Story of a Love Affair Blu-ray

Firstly, a HUGE thanks to our Patreon supporters. Your generosity touches me deeply. These supporters have become the single biggest contributing factor to the survival of DVDBeaver. Your assistance has become essential. We are always trying to expand Patron benefits... you get access to the Silent Auctions and over 5000 unpublished screen captures (in lossless PNG format, if that has appeal for you) listed HERE. Please consider helping with $3 or more each month so we can continue to do our best in giving you timely, thorough reviews, calendar updates and detailed comparisons. Thank you so much. We aren't going to exist without another 100 or so patrons.

Search DVDBeaver

S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

(aka 'Story of a Love Affair')

Italy 1950

Antonioni is one of the most influential filmmakers of all times, indeed critics revere him as the creator of Modern Cinema. His STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR, aka Cronaca di un Amore, is his first feature film, a Noir thriller with sensual themes of yearning and jealousy. It is considered a masterpiece by Scorsese, among others.

Paola (Lucia Bosè) is a strikingly beautiful young woman married to a rich older industrialist who decides to have her past investigated. The detective s enquiry reaches Paola s former lover, Guido, prompting him to seek her after seven years, and they reignite their passion.

Antonioni, who defined cool modernism on screen, chronicles the love affair, observing without judgment. His ground-breaking techniques - such as the long one-take sequence, later adopted by cinema greats - and scintillating B+W photography are presented here in HD for the 1st time, from a painstaking 2K restoration, finally doing justice to the director's masterpiece.

***

Paola (Lucia Bose) is the beautiful and jealously-guarded younger wife of a shady factory owner, Enrico Fontana (Massimo Girotti). In order to investigate her romantic history he hires a private detective, which ironically brings Paola back into contact with former lover Guido, with whom she resurrects a lost passion. Dogged by the suspicions of their respective mates, they are drawn closer to each other in the face of adversity, and begin to plot Enrico's demise. But when the challenge of being together falls away, will the passion start to wane? A masterpiece of intensity and finely-wrought emotion.

Posters

Theatrical Release: September 18th, 1950 (Biarritz Film Festival)

Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews

Comparison:

NoShame Films (2-disc) - Region 0 - NTSC vs. Lorber (2-disc) - Region 0 - NTSC vs. Cult Films - Region 'B' - Blu-ray

Box Cover
			Bonus Captures:
Distribution	NoShame Films - Region 0 - NTSC	Lorber Films - Region 0 - NTSC	Cult Films - Region 'B' - Blu-ray
Runtime	1:38:03	1:37:28	1:42:36.859
Video	1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 7.18 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s	1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.57 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s	1.33:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 45,458,571,835 bytes Feature: 25,588,432,896 bytes Video Bitrate: 30.00 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate Blu-ray:
Audio	Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0), DUB: English (Dolby Digital 2.0)	Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0)	LPCM Audio Italian 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit
Subtitles	English, None	English, None	English, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: NoShame Films Aspect Ratio: Original aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Edition Details: • Story of a Peculiar Night - the screening of the restored print in Rome, featuring director Michelangelo Antonioni and interviews with various film business people • Identification of a Masterpiece - with assistant director Francesco (Citto) Maselli, film critics Tullio Kezich and Edoardo Bruno (114 Mins.) • Fragments of a Love Affair (5:29) • Restoring a Masterpiece - interviews with cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno and post-production technicians (6 Mins.) • Poster & Still Gallery • Collectible Booklet - including Antonioni's bio, two original interviews with Antonioni and an essay by Giuseppe Rotunno on the restoration of the film. DVD Release Date: June 28th, 2005 Double Slim Keep Case Chapters: 12	Release Information: Studio: Lorber Films Aspect Ratio: Original aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Edition Details: • Identification of a Masterpiece - with assistant director Francesco (Citto) Maselli, film critics Tullio Kezich and Edoardo Bruno (1:52:24.) • Story of a Peculiar Night - the screening of the restored print in Rome, featuring director Michelangelo Antonioni and interviews with various film business people • Fragments of a Love Affair (5:29) • Restoring a Masterpiece - interviews with cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno and post-production technicians (6 Mins.) • Poster & Still Gallery DVD Release Date: February 7th, 2012 Standard Double Keep Case Chapters: 12	Release Information: Studio: Cult Films 1.33:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 45,458,571,835 bytes Feature: 25,588,432,896 bytes Video Bitrate: 30.00 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video Edition Details: • Premiere presentation of the restored film, with Director Antonioni, Star, Lucia Bosè + filmworld VIPs,Tornatore, Dario Argento et.. (18:25) • Principal Italian Critic and friend of Fellini, Tullio Kezich interview When a 1st Work Is already a Masterpiece (22:16) • The genesis of the film by Assistant Director and co-writer Francesco Maselli (31:22) • The making-of the film with When a 1st Work Is already a Masterpiece by plus interviews (5:39) • Restoring a masterpiece by Giuseppe Rotunno Fellini's cinematographer (also THE LEOPARD, ALL THAT JAZZ, Gillian s MUNCHAUSE) (8:32) Blu-ray Release Date: July 27th, 2020 Transparent Blu-ray Case Chapters 12

Comments:

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

ADDITION: Cult Films Blu-ray (August 2020): Cult Films have transferred Michelangelo Antonioni's Story of a Love Affair to Blu-ray. It is a significant advancement over the unconverted PAL-NTSC DVDs. Because of that faulty authoring practice the SDs have all the associated artifacts from that process including combing and a clunkier image in-motion. Thankfully that has been 'fixed'. Notable the contrast is a huge step up via the 1080P. The image shows slightly less on the left edge but an equivalent more on the right side of the frame. The HD image is brighter, cleaner, crisper and shows more detail. A substantial improvement.

NOTE: We have added 24 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Cult Films use a linear PCM dual-mono track (16-bit) in the original Italian language. It is another advancement in the film's audio and score by Giovanni Fusco (L'Avventura, The Red Desert, L'Eclisse, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Il Grido) sounding a bit deeper with more consistent dialogue. Cult Films offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'B' Blu-ray.

The Cult Films Blu-ray has the same extras - parsed down from the 1 1/4 hour Identification of a Masterpiece on the 2005 NoShame DVD to represent two individual video pieces (Tullio Kezich interview) - losing almost 3/4 hour of material. 'Restoring a masterpiece' seems 2-minutes longer, there is the piece on the Premiere - there is no gallery or booklet.

Michelangelo Antonioni's Story of a Love Affair has a brilliant build to intensity. So much about it to appreciate. It's a film I am thrilled to own in this substantially upgraded Blu-ray. Strongly recommended!

Gary Tooze

ADDITION: Lorber Films - Region 0 - NTSC - January 2012: This looks shamefully like a repackaging - different cover and menus but a similar (actually single-layered, punier bitrate and inferior) interlaced transfer. We lose the DUB and the booklet. Very disappointing. Stick with your NoShame edition or get it from a third party seller. 6.5 years later and not an ounce of improvement. Good grief!

***

ON THE NO SHAME: (2005) Although a step-up for NoShame Films from their other non-converted PAL - NTSC DVDs, this is not quite perfect. A very minor amount of combing is evident in "Forced Weave" mode indicating to us it was not transferred progressively (each frame individually), but on the positive - it is still a decent transfer regardless that it is from a PAL source. There is very minor damage and flickering contrast but still has a strong filmic appearance. A truly wasted (and poor) English audio DUB is included as an option but we recommend immediately dismissing it as the original Italian mono is fine aside from a few brief crackles. Subtitles seem competent with a few absentee background spots. The extras are, for the most part, great - although the screening in Rome seemed to drag on a bit. I suspect these extras as being from the Italian edition, but it doesn't really matter - and they have optional English subtitles.

The film certainly has enough Noir elements to garner 'dark cinema' appreciation and what a bonus to own Antonioni's first feature film on DVD! We strongly recommend. I anxiously await more from NoShame Films!

Gary W. Tooze