969 Diamonds of the Night
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
- Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
- Location: SLC, UT
969 Diamonds of the Night
Diamonds of the Night
With this simultaneously harrowing and lyrical debut feature, Jan Němec established himself as the most uncompromising visionary among the radical filmmakers who made up the Czechoslovak New Wave. Adapted from a novel by Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night closely tracks two boys who escape from a concentration-camp transport and flee into the surrounding woods, a hostile terrain where the brute realities of survival coexist with dreams, memories, and fragments of visual poetry. Along with visceral camera work by Jaroslav Kučera and Miroslav Ondříček—two of Czechoslovak cinema's most influential cinematographers—Němec makes inventive use of fractured editing, elliptical storytelling, and flights of surrealism as he strips context away from this bare-bones tale, evoking the dizzying plight of consciousness lost in night and fog.
SPECIAL FEATURES
• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Interview from 2009 with director Jan Němec
• A Loaf of Bread, Němec's 1960 student thesis film, based on a short story by Arnošt Lustig
• Arnošt Lustig Through the Eyes of Jan Němec, a short documentary on Lustig from 1993
• New interview with film programmer Irena Kovarova
• New video essay on the film's stylistic influences by scholar James Quandt
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Michael Atkinson
With this simultaneously harrowing and lyrical debut feature, Jan Němec established himself as the most uncompromising visionary among the radical filmmakers who made up the Czechoslovak New Wave. Adapted from a novel by Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night closely tracks two boys who escape from a concentration-camp transport and flee into the surrounding woods, a hostile terrain where the brute realities of survival coexist with dreams, memories, and fragments of visual poetry. Along with visceral camera work by Jaroslav Kučera and Miroslav Ondříček—two of Czechoslovak cinema's most influential cinematographers—Němec makes inventive use of fractured editing, elliptical storytelling, and flights of surrealism as he strips context away from this bare-bones tale, evoking the dizzying plight of consciousness lost in night and fog.
SPECIAL FEATURES
• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Interview from 2009 with director Jan Němec
• A Loaf of Bread, Němec's 1960 student thesis film, based on a short story by Arnošt Lustig
• Arnošt Lustig Through the Eyes of Jan Němec, a short documentary on Lustig from 1993
• New interview with film programmer Irena Kovarova
• New video essay on the film's stylistic influences by scholar James Quandt
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Michael Atkinson
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- Joined: Wed May 01, 2013 1:27 pm
Re: 969 Diamonds of the Night
Oh great a film already getting a region free release!!!
- MichaelB
- Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
- Location: Worthing
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Re: 969 Diamonds of the Night
It'll be the same 4K restoration as the one featured on the Second Run disc, and the supplements look more or less comparable in terms of content (there'll certainly be a hefty overlap even if the presentation is different), so I'd go for whichever's cheapest.
- TMDaines
- Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:01 pm
- Location: Stretford, Manchester
Re: 969 Diamonds of the Night
No buys.
- Gregory
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm
Re: 969 Diamonds of the Night
I'll probably opt for the Second Run alternative too, but I'm still happy this is getting a Criterion release. Němec getting a spine number (rather than just a film included in an Eclipse set) should raise his profile a bit and lead to more people checking out this amazing film. I don't believe there was ever any kind of North American release of it on DVD before this, though there was probably a prohibitively expensive Facets VHS eons ago. My introduction to it was the Czech DVD, in which it shared the disc with Forman's Konkurs, and of course some non-importers will be familiar with it from the career retrospective that toured several years back. I'm glad it's finally getting the releases it deserves.
Last edited by Gregory on Tue Jan 15, 2019 7:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
- MichaelB
- Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
- Location: Worthing
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Re: 969 Diamonds of the Night
I'm very happy to confirm that the 4K restoration looks amazing. I have seen the film in 35mm, but nearly three decades ago, and I suspect it wasn't in anything like as good physical condition.
As Gregory says, it's a truly astonishing film, although a real tragedy that political circumstances ended up silencing Němec for so long (he basically made nothing of any creative significance throughout the 1970s and 80s, and none of his post-1990 work had even the merest fraction of the impact of his three great Sixties films). But even if he'd been run over by a tank while shooting his famous Soviet invasion footage in August 1968, Diamonds of the Night and The Party and the Guests would put him up there among the immortals.
As Gregory says, it's a truly astonishing film, although a real tragedy that political circumstances ended up silencing Němec for so long (he basically made nothing of any creative significance throughout the 1970s and 80s, and none of his post-1990 work had even the merest fraction of the impact of his three great Sixties films). But even if he'd been run over by a tank while shooting his famous Soviet invasion footage in August 1968, Diamonds of the Night and The Party and the Guests would put him up there among the immortals.
- FrauBlucher
- Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
- Location: Greenwich Village
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- Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2014 6:49 am
Re: 969 Diamonds of the Night
Looks noticeably better than the Second Run in those shots.
- tenia
- Ask Me About My Bassoon
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am
Re: 969 Diamonds of the Night
Wouldn't say "noticeably better". It seems at best marginally better, and in such cases, I'd be wary of Gary's caps. From all I can see here, grain is slightly better restituted on the Criterion disc, but it seems slightly more contrasted (maybe even too much, possibly blowing up highlights), so it may just be a by-product of this more contrasted look.
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- Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2014 6:49 am
Re: 969 Diamonds of the Night
It is Gary’s caps so with that caveat, it looks noticeably sharper to me and the Second Run in those shots some macroblocking in darker areas. But it could be Gary’s usual issues with caps of non US discs (eg Berlin Alexanderplatz)
- FrauBlucher
- Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
- Location: Greenwich Village