Friday 10 May 2013

Caught On Camera

     I suppose one could say, if one was of a mind, that the above picture is somehow a view of a Masonic lodge meeting. But this is the Council Chamber, and No.6 is about to witness the dissolution of the local Town Council. However in reality it is also the set of No.2's office, with an orange chamber wall, instead of purple. How do we know this? Well thanks to the re-mastering technique of the 16mm and 35mm film prints, we can see the double steel doors of No.2's office in the Green Dome behind the two Vote placards on the left of the picture. More than that, we can see the large door surround, together with the canopied Penny Farthing emblem of the Village!
   You see what re-mastering of film does to the original film print. It show up the things that should not be seen! It's no wonder I prefer to watch 'the Prisoner' un-re-mastered, as it was originally intended!

Be seeing you
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4 comments:

  1. nr6de10 May 2013 at 12:06

    Congratulations! We know from quantum physics that the act of observing damages the object being observed almost instantaneously. At least the properties of the object are changed to the point of being meaningless or useless. Now likewise, getting too close to or scrutinising an object in this case of art too closely may as well destroy this object especially if it hasn't been created or processed respectively in order to stand specific ways of examination.

    It is easy to recognise that although being shot on 35 mm film with its much better resolution than the usual 16 mm used for TV productions at the time even an enhanced BluRay version of the series most likely won't allow for more "clarity" of and ebentually result in deeper "meaning", perhaps only technically speaking, but in the end simply dissect it to death. The artistic cinematic blueprint for this is the Antonioni film BLOW UP made around the same time as The Prisoner. - BCNU!

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  2. David Stimpson11 May 2013 at 09:41

    Hello Arno,

    I'm not sure which way to take your comment, whether you are for or against. You could be right regarding the observing of the subject might damage it. And yet, if it were not for the re-mastering of the film, and the clarity of picture, such as the above would not be seen. A friend of mine has 'the Prisoner' on Blu-ray. He said that the clarity of picture makes 'the Prisoner' look as though it was filmed yesterday. I said that's the thing....it wasn't!
    I find such content as contained in 'Caught On Camera' very interesting, as do many readers of my blog, besides which I'm not showing anything which the readers of my blog cannot see for themselves.
    I should imagine that Patrick McGoohan never for one moment thought that 'the Prisoner' would be scrutinsied so closely over the past 46 years. But it was inevitable knowning what fans of the series are like, and I mean that in a good and positive way.
    I suppose that it's each to his or her own really. Because one can look at these details dispassionately, as many fans of the series have done over the years, and not let it detract in anyway from the viewing of an episode in it's own right.

    Very kind regards
    David
    BCNU

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  3. nr6de11 May 2013 at 15:22

    David, I was aiming at your words "You see what re-mastering of film does to the original film print." As true as it possibly can be put.
    The rest should be regarded as a contemplation of the special kind. Taking an analogy: As childs we all enjoyed looking at things through a magnifying glass or even a microscope, didn't we? The world we saw was as strange to us as it was fascinating and also funny. But eventually it would turn out that what we were looking at wasn't the "meaning" or the "truth" of our reality but a completely new one. An analogy only. But thinking the technique of looking ever closer and, the better the devices (hi-res images), allegedly more precisely would return more profound revelations to my liking is a dead-end street. That's what I wanted to stress. - BCNU!

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    Replies
    1. David Stimpson12 May 2013 at 09:48

      Hello Arno,


      I trust this comment finds you well

      Ah, now I comprehend what you mean. As child I had an enquiring mind, wondering how it was possible for bees to actually fly. And in these later years in my appreciation for 'the Prisoner' I have always enjoyed putting 'the Prisoner' under the microscope to coin a phrase. Speaking personally it has never interfered with my enjoying the series, as it hasn't for the many who have done likewise over the years, but I've never been in favour of this endless remastering. To my knoweldge 'the Prisoner' has been remastered on no less than 5 times, and that includes High Definition and Blu-Ray!

      Very kind regards
      David
      BCNU

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