12.15.08
Posted in Cinema, DVDs, Cinema History, Early Sound Cinema at 10:09 pm by Spencer
Holy crap.
Normally those really spendy, over-extravagant DVD box sets just kinda piss me off. But Fox Studio Classics has just released one that I might just feel compelled to actually splurge on. (It’s also kind of a toing, because just two nights ago I spontaneously decided to watch Sunrise on DVD and meandered through the extras.)
As you can see above, Murnau, Borzage and Fox is a ginormous, 12-DVD dee-luxe $et ($240 SRP, $180 on Amazon — ouch) with not one but two hefty books of essays and photos, and a new 2 hour documentary about the directors. Mmokay. But the real grabber is the list of films — 2 by Murnau and 10 by Borzage, spanning 1925-1932, the late silent through the early sound/talkie era. A couple are acknowledged masterpieces, several are highly respected, and most-all of them have long been unavailable on any kind of decent home video. Martin Scorsese, in his BFI documentary for British television, A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995), singled out Borzage as one of the best Hollywood directors of the early sound period, not only making intelligent films but occasionally pushing the severely limited technical capabilities of the time, especially with camera work. I’ve been intending to delve into his stuff for a while now.
The two Murnau gems are noteworthy. The Sunrise disc includes two versions of the film: the Movietone version, as well as the European silent version. This is important, because the silent version was not only a somewhat different cut, it used negative from a different camera (and thus slightly different angles), and sometimes different takes. Also, the infant sound-on-film format used a fairly wide area of the available film for the actual sound, slightly reducing the horizontal space available for the image. The silent film negatives had a different aspect ratio. The DVD released a couple-few years ago (as part of a different box set) included only the Movietone version. If the official PR is to be believed, the Movietone version on this new disc has a 1:30 aspect ratio, and the Euro silent one is in 1:20.
I’m also happy to see City Girl (1930, with a 1:19 aspect ratio, thanks for asking) is included. Originally titled Our Daily Bread, Fox took control of it away from Murnau and re-edited it somewhat. He left the studio very soon after. Murnau’s original cut is, of course, lost so I’ve wanted to see the surviving version.
Dave Kehr recently gave this set a learned and positively elegiac review in the New York Times in “When Titans Roamed the Backlot at Fox” (Dec. 8, 2008): “Altogether, Murnau, Borzage and Fox represents the best that home video has to offer in quality, scholarship and enduring aesthetic interest; this is not a set that anyone will exhaust soon.”
Anyway, here’s the list, not including the scads of extras, commentaries, outtakes, mini-docs, and all that…
Murnau silents:
Sunrise (1927) (Movietone score version and European silent version)
The City Girl (1930)
Borzage silents:
Lazybones (1925)
Seventh Heaven (1928)
Street Angel (1928)
Lucky Star (1929)
Borzage talkies:
They Had to See Paris (1929)
Liliom (1930)
Song O’ My Heart (1930) (full sound version and music/effects version)
Bad Girl (1931)
After Tomorrow (1932)
Young America (1932)
(Thanks to the Bioscope blog’s post for the tip-off.)
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04.20.08
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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03.30.08
Posted in Cinema, Silent Films, DVDs, Cinema History, Sci-Fi and Horror Flix at 7:53 pm by Spencer
Flicker Alley has just released Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema (1896-1913), a monumental five DVD box set that gathers 173 of the puckish master’s 500-plus films, from his very first to his very last — dang near every one known to survive today. In all, more than 13 hours of beautiful pioneering cinema.
Needless to say, I consider this a must-have for all cinephiles, and especially for sci-fi and fantasy fans; every bit as important as the massive Edison box set released a couple years ago. I recommend ordering directly from Flicker Alley (scroll down for the commerce buttons) — shipping is included in the price, there’s no sales tax, and the money will go directly to the folks responsible with no cut plucked by a middleman. (And anyway, Amazon isn’t offering its customary discount.)
By the way: we at The Sprocket Society are presenting an upcoming screening of Melies’ greatest epics with film prints accompanied by unconventional musical selections, and even the original live narration for one of the films. Georges Melies: Impossible Voyager shows on Thurs. May 15 at 8 PM at the Northwest Film Forum. (The screening is not affiliated with Flicker Alley, and the timing is purely coincidental, albeit fortuitous — I’d heard this set was in the works but had no idea when it would be released.)
Producing the set are Eric Lange of Lobster Films in France and David Shepard of Film Preservation Associates (FPA). You could not have asked for better stewards of such a project: FPA owns the old Blackhawk Films catalog, which released many Melies films to the pre-VHS home film market on Super 8 and 16mm. It’s pretty much thanks to Blackhawk that you and I have been able to see any of this stuff for the last 30 or 40 years. And Lobster is justly lauded for their preservation work in general, and is more’s to the point is responsible for the recovery in recent years not only of hitherto lost Melies films, but treasures such as elongated and long-lost hand-colored prints of well-known classics like A Trip to the Moon and Conquest of the Pole.
The collection was compiled from archives in eight countries (among them the Academy Archives, the British Film Institute, and various private collections) and includes many spectacular new restorations, some reportedly newly pieced together from fragmentary prints for this project. The set includes examples not only of Méliès’ countless trick films and fantasy spectaculars, but also his actualities, recreations of historic events (foreshadowing future newsreels), and even some of his erotic films (or at least erotic for the time). Also included, since it’s pretty much required of such a thing, is Georges Franju’s loving 1953 tribute, Le Grand Méliès, starring André Méliès as his father. A booklet is also included, with writings by the great animator Norman McLaren and scholar John Frazer, author of the excellent (and best) Melies study, Artificially Arranged Scenes (1979) — which is sadly long out of print and, worse, rare as hen’s teeth.
An especially wonderful aspect of this set is the fact that thirteen of the films are presented with English renditions of Melies’ original narrations, which he usually performed personally. (This is particularly welcome for some films which otherwise make little or no sense, such as The Good Sheperdess And The Evil Princess from 1908.) These narrative texts have been the Grail for Melies fans and scholars — their inclusion here is a major contribution to cinema history in itself.
Here in Seattle, Scarecrow Video already has a copy for rent (though you’ll have to wait until I return it in a few days). Today, I’m a kid in a candy store and my dream has come true. “Thanks, Santa!! Now about that lottery thing I keep mentioning…”
Some Early Reviews
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01.07.08
Posted in DVDs, Animation, Experimental Film, Seattle Stuff at 11:58 pm by Spencer
My old pal Hell’s Donut House just directed me to this excellent news from Brett Ingram, recently posted at Idiot Bastard Son, a Frank Zappa fan site:
In the next few months, Bright Eye Pictures will release Bruce Bickford’s Prometheus’ Garden, the first film over which Bickford maintained 100% artistic control.
Prometheus’ Garden is a 28-minute stop-motion film utilizing clay puppets and sets, cutouts, replacement series, aluminum foil, “strato-cut” slices, molten wax, and other techniques. The film is (very) loosely based on the Greek myth of Prometheus — an immortal who (in some versions of the story) created the first mortals out of clay. Bickford’s incorporation of this myth into his animated film includes appearances by Vikings, cowboys, Vietnam War era mercenaries, imps, elves, fairies, and countless other historical and mythological creatures.
Prometheus’ Garden, like most of Bickford’s later films, is an unscripted stream of consciousness animated over the course of years. Bickford began work on Prometheus immediately after the release of Frank Zappa’s film Baby Snakes in 1980. Prometheus’ Garden was completed by Bickford in 1988.
I recently recorded Bickford’s (characteristically dry-witted) commentary tracks for the upcoming DVD and began production on “extra” elements — including the documentary featurette, Luck Of A Foghorn. This new half hour documentary will take viewers behind the scenes and into the mind of Bickford. I shot miles of film while making Monster Road (the documentary feature I made about Bickford) and most of this footage has never seen the light of day. Luck Of A Foghorn will unearth these images along with footage from the making of Prometheus. Laird Dixon (from Shark Quest) has created an original score for Luck Of A Foghorn and it is hauntingly beautiful. The title of the featurette originates from a surreal day dream Bickford had while hovering near death with pneumonia in hospital.
I hope to have the DVD ready for sale on the Bright Eye Pictures site (along with Monster Road) no later than February 1, 2008. [See update, below.] Bickford has several films that have hovered near completion for years. Hopefully, the release of Prometheus’ Garden will spark a chain reaction so that Bickford’s recent work can find the audience it deserves.
As readers of Mugu Brainpan may recall, I’m huge fan of Bickford’s truly amazing animation (to wit and thus). It is my considered opinion that he is one of the greatest animators ever, as well as among the greats of visionary film more generally.
The reclusive filmmaker, who lives in the Seattle area, garnered some well-deserved attention thanks to the excellent aforementioned documentary, Monster Road (2005), after many years of grossly undeserved obscurity (not helped, I’m sad to say, by copyright snarls involving the Zappa estate). Following that release, Bruce surfaced in 2006 with an all-too-small spate of rare screenings and public appearances in Baltimore and Seattle, including a May 2006 screening at the Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery that included a recently completed new work of line animation.
The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore included clay sculptures and projections by Bickford in Home & Beast, an exhibition that opened in October 2006 and ran for a year. His work was featured alongside paintings by William Kurelek in a gallery of the exhibit titled “Home Sweet Home,” described by the Museum as exploring “memories of home life and what, in fact, constitutes a home.”
Since precious few of Bickford’s astonishing film works are in circulation (and not even Canyon Cinema includes him in their legendary catalog of avant garde works), news of this DVD release is very good indeed. Keep an eye out, and kindly ask for it at your neighborhood video outlet.
Update: Brett Ingram recently announced on his blog that release of this DVD has been delayed (again), as he works to complete editing on Luck of a Foghorn: The Making of Prometheus’ Garden. Once completed, the whole shebang will still need to be mastered and duplicated, so it will be some weeks (at best) before the disc sees the light of day. Brett also announced he is launching a new web site, BrettIngram.org (still very much under construction, so don’t order yet), that will offer direct-sale copies of the Prometheus’ Garden DVD, as well as the collectors’ edition of Monster Road, his aforementioned (and excellent) documentary about Bruce Bickford. Watch this space for further info.
Bruce Bickford Films on Home Video
Baby Snakes (1979 - released on DVD in 2003) — A Frank Zappa concert film that includes several segments of Bickford’s animation. The most widely-seen examples of Bruce’s work.
The Amazing Mr. Bickford (1987, VHS - out of print) — A superlative anthology inexcusably unavailable on DVD. In Seattle, Scarecrow Video has a copy for rent (with deposit). Used copies also occasionally surface on eBay.
The Dub Room Special (1982 - released on DVD in 2005) — A sadly ill-fated TV special by Frank Zappa that, along with some great concert footage, includes various snippets of animation by Bickford.
Monster Road (2005 - released on DVD in 2006) — An excellent and endearing documentary that takes us into Bickford’s very private world. The DVD includes a number of his short films as extras, including spectacular examples of his line animation.
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11.22.07
Posted in Cinema, DVDs at 4:34 pm by Spencer
“When Francis comes this weekend…I will say, Don’t be scared. Remember those guys that jumped out of the windows when the stock market crashed? They thought they were their money. You are not your movie. If people think it is great, you are not God. If people think it stinks, you are not a fool. You are a human being who gave it everything you had. You didn’t spare anything, or anybody, including yourself. There is no more courageous act than that.”
– Eleanor Coppola, Feb. 17, 1978 diary entry written during the editing of Apocalypse Now. As published in Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now (Limelight Editions, 1991), p. 237.
“I swallowed a bug.”
– Marlon Brando, in an outtake from Apocalypse Now included in Hearts of Darkness.
I gather that news of this has been burbling around for a month or so, but at long last an official DVD edition of the remarkable film Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991) hit the streets on Nov. 20. (Read the official press release from Paramount Home Video.) The overwhelming consensus among fans, reviewers, and bloggers is “it’s about damn time.” The film has been out of circulation (except, of course, for fading collectors’ copies and cherished bootlegs) since it was released on VHS in 1991. That it was not included in the 2006 “Complete Dossier Edition” of Apocalypse Now was a universally-noted surprise and huge disappointment.
This new DVD release is uncut (whew!), in the original 1:33 aspect ratio, and includes commentaries by Francis and Eleanor Coppola, as well as CODA: Thirty Years Later, a new promotional documentary by Eleanor about the production of Francis’ first film in 10 years, Youth Without Youth, which has been beset with its own trials and travails. CODA enjoyed a brief round of theatrical screenings, mainly on the festival and special-venue circuit, this past spring. I’ve not seen it yet but, from what I can gather from online reviews, notwithstanding its title it has little or nothing to do with Apocalypse Now, Hearts of Darkness, or the impact of either or both on Francis as a film artist. [Update: On first viewing I did not find CODA very engaging, especially after watching Hearts. Maybe it will be better the second time, without having to suffer the fate of following the headlining act.]
Here in Seattle, the Hearts of Darkness DVD is available at Scarecrow Video (natch) and I’m sure it’s available at most decent mass-market video retailers. It can also be found at Amazon (currently for 25% off SRP). I may just have to make a special exception for Buy Nothing Day. [I did. I mean, c’mon! I’ve only waited a decade for it, fer cryin’ out loud.]
In case you’ve been living under a rock (or maybe are just in your 20s), Hearts of Darkness is a feature-length documentary (originally produced for Showtime but later released theatrically) about the legendarily-troubled making of Apocalypse Now, working largely from behind-the-scenes footage and written and audio diaries kept throughout the extended production by Francis Ford Coppola’s wife Eleanor, who also narrates. Production outtakes as well as interviews filmed well after the fact add further substance. It is a no-holds-barred, harrowing, and often brutally honest visit behind the curtain of a film production that mirrored the through-the-lookingglass insanity of the Vietnam war it depicted, and the entire era and cultural seismic shift that war came to signify. It is every bit as brave and unflinching as Apocalypse Now. Which is saying something.
I’ve long maintained (and I’m not alone) that Hearts of Darkness is not only the best “making-of” documentary ever made, but probably one of the best films about filmmaking, period — even if its subject can hardly be considered a typical production. The only close contenders that come to my mind are Les Blank’s masterful Burden of Dreams (1982, available from Criterion), about the making of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcaraldo; the unjustly-obscure Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (1988, included on Kino’s DVD of The Sacrifice), Michal Leszczylowki’s remarkable documentary following the great director during production of The Sacrifice, made while Tarkovsky was dying from cancer; and probably RKO 281: The Battle Over Citizen Kane (1996), the PBS American Experience documentary later included on the 2001 remastered DVD edition of Citizen Kane.
(Wim Wenders’ excellent and moving Lightning Over Water (1980) is also worthy of mention in this context, although it is ultimately more of a deeply personal essay/documentary about Nicholas Ray’s final struggle with terminal cancer, also serving as a kind of platform for a meditation on creativity and what it means to be an artist. A phenomenal if almost-unknown film that you really must see.)
Like its subject, Hearts of Darkness has suffered its own troubled history. Despite its being hailed by critics and audiences alike during its initial runs on cable and then in theaters, it rather mysteriously vanished after its home video release. Once the DVD format took hold, it routinely appeared on lists of most-desired “lost” films.
Following the release of the (in-)Complete Dossier set, it finally emerged that Francis Coppola himself was opposed to Hearts being circulated. George Hickenlooper, who co-directed along with Fax Bahr and Eleanor Coppola, said in a 2006 message forwarded to an IMDB discussion thread that Francis felt “the film is not a flattering portrait of him”. Around that time I located interview quotes from Francis (which, alas, I cannot now track down) that confirmed he felt the films was unfair in key respects.
At that time (2006), Hickenlooper made it known that he was striving (unsuccessfully) to convince Francis to sign off on a DVD re-release of Hearts, and that he (Hickenlooper) had been having discussions with Criterion along those lines. This was greeted with jubilation by fans, albeit tempered by the knowledge of the Coppolas’ strong resistance.
In the end, Criterion did not get the contract, with Paramount handling this new release. What’s more, Hickenlooper reports (in a comment thread at Hollywood-Elsewhere.com) that he had no advance knowledge of the release, learning of it only after stumbling upon a press release on the Web. Clearly there is still bad blood betwixt them all. As a result of his being excluded from the project (or even told of it), the DVD does not include commentary from Hickenlooper — a significant shortcoming. Others in the aforementioned comment thread have suggested/invited him to record his own commentary for distribution as a free MP3 (as Darren Aranofsky recently did following the bare-bones DVD release of his latest, The Fountain). No official announcement as yet, but he sounded very open to the idea.
Its disheartening to learn of abiding acrimony amongst the creators of such a remarkable film. But the saddest news about this new release has to be the poor quality of the image, noted in reviews on the DVD Beaver and DVD Talk web sites. Part of this is certainly due to the original source material — 16mm film shot in the humid torpor of the Philippines, un-mastered raw outtakes from Apocalypse Now, and even mid-’70s-vintage video tape…all of which were already more than 10 years old when Hearts of Darkness was made.
However, it is reported (by Hickenlooper anyway) that the print source for this DVD was the very same one-inch video transfer made for the 1991 VHS release. Video capture tech has obviously improved considerably in the last 16-odd years, nevermind inevitable deterioration that time brings to video. But worse still, Paramount apparently did not give it even a cursory digital touch-up before shoving it out the door. As a result, says DVD Talk’s Preston Jones, the quality “is only a step or two above my VHS copy of the film. The ragged, worn look does evoke the proper atmosphere, but the screens of text lack sharpness and often the newer interview segments look flat and a bit washed-out.”
Nevertheless, Jones avers that “it might just be enough that it’s on disc” at long last, and concludes this release is still “essential viewing” and “highly recommended.” Indeed.
Update: After watching the DVD, the transfer quality ain’t that bad. Yes, the text is a little mushy, but most of the visual detritus is clearly from the original negatives including (somewhat surprisingly) camera dust on the comparatively newer interview footage.
Meanwhile, the message boards and blogs are rife with (perhaps justifiably) cynical speculation that 2009 (being the 30th anniversary) will bring yet another “complete” box set that finally brings together the original and Redux versions of Apocalypse Now and Hearts of Darkness, perhaps on whatever HD format inches ahead by then. We’ll see. (It’s worth noting in this context that, according to Coppola, the original negative of the 1979 version literally no longer exists. In one of the extras on the 2006 “Complete Dossier” edition, he explains that when Redux was made, he and editor Walter Murch actually dissected the final-cut of the original AN and combined it with the additional footage.)
Films, like people, can sometimes be “black sheep relatives.” Funny thing, though — the “black sheep” are often the ones with the truest understanding of the family that banished them, and that often explains their second-class status within the fold. I’m very much looking forward to having a conversation over a few beers with this particular black sheep.
For the record (since it’s a bone of contention/confusion): Hearts of Darkness was directed by Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper, with production documentary footage directed by Eleanor Coppola. Script written by Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper, including significant text and audio quotes from Eleanor Coppola’s production diary (cited above) and contemporaneous personal audio recordings. Clearly the film was a collaborative effort, with all parties contributing significantly, and all said parties should be encouraged to get over themselves. Movies are always a joint effort, wot?
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03.21.07
Posted in Cinema, DVDs, Experimental Film at 8:58 pm by Spencer
May 1, 2007 is the official street date for the long-awaited Alejandro Jodorowsky DVD box set, The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky. (See related posts from this here blog.) The MSRP is $49.98 (do retailers still think we think that doesn’t mean $50??), but if you poke around you can find web sites offering presales for less.
Beware, tho — one asshole with an Amazon shop is actually trying to sell this for $165 — a more than 440% markup over the MSRP. The jerk even claims it’s “in stock” and that you can “buy with confidence.” Suffice to say, never buy anything from the ImportCDs_Com Amazon shop! No doubt other scamming shitbags are out there trying to prey on unknowning Jodorowsky fans, so caveat emptor my friends.
It should also be noted that the title of the box set is slightly misleading — it does not include all of the films made by Jodorowsky, tho his best ones are indeed represented.
Ahem. So getting back to the happier news, this is the first-ever US home video release (let alone on DVD) of Jodorowsky’s masterworks, El Topo and The Holy Mountain — previously available (legally) only on Italian Region 2 import DVDs and older Japanese import VHS and Laserdisk (and in the latter instances only with blurred nasty bits) — plus his first feature, Fando y Lis, soundtrack CDs, and a boat-load of delicious extras (see below). You can buy singleton DVDs of El Topo and The Holy Mountain, but at $19 a pop MSRP you really really should spring the extra 10 lousy bucks for the box — or even less for the aforementioned discounted presales. Seriously, yo.
All three of the features have been newly-remastered to HD specifications from the original negatives, personally supervised by Jodorowsky himself. This includes Fando y Lis, which was released on Region 1 DVD by Fantoma (in a very fine edition, I might add) in 2003.
Inexplicably — and rather inexcusably — Anchor Bay (the label handling the releases) has zero, and I mean zero, info on their site. But following below is the full text of the press release with full details of the extras (including deleted scenes from Holy Mountain!), et cetera, courtesy of DVDsnapshot.com. (A slightly truncated version, minus the company self-promo babble, was posted way back in January by Fangoria.com — so full props to them, they who well corrupted my young mind back in the pre-Web ’80s.)
FROM ABKCO FILMS: THREE CLASSICS OF CINEMATIC SURREALISM FROM “MIDNIGHT MOVIE” PIONEER ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY — EL TOPO, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN AND FANDO Y LIS DISTRIBUTED BY ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT!
PREMIERING ON DVD MAY 1st [2007] WITH EXCLUSIVE NEVER-BEFORE SEEN EXTRAS!
New York, NY – On May 1, 2007 ABKCO Films will release Alejandro Jodorowsky’s trio of mind-bending classics, El Topo, The Holy Mountain and Fando Y Lis, on DVD for the first time ever [sic]. These astonishing films, which have been fully restored and remastered, will be available as a special limited edition collector’s box set featuring exclusive rare bonus materials. The box set will be available for an SRP of $49.98, with El Topo and The Holy Mountain also available separately at $24.98 each. [Note: Various online retailers are offering these individual titles for less than $20 each.]
Originally released in 1970, El Topo quickly caught the imagination of movie audiences, becoming a landmark in independent film-making. The early screenings at New York’s Elgin Theater sparked the Midnight Movie phenomena, catalyzed by an endorsement from John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Classic Americana and avant-garde European sensibilities collide with Zen Buddhism and the Bible as master gunfighter and mystic El Topo (played by writer/director Alejandro Jodorowsky) tries to defeat four sharp-shooting rivals on a bizarre path to allegorical self-awareness and resurrection. As it seeks an alternative to the Hollywood mainstream, El Topo is also the most controversial quasi-Western head trip ever made!
Jodorowsky’s high budget follow up effort, The Holy Mountain, takes his psychedelic allegorical mastery to another level. Grotesque, mystical and sacrilegious, it is an excursion into the meaning of earthly wealth and immortality.
Rounding out this unique set is Jodorowsky’s first full-length feature film, Fando Y Lis. Based on Jodorowsky’s memories of a play by surrealist Fernando Arrabal, it caused an uproar in the avant-garde community when it premiered in 1967 in Acapulco.
Among the extras included in this collector’s box is previously unseen footage, a feature on the restoration process, an exclusive interview with Jodorowsky, optional director commentary tracks, subtitles, two special CDs of the films’ soundtracks and a separate DVD of the first film ever made by Jodorowsky, La Cravate.
EL TOPO:
Digitally restored to HD from original negative
Original Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
5.1 Dolby & 2.0 Stereo
Original Feature Language: Spanish
Optional Subtitles: EN, SP, FR & BR PORT
Optional commentary track by Director (Language: Spanish with optional EN, SP, FR & BR PORT subtitles)
Optional English overdub track
THE HOLY MOUNTAIN:
2K scanned digitally restored to 35mm & HD
Original Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Enhanced for 16×9
5.1 Dolby & 2.0 Stereo
Original Feature Language: English
Optional Subtitles: EN, SP, FR & BR PORT
Optional commentary track by Director (Language: Spanish with optional EN, SP, FR & BR PORT subtitles)
FANDO Y LIS
Digitally restored from original negative
Original Aspect Ratio 1.66:1 Letterboxed
Original Language: Spanish
Optional Subtitles: EN, SP, FR & BR PORT
Optional commentary track by Director (Language: Spanish with optional EN, SP, FR & BR PORT subtitles)
EXTRAS -
EL TOPO:
-Original theatrical trailer- English V.O.
-2006 on camera interview with Jodorowsky (Language English/English subtitles)
-Photo Gallery/Original script excerpts
-Exclusive interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky
THE HOLY MOUNTAIN:
- Deleted scenes with director commentary (Language: Spanish with optional EN, SP, FR & BR PORT subtitles)
- Original theatrical trailer -English V.O
- The Tarot short with director commentary (Language: Spanish with optional EN, SP, FR & BR PORT subtitles)
- Restoration process short (Original Language English)
- Photo Gallery / Original Script excerpts
- Restoration Credits
BOX SET EXTRAS:
FANDO Y LIS
-La Constellation Jodorowsky documentary
-Original language French and English Stereo
TWO AUDIO CDs
- El Topo soundtrack
- The Holy Mountain soundtrack
LA CRAVATE
- Alejandro Jodorowsky’s first film
- Never released before
Street Date: May 1, 2007
Runtime: EL TOPO: 125 minutes
THE HOLY MOUNTAIN: 114 minutes
FANDO Y LIS: 93 minutes
Price: Box set $49.98, EL TOPO, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN $24.98 each when purchased separately
Language: Varied, see above
Subtitles: Varied, see above
Available at: Retailers Nationwide
ABKCO Films has been involved with many successful movies including La Grande Bouffe (winner of the International Critics prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival), The Greek Tycoon starring Anthony Quinn and Jacqueline Bisset, The Concert for Bangladesh featuring Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr. In 2003 ABKCO won a Grammy for their DVD release of Sam Cooke – Legend and the following year released on DVD The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus to critical acclaim.
ABKCO Films is a division of ABKCO Music and Records, one of the leading independent record companies in the world. It is home to critical catalogue assets that include recordings by Sam Cooke, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, Herman’s Hermits, Marianne Faithfull, The Kinks as well as the Cameo Parkway label, which include the master recordings of artists such as Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, The Orlons, The Dovells, The Tymes, Charlie Grace and Dee Dee Sharp. www.abkcofilms.com / www.abkco.com.
Anchor Bay Entertainment is distributed by Starz Home Entertainment, a division of Starz Media. Starz Media, LLC, is a programming production and distribution company operating worldwide. It includes the Film Roman, Anchor Bay Entertainment, and Manga Entertainment brands. Its units create animated and live-action programming — including theatrical films — and programming created under contract for other media companies. It distributes that programming, and programming acquired from outside producers, through home video retailers, theaters, broadcasters, ad supported and premium television channels, and Internet and wireless video distributors in the US and internationally. Starz Media is an operating unit of Starz, LLC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation that is attributed to Liberty Capital Group.
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02.17.07
Posted in Cinema, DVDs, Sci-Fi and Horror Flix at 8:22 pm by Spencer
Last year was a great one for classic Japanese monster flicks on coming out on home video.
Classic Media released very fine DVD versions of three early Godzilla flicks that have been unavailable State-side for many years, and even those were never widescreen and generally were crappy transfers besides. All of their releases are in nifty hard-back cases, and feature both the Japanese (with newly translated subtitles) and US versions in widescreen. Gojira (1954) and Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) came in a 2-disc set with various extras, while Godzilla Raids Again (1955) / Gigantis the Fire Monster (1959) and Mothra vs. Godzilla / Godzilla vs. the Thing (1964) came as single-disc packages with fewer extras. (Tip: the latter two are, strangely, only available directly from Classic Media’s tie-in site, GodzillaOnDVD.com, and have recently been marked down. Also interlacing issues on some early copies of Godzilla Raids Again have been resolved.)
Anyway, the point is Classic Media has the US rights for four more original-series Godzilla films, including many of the very best, and will be giving all of them the same quality treatment. All of these are scheduled to be released this year both individually and as part of a huge multidisc set comprising the whole lot. Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) and Invasion of Astro Monster / Godzilla vs. Monster Zero (1965) are both scheduled to be released in June — so definitely keep an eye out for those.
Street dates have not yet been announced for All Monsters Attack / Godzilla’s Revenge (1969) — an absolutely awful kid-flick comprised mainly of stock footage and really not worth your time — and the long-awaited US release of Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975), the superior sequel to Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) and the last of the Godzilla films to be directed by originator Ishiro Honda (who went on to, among other things, assistant direct on Akira Kurosawa’s Ran).
Also noteworthy is that Classic Media will be following those with releases of Rodan (1956) — which suffered a truly horrible DVD fate at the hands of the notorious Scimitar in the ’90s — and the unjustly negelected War of the Gargantuas (1966), a sort-of sequel to Frankenstein Conquers the World which was last released here on pan-and-scan VHS prolly 15 years ago.
Meanwhile, the Tokyo Shock imprint of Media Blasters are no slouches either — au contraire! — with recent high-quality releases of excellent Toho films like Matango (aka Attack of the Mushroom People), The Mysterians and Atragon. They’re playing it close with street dates, but sometime this year they will offer a Region 1 release of Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965), an intriguing and mostly-successful effort that I don’t believe has ever been released on Stateside home video of any kind…at least, not legally. Will it include the famous lost giant octopus sequence?? Stay tuned to find out. Also in their queue for 2007 is another fine obscurity beloved of serious Toho fans, Latitude Zero (1969) — which stars Joseph Cotton and Cesar Romero. I shit thee not.
If you’re so inclined, you can keep up with announced street dates for these and other Toho flicks at the Toho Kingdom site.
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01.03.07
Posted in Cinema, Events, DVDs, Experimental Film at 11:30 pm by Spencer
As readers of this here blog hopefully know by now, El Topo and The Holy Mountain are currently hitting the road for what is certainly their first US theatrical run since their release in the early ’70s — if not ever. (Distribution was, I understand, spotty even at the time and I half-deduce their original runs were extremely limited, perhaps even to just a couple-few of the larger cities, tho I could have that wrong. And I’ve no idea how extensive European distro was. Jodorowsky experts are encouraged to correct me.)
As I’ve also mentioned, this is in advance of their release (along with Fando y Lis) as a legal (!!) DVD box-set.
For Jodorowsky fans, no matter their nationality, simply seeing these baroque psychedelic mind-bombs in an honest-to-god theater at all is one of the rarest of cinema treats, like a UFO landing, hitherto restricted only to the not-very-occasional film festival having to make do, usually, with battered old prints.
But the even bigger ballyhoo in this case is the films’ status as freshly, lavishly, HD-digitally restored jewels with the direct participation and supervision of Jodorowsky himself. Naturally, as a true film nerd, I wanted to know: we will be seeing new prints of the new restorations?!?!
Turns out, this is a trickier question than meets the mind’s eye. Alan Klein’s ABKCO Films, which owns the rights to the films (itself a minor saga), is being somewhat parsimonious with the information. The company’s web site, while featuring only information about the new releases, provides only plot descriptions (*cough*) and not one single solitary word about the restorations. Very strange publicity ploy, n’est ce pas?
Further confusing things was the December run of El Topo in New York City at the IFC Center (once the famed Waverly Theater, yes the one in the lyric from Hair). As discussed in an earlier post, the copy IFC ran was digitally projected HDcam tape, not film. With digital, about 75% of your experience depends on the quality of the projector, but HDcam tape is probably one of the best projection sources you can hope to get. But…it ain’t film, and despite the enormous strides made in digital projection in the last decade (both theatrical and home-style), it still does not come close to a quality film print — a fact noted by some who saw screenings there.
Things were bemurked further still by a comment to my post by a “John” (who claimed to be “Davis” in his nearly-verbatim comment on another blog). “John”, speaking with self-assured authority, stated categorically that “for better or worse, there are no 35mm prints from this new 2006 restoration.” When commenting as “Davis” at notcoming.com, he stated “while IFC Center would have preferred to have shown a brand new 35mm print from this Jodorowsky-authorized restoration, such a print does not and will not exist.” (I later deduced he was referring specifically to El Topo.)
Well stop the damn presses, I thought. WTF?? Are we getting chopped liver, or what? And who is this “John”/”Davis” guy anyway, and how the hell does he know? From the sound of things, it seemed like he might be an IFC flack or maybe just a defensive staffer “moonlighting” on his own.
So, I cruised the web sites of the other venues ABKCO lists as hosting this Jodorowsky film roadshow. They all trumpeted the restoration, but the screening prints themselves were often unaddressed — perhaps making the same, possibly erroneous, assumption I had made? The Music Box in Chicago said “new print” for one film but not the other, The Castro in SanFran proclaimed “New 35mm Prints!” (plural), and a buddy of mine at the Grand Illusion told me they were under the impression/assumption they would be new prints (plural)…but when it came down to it they weren’t positive. As a regular parser of politician-speak, I knew a skillfully unanswered question when I saw one.
So, just before xmas I sent an email to the press contact address on the ABKCO site, explaining the conflicting information I’d gleaned and asking for clarification. Were they sending out film prints or digital? Or both? If print(s), were it/they old or new? And while yer at it, got anything to share about the restoration tech trip? Well, so far no reply, though in fairness I did write just before the holiday week.
But a funny thing happened. As related to me, ABKCO contacted the Grand Illusion’s programmer (who happens to have the same first name as me, albeit with the different “second-S” spelling) and revealed unto him the nature of the prints that will be circulating during this roadshow, and thus coming to Seattle in February.
Drum-Roll Please…
So…as per ABKCO, to me via the grapevine:
El Topo will be a newly-struck 35mm print of the 1996 optical restoration. It will not, alas, be the brand-new restoration recently completed. (Or maybe, I theorize, that restoration is not quite complete or wasn’t completed in time for prints to be converted and stuck. That might explain the HDcam digital screening in NYC.) So far I’ve not been able to scrape up doodly about the 1996 restoration, but according to the mysterious “James”/”Davis” dude, it “was done without Jodorowsky’s participation and is very different (in terms of color corrects, sound mix, etc.) from the new digital version.” With no other context or info, it’s impossible to know if that’s actually as dire as he seems to imply. That said, I seriously doubt even the mercurial ABKCO would release a truly crappy version of El Topo to promote their super-lush DVD release…tho, of course, anything is possible when you get down to it.
But rejoice still, for The Holy Mountain will be a brand new 35mm print of the new digital restoration! This is glorious news, indeed, as the colors and music in that film were jaw-dropping even in the fairly battered print I saw (once, ca. 1987). Also, the latter print (which I gather from Googled press snips appeared every once in a great while at other fests) had no soundtrack at all for at least one full reel. So at last, I will finally get to see a complete film print of this masterpiece.
In both cases, my source tells me, these new prints are merely months old (even if the reportedly-substandard El Topo neg just celebrated its 10th b-day).
El Topo was shot in 1.85:1 and Holy Mountain was shot in scope (2.35:1), and I’m assuming the original aspect ratios have been preserved. Please note that both films were originally produced with mono soundtracks, so do not be disappointed that they are not stereo.
I do not know what lab produced the prints (or the ‘96 restoration of El Topo for that matter), but a little trolling at IMDB revealed that Postworks, New York provided 2K HD restoration and color correction services for the newest digital versions of the films.
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08.10.06
Posted in Cinema, What I'm Reading, Silent Films, DVDs, Cinema History, Experimental Film, Books at 8:57 pm by Spencer
Okay. A commercial plug, I know, but trust me on this one. As all good video store vultures know, the legendary Anthology Film Archives in NYC recently released the astonish 7 DVD collection, Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1894-1941. Some 155 amazing films are anthologized in volumes with a general theme. Almost even more impressive, sixty of the world’s greatest film archives contributed to the the box set’s 17 hour total running time, including MOMA, George Eastman House, Library of Congress, the Blackhawk Collection, BFI, the Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt, the Douris Collection, and of course the aforementioned Anthology Film Archives, among many others at least as impressive.
To call Unseen Cinema an essential release, a cultural landmark, one to skimp on the light bill for, is obviously an understatement. Fortunately, the whole thing is also an utter delight. I’d even hold it to the Anthology of American Folk Music. Early DW Griffith “primitives” and Edison trick films sit side-by-side with well-known Dada and 1960s experimental films, more obscure delicacies and underground legends and, best of all, a sizable percentage of “amateur” films like the highly advanced collage films of Joseph Cornell.
A densely-typeset 16-page overarching essay by the anthology’s curator Bruce Posner is included, but otherwise the packaging is minimal — titles, years when available, filmmakers’ names, composers, some administrivia.
Turns out there’s an Unseen Cinema companion book you can order, which I’ve not seen around nor heard of until I bought the set. At a measley $15 (sale price) I strongly encourage anyone with an interest in this sort of stuff to stop by the official Unseen Cinema web site and get one. Beats buying it for 35 in few years. Having received my copy, I can say it not only stands on its own with or without the amazing multi-DVD set, it’s one of the very best books published on the history of experimental film, period.
The Unseen Cinema series catalog is a dense 160 pages, softbound, illustrated, and in their words…
…features 30 essays, articles, and documents and 65 annotated photographs. Authors are scholars, critics, and filmmakers whose knowledge of the early avant-garde derives from either direct experience as a participant or years of scholarly research. Many hard-to-find photographs and sources detail the first decades of American experimental cinema in the United States and abroad.
See? I’m sayin’. I mean it includes an essay on “The Artistic Process” by Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker, for crying out loud.
What’s unusual is the sales site offers two pricing tiers for the book — the slightly more expensive one (the price I just quoted) which includes a small bump for Anthology Film Archives’ continuing preservation work, or a cheaper one 35% off retail but minus the 25% donation to support film preservation.
So mind you: if any one of youse stoops to paying the cheaper price, you’ll burn in hell for it.
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06.19.06
Posted in Cinema, Silent Films, DVDs, Cinema History, Early Sound Cinema at 9:19 pm by Spencer
While doing a little research on Georges Méliès this weekend, I learned of Lobster Films. (Site in English et Francais, but beware — most pages have embedded Quicktimes, and the lame Javascript “faux frames” text-scrolling doodad does not work until the damn movie loads all the way.) Call me slow on the draw, but somehow I had not heard of them before.
This amazing French private archive and restoration lab, helmed by Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange, holds some 20,000 rare, old films — a number of them unspeakably rare, as in “sole surviving print” rare. What led me to them was learning, for example, that in 1999 they discovered 250 nitrate prints (some 200 pounds!) made between 1896 and 1903 stashed in a cupboard in an old French house up for sale. They were only able to save 98 of the films, but amidst the cache were no less than 17 Melies films previously thought to have been lost forever. (Alas, extensive Googling produced no list of titles, dag blast it.)
In 2002, Bromberg found in Spain the longest print known — hand-colored and tinted no less — of A Trip to the Moon, running a full 25 minutes. Better yet, they were able to save and restore the film (mostly: the 100 year old nitrate was apparently in pretty bad shape) and premiered it at a free open air screening in downtown Paris.
In recent years Bromberg has been taking portions of the Lobster Films archive on the festival circuit, mainly in Europe (particularly Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, aka the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, in Italy), but with occasional stops Stateside in NY City and at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
I was also pleased to learn that Lobster Films has produced a series of DVDs, Retour de Flamme volumes one through 4 (scroll down at that link for links to other volumes). These drool-inducing collections of short films from various periods are thoughtfully produced with both French and English language options. There is also (brace yourself) Les Premiers pas du Cinéma (”First Steps of Cinema”), a 2-DVD set of early color and sound films with material dating as far back as 1898. The damn thing even has 1908 sound films of freakin’ Caruso singing!
The catch? Not a one of those is available in the States and they are all Zone 2 (so you’ll need a all-region player). Thanks to l’internet you can buy them from French online retailers such as Amazon.fr (which has help info, including overseas shipping details, in English), Alapage.fr, or Heeza.
If that doesn’t suit you for whatever reason, you can still get an appreciation for the fine work that Lobster Films is doing by checking out the fantastic Charley Bowers 2-disc set, as well as their collaboration with Kino on some pretty great-looking silent comedy and slapstick collections.
Bon appetit, mes amis!
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