Wow that's a huge difference. I'm almost certain that the documentary got it wrong; the original print & official releases were meant to have striking green hues at the end. My guess is that the documentary is using VHS as a source, and that medium is notoriously bad for washing out colors, not to mention the subjectivity of the tape machine's settings.

We can usually take the Criterion version as a faithful presentation of the director's vision, and on that blu-ray the greens & reds are eye popping. In the commentary Wim, ever self-critical, talks about how he was naïve to shoot with red lighting because it ends up looking out-of-focus (a quirk of film cameras). But honestly I never noticed.

He talks about the greens in the commentary for his earlier film The American Friend, where he says that was achieved by using fluorescent lighting. It was the first time a major film had ever used fluorescent lighting. I'm sure he used the same technique to get that green palette in this movie. So in other words, the footage from the documentary showing neutral colors doesn't gel with any of the evidence!

You may be correct about the documentary - or it may be that it's simply a VHS transfer itself (looks a pretty old video all round).

However, I did some further reading and there's definitely something of an issue re the Curzon re-release. Further info and some annoyed people making comments here:- https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=30944

Funny thing is that there are comments saying to stick with the Criterion version, which seems to be from an earlier transfer made ~ 2010 and it must be this version which I linked to above as the YouTube link is about eight years old! So maybe whomever posted that to YouTube cranked the saturation up as well as it looks like my Blu-ray which is this new transfer / restoration made last year.

Also worth noting some of the comments further done - it appears that Wim Wenders was personally involved in these alterations.

He seem to say that they went back to the original negative and get the colours which were originally intended (but not produced). The comments on the link are interesting - as someone said, if you haven't seen it before you're probably going to love the punchiness of it but others saying it's not a faithful reproduction of what they've seen over the years.

Personally, I'm not convinced it is a true representation of the light - You only have to look at background windows (either behind Travis in the cark park or behind the mother / son reunion) to see they're all green / blue tinted. No indoor lighting would naturally project like that.

@Midi-chlorian_Count said:

You may be correct about the documentary - or it may be that it's simply a VHS transfer itself (looks a pretty old video all round).

However, I did some further reading and there's definitely something of an issue re the Curzon re-release. Further info and some annoyed people making comments here:- https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=30944

Funny thing is that there are comments saying to stick with the Criterion version, which seems to be from an earlier transfer made ~ 2010 and it must be this version which I linked to above as the YouTube link is about eight years old! So maybe whomever posted that to YouTube cranked the saturation up as well as it looks like my Blu-ray which is this new transfer / restoration made last year.

Also worth noting some of the comments further done - it appears that Wim Wenders was personally involved in these alterations.

He seem to say that they went back to the original negative and get the colours which were originally intended (but not produced). The comments on the link are interesting - as someone said, if you haven't seen it before you're probably going to love the punchiness of it but others saying it's not a faithful reproduction of what they've seen over the years.

Personally, I'm not convinced it is a true representation of the light - You only have to look at background windows (either behind Travis in the cark park or behind the mother / son reunion) to see they're all green / blue tinted. No indoor lighting would naturally project like that.

This is getting really interesting! It opens up the question, are we being Lucas’d?? And if so, how much Lucas is acceptable and how much is… “Greedo shot first” 😅

I wouldn’t put it past Wim to do a little fake digital saturation, just because I’ve noticed in his commentaries how he gets personally involved in the restoration and how he often mentions ‘mistakes’ he wishes he could fix. If you have the Criterion commentary for Wings of Desire, listen at the last scene where he talks about an alternate comedic ending where they filmed a pie fight (I’m not making this up!) and he invited amateur editors to download the footage from his site and put together their own version.

In other words, he seems like the kind of guy who’s always open to new versions, not necessarily a historical purist.

So with that said, I’d say hang on to that Curzon release; it may become a rare ‘alternate master’ with its own value. I think the main thing is that Wim personally supervised it, so even if it’s not historically accurate it’s the same artist. But I guess the question is, artistically, did he go too far with digital saturation and kill the realism of the original? After all this aint Star Wars or a Marvel flick, it’s a real human story that might be upstaged by fantasy color manipulation. If it’s extreme enough that you felt distracted by it, then yup you’ve been Lucas’d!

@rooprect said:

This is getting really interesting! It opens up the question, are we being Lucas’d?? And if so, how much Lucas is acceptable and how much is… “Greedo shot first” 😅

... But I guess the question is, artistically, did he go too far with digital saturation and kill the realism of the original? After all this aint Star Wars or a Marvel flick, it’s a real human story that might be upstaged by fantasy color manipulation. If it’s extreme enough that you felt distracted by it, then yup you’ve been Lucas’d!

Ha ha, exactly - George Lucas was definitely on my mind when I was thinking about this!

Like you say, another level of film from a Star Wars or a Marvel, but in a way that makes the acceptability of such tinkering less, even if it is an altogether subtler process we're discussing here.