Page of Madness has no need of "restoration". The best print source available (based on Kinugasa's negative -- stored for decades at the bottom of a rice bin) looks quite gorgeous.

That would mean that a DVD should be quicker to release if no restoration is needed?

I assume that the prime source necessary for a good quality Page of Madness still belongs to Kinugasa's heirs. This was an independent project financed by Kinugasa (and maybe Kawabata and other collaborators and friends) -- so it has never belonged to any studio (or other corporation).

Well there's a point of view-- that's a rather muscular statement to make regardless of the quality of the print. (And how did you view the print? And what's up with the "quotation marks", as if you were responding a la Page of Madness has no need of "touchups with watery dog wee" )

Restoration operates in a wide swath of degree. What looks good can always look better when dealing with material like this. Even camera negs from the silent and early sound era with little to no no nitrate decomp or tears benefit from restoration-- that is, careful examination of the source, careful bath processing to remove inevitable dirt and hairs, etc and printing to safety stock... if the original elements are telecine-able, wate-gate transfer to digital to fill unavoidable scratches in the emulsion, stabilizing contrast flickering and black/greyscale, due to the unforgiving years in telecine color correction, etc. As in even far more recent "pristine" camera neg elements of classics like Il Posto or La Grande Illusion, wetgating and color correction always go a long way to restoring a film to it's original release quality. There is simply no way that an 82 year old film's single extant element is in 100% premiere condition... particularly a Japanese film!

How do you, if the source print is pristine, account for the abhorrent quality of the dvd-r rips floating thru back channels. I've seen Grapevine Video vhs's of German & Italian silent films of badly deteriorated source elements that look better than the Kinagusa.

(as a matter of fact, to prove my point, a quick bit of web research revealed the following from the Jigsaw Lounge review of the film after viewing it 7 months ago at the Motovun Film Festival, July 24th 2007, in Croatia:


So the film has been "restored" not once but twice, and so should be quite suitable for dvd release, which I'm sure we're all aching for.

Donald Richie snagged a copy of a print made from Kinugasa's negative (not sure where he got this) and showed it at the Harvard Film Archive several years ago.

When I said it needs no "restoration" I mean the print looked absolutely great. A DVD based on a simple telecine of this would look better than virtually any DVD of a silent film I've seen up to this point. How many silent films have virtually pristine sources?

Not sure of the provenance of the lousy bootleg copies. I seem to recall that a really ratty (and mucked up) version of the film existed elsewhere -- prior to Kinugasa's discovery of his own mislaid materials. But its been a while and I didn't take notes at Richie's presentation. ;~}

I don't claim to be an expert on this film-- few are-- but I'm fairly certain the Kinagusa element is the sole surviving source for this title. That is, it was a completely "lost" film prior to its 1971 rediscovery by the man himself.

So piecing two and two together... the old rips of the film are from the unrestored prints of the film, which is (partly, the other issue being a bit of analog squab thrown in for good measure) the reason it looks so cruddo in superhappyland. The material you have seen which looked like it needed no restoration looked that way quite simply because it had already been restored. And if you havent seen the film projected this year, then obviously someone looked at the source vs the print you viewed and saw room enough for improvement to sink multiples of thousands of dollars, resulting in a new print of the film, barely 7 months old, which seems by the above account to reasonably approximate "premiere quality".

Any silent film, no matter how nice the elements, will benefit from restoration, even if there's little to physically "repair", and there is no need to create a composite from multiple elements to plug junk holes.

I wonder if this upcoming lecture might not provide some information germane to the (off-topic) subsidiary topic here:

Friday, February 22, 4:00 to 5:30pm, LECTURE: Negotiating Cinematic Modernity in Japan: Multiple Versions of "A Page of Madness". With Aaron Gerow, Assistant Professor of Japanese Cinema, Yale University. At Harvard University, CGIS South Bldg, Rm S250, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge. For details, call the Reischauer Institute at Harvard at (617) 495-3220.

I'll go -- but probably won't take notes. ;~}

MEK

Greetings.

A question on the right edge of the film frame:

Does anyone know why there is a lighter,translucent strip that runs along the right edge of each frame? It is very noticeable on my television which has some overscan but not much.

Few internet reviews refer to it though a number show it in the screen captures (e.g. dvdbeaver)

Thanks in advance.

I know exactly what you're talking about.. I used to see it all the time on my old huge Multi Video Labs screen; it's like the images we're seeing is rendered thru a clear grey strip of tinted film, which darkens the film to the appropriate level. As though the film would have been too light without this overlay.

I don't know what it is, I've never seen it before. Maybe it's a filter that was in Mate's lens?

Are all of Dreyer's films as emotionally confusing as this and Vampyr? I'm not sure if I could take them if that is so. Also can anyone expand upon his intentions beyond the blurb in the insert?

What exactly did you find confusing about the film -- emotionally, that is?

It's hard to put into words, and also why I am interested in Dreyer's intent. Essentially during the last thirty minutes or so, tough for me to guess time with this one. I wasn't sure what to think of Joan. Should I have been with the crowds pleading her to sign the note or should I have been happy with her steadfastness. I suppose that problem is funny since it was a foregone conclusion, but again Dreyer messed me up by not letting me understand what he wanted. I'm glad for it, but mightily confused.

Everyone (in the film) wants Joan to sign the recantation, some because it will signify her defeat, others because they don’t want to see her burn. She signs it because she’s scared of dying – hence the ominous shots of the pyre being built, the worm-eaten skull, etc. She goes back to her cell. In place of the pyre, we see ‘entertainments’ break out: the camera tracks across a line of grotesque contortionists. Joan has given up, and the world carries on without her. She is now (pardon the phrase) just another freak, rather than someone who speaks with God. Inside her cell, she sees her crown of straw being ignominiously swept up – the one the guards taunted her with earlier. This is the moment when she realises her mistake, but she doesn’t try to retrieve the crown. I think there’s a sense, for her, that she’s been playing at being a martyr up until now. When she says she wants to be burnt after all, everyone is devastated, and even her enemies have tears in their eyes. They no longer simply see her as a madwoman, and they know (because of her agonised recantation) that she is terrified of the death she now faces. But she goes out of her way to seek it again: she deliberately asks to be taken back to the pyre, and this is moving either because of her delusion, or because of her exceptional devotion (to God and her cause)...or a bit of both.

Later, when Joan is burning, there’s that bizarre shot when the camera (positioned in the raised portcullis of the entrance to the abbey) rotates 180˚ as the rioting peasants swarm through the gateway. It looks like an hourglass being overturned, and the people are like sand running down into the abbey: the point is that, whereas after her recantation the world carried on as normal, now that Joan is actually burning her martyrdom has almost literally turned the world upside down. Later the shot is reversed when the peasants are chased out, as the authorities re-assert their position. That’s the end of the story as far as ‘the world’ is concerned, but of course the film ends with a more permanent, transcendent movement: the ascent of the smoke from the pyre. We have several positions from which to view Joan: that of the authorities, who are ultimately moved but still regard her as a nutcase, a freak, and a problem; that of the unheard masses (and the odd sympathetic, but ignored, monk) who take her seriously and venerate her as a saint, but are still somehow detached from her experience; and that of Joan, whose spirit triumphs over her flesh, which I believe is the theme of the film, as stated by Dreyer.

I know what you mean by ‘emotionally confusing’, knives – I certainly found it to be so the first few times, especially with the music on – and I think it’s supposed to be that way. That is, it’s supposed to be difficult to understand Joan’s point of view, and to understand what is at stake (no pun intended) for her, and for the rest of the world, in her struggle towards martyrdom.

Nice response, Sloper.

I can't really answer your question about what Dreyer intended, Knives, as I don't know specifically. For me, the key is the film's opening intertitles, in which Dreyer states that inside the court records, he found "the real Joan, not in armor, but simple and human." Much of what was thought about Joan of Arc, at least in the public consciousness, in the late 1920s was the stuff of legend. She was hailed as a great heroine in France and had just been canonized a saint by the Catholic Church at the beginning of the decade. Artistic representations of her generally depicted her in armor, in battle (Shaw's "Saint Joan" was a notable, popular exception). I believe Dreyer's intention, or at least one, was to break away from such depictions and simply present her as a human being, with all of her fears, insecurities, and even some flaws.

I don't think he necessarily wanted viewers to "root" for her in a traditional sense. As you pointed out, whether you agree or disagree with her decisions to sign the letter and then recant it is largely irrelevant since it was a foregone conclusion. Her actions were dictated by history, not by Dreyer. I think he left much of this up to the viewers. How we feel about her will depend largely on our backgrounds, what we know of her already, and whether or not we believe she was truly inspired by visions, or misguided, or plumb crazy. He strips her of the "legend," which had (and has) the effect of leading people to see her as a ferocious, determined woman who would stop at nothing to free her country. Here, she is indeed headstrong and steadfast in her faith, but she is also fearful, vulnerable, and even gullible. She is at times quite brave, especially as she accepts her fate at the stake (the moment when she actually picks up the rope that will be used to tie her to it and hands it to the guard who dropped it is very powerful to me). But she is also naive and childlike at times. Dreyer reveals her complexities as a human being placed under extraordinarily trying circumstances.

When you say the movie is "emotionally confusing," I think it's because Dreyer does not want to dictate our emotions concerning her actions. Some may walk away from the movie inspired by Joan and admiring her for doing what she believed was right. Others may think she was completely misguided. Dreyer sought to present us with the evidence -- a real woman, not a fairy tale figure, who did what she thought was right and suffered for it. We can admire her courage (Dreyer certainly did), but we are left to respond to her in our own personal way.

You might also want to listen to the audio essay by Casper Tybjerg. I haven't listened to it in years, so I don't remember if he specifically addresses anything pertaining to your questions, but it's worth a shot.

What I think Dreyer admires most about Joan, and attempts to bring out by means of the film, is how absolutely unusual-- incredible, really-- it is to find an individual, as was Joan, so truly devoid of hypocricy, and absolutely willing to stand behind their beliefs all the way down the line, regardless where the repercussions may take them. I think Dreyer responded to this on a profound level-- his films are filled with very genuine individuals (mostly women) who suffer terribly at the hands of hypocrites who've lost touch with themselves (if they had any substantial inner-contact to begin with), usually in the acquisition of power. I think Dreyer believed, wanted to believe, that there was a power and grace-- something sacred, perhaps-- in the refusal to compromise one's primary values, not in front of others but in front of one's self. I think he saw that refusal as its own reward. And I think he responded so profoundly to this rare quality because I think he saw it in himself or at very least strongly identified with it. Again and again his films portray individuals in contention with a plastic world of hypocrites, and suffering for it-- just as he wound up becoming a cinematic outcast for his refusal to bend away from the very peculiar aesthetic he came to develop and represent, which was not exactly box office gold for his producers.

So I think he found the image of this extremely genuine and decicated individual, completely devoted to the set of beliefs she'd erected for herself, and shaming the judges & priests around her by the example of her simple presence, very exciting and compelling.

As for her "deliberately asking for the pyre" I think that misses a fabulous moment in the film, which is when, after recanting her confession and admitting she signed to avoid the penalty, she asks the young cleric who prepares her for her final mass what the manner of execution will be, and he replies "the stake,"... one of her eyes twitches lightly in mortal terror. I think to suggest she "asked for the pyre" or in some manner wanted to die or be burned misses the point: she very much wishes to live. She doesn't want to die, and is absolutely horrified by her fate and goes to it wracked with tears. Her beliefs simply leave her no choice, and that's what makes the decision so moving and unusual. Despite her horror of death by burning, she can't live with herself in front of herself by contradicting her most important beliefs... to her that'd be even worse than the stake. She's simply chosing the slightly lesser of two, to-her very horrifying, evils.

It's a death as impressive and depressing as Malcom X's... regardless of what some may feel about the man, you have to be impressed by a person who's so above his opponents that their very real threats of death don't faze him in the slightest and move him to change his tune. As an illustration of bravery-- he knew saying what he did made him a marked man-- it has few competitive examples.

Before she signs her confession, the judge tells her that she will be burned alive if she doesn't, and points to the stake which awaits her. Later, when she re-recants, she says she did so because she was afraid of the fire. But yes, she then asks how she is to be killed - 'Quelle mort?', which I always imagine coming out in a kind of whisper. Remember that, earlier on, they threatened her with all sorts of torture devices, but didn't actually use them. Perhaps she now hopes that the stake was just another threat to get her to recant - perhaps, now that she really is going to be killed, they'll go easy on her. But they don't.

Just now I took another look at the moment you refer to, and you're right it's a harrowing gesture on Falconetti's part. But it's also very subtle. And I think what comes through most of all in this part of the film is her resignation to her fate. Feego points to the moment when she picks up the rope, and even when she's burning, I feel there's more ecstasy than agony in her expression. Yes, she's terrified of death, but the way she now embraces this death is part of what Dreyer admires. It's that 'now I can die in peace' moment, which finds its ultimate expression in (spoilerised because I gather knives hasn't seen Gertrud)


Joan is happy because she is about to win her great victory, to enjoy the salvation of her soul (whatever you take that to mean), and this victory can only be won through death. If she were grudging about what happens to her, I don't think the ending would be nearly as powerful. But there are many different ways of reading her emotions, of course.

That's all very interesting. It would probably have taken me too many viewings to realize some of that by myself. Falconetti's eyes are far too distracting for me to notice much else. I probably won't watch Gertrud for a long while, though.

I was asked today to give a private screening and lecture on this film here at Columbia this month. There's almost too much information about it. I want to keep the lecture to 10 minutes at the most.

Members of Portishead and Goldfrapp collaberate on a new score.

Hmmm... it would have been better for them to leave out the Monteverdi Choir. It's a very "talky" silent film because of the way it uses the trial transcripts.

Incidentally, that was one of two fatal flaws in Einhorn's "Voices of Light": all the sung text competes with the many intertitles and detracts from the film as a whole. The other fatal flaw is that Einhorn falls back lazily on a "medieval" new-agey sound that is already badly dated. The film needs a score that is more edgy and modernistic, or at least more anguished in places--especially the finale. Penderecki could do a great score for the film.

But frankly, the film almost works better without a soundtrack--something that is true of very few other silent films. I see that other people on the thread also like to watch the film silent.

yeah.. this film should be soundless.

Speak it, brother!

Not for nothing but it really bothers me when modern bands with no love for the form make silent film soundtracks

I'd still like to hear it. Whatever happened with The Pet Shop Boys and their Battleship Potemkin? Was that ever released?

At the very least, The Pet Shop Boys could use images from Potemkin in one of their music videos.