04.20.08

Forthcoming DVDs

Posted in Cinema, DVDs at 5:10 pm by Spencer

Having been laid low for a full week by an ass-kicker case of the flu, I’ve had a lot of time to watch a lot of DVDs (or at least half-watch them while struggling to maintain consciousness). Now more-or-less ambulatory again (most of the time), I’ve been catching up on things…including some DVD news. (Forgive any incoherence, since I’m still recuperating.)

Criterion (as usual) gives me several new causes for celebration. Foremost, they’ve announced their upcoming 2-disc edition of Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932), roughly coincidental with European releases by MK2 in France and Eureka in Britain (part of their excellent “Masters of Cinema” series), though the latter seems to just get postponed over and over again.

Unjustly dismissed as a sub-standard aberration by fans and scholars of the great Carl Dreyer’s work, Vampyr is one of the most hauntingly dreamlike horror films ever made. It also has a fascinating production history, one which contributed to its long lingering in a purgatory of mangled, poor-quality prints that have provided only a hint of the subtle shades of grey and the even subtler use of sound (far ahead of its contemporary works).

Criterion is releasing the landmark 1998 restoration by Martin Koerber Cineteca di Bologna — long awaited on home video (especially after the offensively shitty worthless piece of crap Image released on DVD a few years ago). Well worth a read is Koerber’s article, “Some notes on the restoration of Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932)”. (Also worthwhile, if you can find a copy, is David Rudkin’s 2005 monograph published by the British Film Institute.)

This DVD presents the film pillar-boxed in its original 1:19 aspect ratio (a very short-lived format during the earliest days of sound in Europe). The French MK2 version is inexplicably mastered at 1:33 (resulting in slight cropping of the frame) and considerably darker than the Criterion version (obscuring much of the predominant light-grey details). You can see side-by-side stills at this French web site.

Criterion’s extras will include something they’re billing as an “all-new English-text version of the film.” This is a little confusing since there was an English language version produced originally (along with German and French ones), but which is not known to survive in any form except possibly as unidentified fragments cut into versions released in later decades. A separate line in the DVD’s specs call out “new and improved English subtitles”, so this “English-text version” thing apparently means something else. Guess we’ll find out this summer. Other extras include a 1978 audio recording of Dreyer lecturing on filmmaking, and what sounds like a substantial book that boasts various essays and even the original screenplay.

Hopefully this new DVD will permit a proper reevaluation of this neglected gem of a film, but for those us who already know better it’s a cause for great celebration. While you wait for July to roll around, savor this reproduction of the original Danish program book.

And speaking of neglected gems, I exclaimed aloud when I discovered that in June Criterion will be releasing a newly restored version of Anthony Mann’s The Furies (1950), a noir western re-visioning of a Greek tragedy with Oscar-nominated cinematography by Victor Milner, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Huston in his last role. I’ve been wanting to see this for years, but so far as I can tell it was never even released on VHS.

Anthony Mann is one of my favorite directors, having first been hipped to him by A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. (A fine series I suggest watching with paper and pen at hand so as to jot down titles to hunt down.) Mentored as an AD by no less than Preston Sturges, Mann was a hard working studio director who made some of the very best noir and western films of the ’40s and ’50s, but was much more than just a good genre man. His films tended to have an unusual psychological complexity for their time, coupled with a sure-footed storytelling economy and a great eye (augmented by such camera talents as the great John Alton and the aforementioned Mr. Milner).

Mann’s westerns caused me to reevaluate and finally appreciate that entire genre — not only his justly lauded dark wonders with Jimmy Stewart, but especially his last western: Man of the West (1958), an especially twisted quiet masterpiece (unforgivably unavailable on US DVD) starring Gary Cooper in his last performance that remains one of my all-time favorite westerns ever. [Update: Turns out MGM is releasing Man of the West on DVD on May 15, just a couple weeks away.  Hooray!]  Following that, Mann went on to direct a social satire (God’s Little Acre), a couple epics (El Cid and The Fall of the Roman Empire), a war flick (Heroes of Telemark) and a Cold War spy thriller (Dandy in Aspic), but perhaps because of the shifting nature of film production in the ’60s, none of these had the same masterful touch of his dozens of earlier works.

Meanwhile, Mann’s Fall of the Roman Empire is also coming out soon as a limited edition DVD, courtesy of the Weinsteins’ “Miriam Collection.”

And since I’m already serving as unofficial PR hack for Criterion’s genre film releases, definitely keep an eye out for what promises to be a spectacular version of Alexander Korda’s great fantasy epic, The Thief of Bagdad (1940). The film has been restored to its original Technicolor grandeur (which is considerable!), and the copious extras include commentary tracks by Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.

And hey, as long as we’re talking genre films I gotta let you know that Classic Media will be releasing Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975 JP, 1978 US) on April 29. A couple months ago it was included as part of their big box set, but this stand-alone will complete Classic Media’s series of “deluxe” release of the seven original-series Godzilla titles they have the US rights to. (Okay, All Monsters Attack, aka Godzilla on Monster Island Godzilla’s Revenge, is also coming out but who gives a crap — insipid even by Godzilla standards, it’s total garbage made almost entirely of clips from the earlier films.)

Terror of Mechagodzilla was the last hurrah for the original series. Considerably better than the films that preceded it (the idiotic Gigan [aka Godzilla on Monster Island] and underwhelming if action-packed Megalon films), it was the last of the series to be directed by Ishiro Honda (returning after a long hiatus in greener pastures)…and the last Godzilla film to be made until 1984. Long unavailable except in the craptacular pan-and-scan Scimitar edition, this disc has a widescreen transfer of the original Japanese version (boobies!) with subtitles, plus the dubbed US version, as well as a few marginal extras.

Copies can be had at the usual online retailers, via the official GodzillaOnDVD.com site, or most likely at Scarecrow Video here in Seattle.

According to that there official site, Classic Media does plan to follow up with releases of non-Godzilla Toho monster classics, Rodan and War of the Gargantuas, both of which are among the better kaiju flicks that have yet to get a proper home video release.

…Oookay…I’ve been staring slack-jawed at the screen for about 5 minutes. Clearly it’s nap time again.

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