Hiroshima mon amour (1959)

The sound restoration followed Alain Resnais’ intentions, respecting the original densities as they were displayed in the release print. This also proved to be essential in this sphere of the restoration process.

Davide Pozzi

Directeur du laboratoire L’Immagine Ritrovata

"If one remasters a film so as to tailor it to the standards of 2009, there is a danger of altering drastically the balance of the voices, the sound effects, and the music. By correcting so-called flaws, one may lose the style of a film altogether. It is better to respect the sound characteristics of the time, especially as in most cases they do not disturb the viewer anymore after two minutes. Above all, if one removes the background hiss from the soundtrack, one takes out all the harmonic frequencies of the actors' voices in the process. Be it in the low, the medium, or the treble range, the voices become neutral, flat, mannered . . . Every time I have had the opportunity to compare an unrestored and a restored soundtrack in the recording studio, the loss was obvious. The same goes for the music; if one corrects a distorted spot, the music is likely to sound dead. As a director, I do not object to a carefully considered, nonmechanical remastering of my films, but I am keen on giving the viewer the choice between the two soundtracks. As a viewer, I always prefer what may be called the original version."

Alain Resnais, Last Year at Marienbad booklet

I have little doubt that the Arte Video/Tamasa blu-ray presents L’Immagine Ritrovata's soundtrack restoration without any additional changes. As per Davide Pozzi's above statement, no revisionist moves appear to have been made to reshape the track's original dynamics/amplitude and level of hiss to conform to modern sensibilities. It sounds good.

Alas, Ryan Hullings and/or his team did not refrain from applying additional 'adjustments' to the track for the Criterion blu-ray. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the scope of these changes is heavily revisionist, certainly not after taking into account Resnais' above words.

Hiss has been attenuated significantly, and all dialogue--Emmanuelle Riva's, especially--now sounds flat, muffled, and uninvolving. Further 'work' was also done to reshape the track's dynamics, making musical moments much more prominent than in the original track. Bass frequencies were emphasised considerably, as were the lower-mids. The resultant audio track occasionally has moments during which music arguably has more 'body' to it (albeit even this is a compromise -- it frequently sounds mushy and boomy!), but what's been done to the dialogue is pretty unforgivable in my mind.

Update (8/7/2021): Added the Spanish Filmax DVD + clip updated.

It's a warts-and-all minimally processed (if at all) transfer that sounds better than the French blu-ray.