impressive at times. Grain is visible in many spots and detail is dramatically superior with the substantially higher resolution. Colors seem very true without any manipulation. It offers mono audio choices in English, French or Italian and there are optional French subtitles.

The extras are in PAL and French and I can't really comment on them excepting that they appear to be quite substantial - over two hours long.

Carlotta continue to impress digital cineastes with their expansive selection of productions - now branching out very successfully into high-definition. This package's disc is unfortunately Region 'B' locked so fans outside of that restriction will require a region-free Blu-ray player or to watch it through HTPC. The hi-def REALLY helps bring out Fellini's dramatic visuals with shots of unique architecture and a rich color palette. This was a pleasure to watch later Fellini in 1080. Great job Carlotta! Let's see more!

ON THE Fremantle SD-DVD: The DVD image quality looks weak - a shade thin in parts - and colors appear boosted. There is very minor debris in the form of speckles. It really looks like it may be stretched vertically and possibly cropped. There is plenty of noise on the anamorphic, progressive transfer. It is fairly unacceptable at this point. Audio has options for English, Italian and French, with all choices being utilized in original production. I listened to it in Italian leaving Sutherland's wonderful voice dubbed. The 2.0 channel tracks were acceptable if not stellar.

The 2nd disc of extras contains two informative featurettes that are highly interesting for Fellini fans. Input comes from Sutherland, Anthony Quinn and many who worked with or knew Fellini. I enjoyed both very much.

The style is pure Fellini and it makes for an intriguing viewing but we can hope fro a far better transfer to eventually come along one day soon.

Gary W. Tooze

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Disc 2