BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

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Drucker
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#26 Post by Drucker » Thu Sep 08, 2016 5:11 pm

I definitely recall being put-off by the strong tinting on Phantom, and the Flicker Alley disc definitely didn't have such strong colors.

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tenia
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#27 Post by tenia » Thu Sep 08, 2016 6:02 pm

Drucker wrote:It seems there's been a bunch of tinting changes
Looking at this set, some tints shifts to heavy yellow to heavy green, and I remember other silent movies changing tints rather radically from one release to the other (I think it's the case for Birth of a Nation and Nosferatu).

Really an open question but how a viewer can know if the offered tinting is the proper one ? Is this shot supposed to be green or yellow ?

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rapta
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#28 Post by rapta » Fri Sep 09, 2016 3:53 am

Great looking set! Will have to wait a bit to get a copy but it will be mine (sold my Murnau DVD double-bill in anticipation).

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TMDaines
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#29 Post by TMDaines » Fri Sep 09, 2016 5:28 am

Despite owning all the MoC discs for years, I've only watched one of these, so getting to watch the films for the first time, in HD no less, will be fantastic.

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chiendent
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#30 Post by chiendent » Tue Sep 20, 2016 12:36 pm

Got this yesterday (it shipped last week so I was pleasantly surprised) and I can't wait to start digging in to this tonight since I haven't seen any of these before. Great-looking box set, too.

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rapta
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#31 Post by rapta » Tue Sep 20, 2016 4:06 pm

Heard this comes in a thinner card slipbox as opposed to the usual thicker card sets (like the recent Keaton one). Could anyone take a picture? I know it's 2 Amarays and a booklet but wondered what the final design was like.

Will be great to finally get my hands on The Last Laugh once I get this. Has been OOP on DVD for a while now, and rumours of an upgrade when it was in print!

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chiendent
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#32 Post by chiendent » Tue Sep 20, 2016 4:12 pm

I'll take a picture when I get home in a few hours. It's definitely in a thinner slipbox than the Keaton.

apriori
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#33 Post by apriori » Tue Sep 20, 2016 5:59 pm

The box construction is comparable to the "Man with a Movie Camera" set. It looks nice but is rather flimsy. I ordered mine directly from Eureka and it unfortunately arrived damaged. I've had better luck with shipping from Amazon UK than Eureka, oddly enough.

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chiendent
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#34 Post by chiendent » Tue Sep 20, 2016 9:31 pm

Not sure how helpful this pic is (sorry for the quality/ironing board) but let me know if you need another angle or anything. There are a few dents on mine (also ordered from Eureka) but nothing major.

Image

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rapta
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#35 Post by rapta » Wed Sep 21, 2016 5:37 am

Cheers for the pic. Indeed, this looks like Man with a Movie Camera (or the Lubitsch in Berlin DVD set). I guess their new policy is to only use thicker boxes for 3 or more cases? If you have a damaged one, I always find contacting them to be helpful (especially if you ordered direct).

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TMDaines
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#36 Post by TMDaines » Wed Sep 21, 2016 11:00 am

That's a bit disappointing.

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lubitsch
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#37 Post by lubitsch » Tue Oct 25, 2016 2:22 pm

As for the following information, I'm merely repeating a friend's observations. He wrote to MoC but got no response, I also enquired and got no response, so it's time to make this more public. Maybe MoC will be willing to explain who exactly botched this release, the facts are as following:

The version of Tartüff in this set is a 2013 HD scan of the old version which was already released on DVD back in 2002. The version used then was the US export version which was censored. There were even comparisons between the US and European versions which documented the censorship, but it was explained that the other version was too bad to be used for a transfer.
In 2015 a new restoration was shown on arte which didn't feature the piano music, but instead a full orchestral score and it was longer. Now the information credits told us that this copy was made from an uncensored print by Gosfilmofond and the US version as well as another copy were only used to fill the gaps.

The question obviously is: why do we get the old version in this set? Didn't MoC want to license the new restoration and pay for it? Or did Murnau Stiftung forget to inform them of a new restoration?

Maybe some others would like to write to MoC and ask for an explanation. It's certainly not true that "this collection features new high-definition transfers of all five films from the finest archival elements" as their facebook post from 20th april says.

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tenia
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#38 Post by tenia » Tue Oct 25, 2016 4:28 pm

Olivier Père said about it :
"des quatre négatifs du film, seul un duplicat a été préservé intégralement au Gosfilmofonds de Moscou. Il contient des intertitres allemands jusque-là inconnus. Ces nouveaux intertitres ont été insérés lors de la restauration toute récente du film, ce qui explique une durée plus longue de 7 minutes."

"Of the 4 negatives of the movie, only one duplicate has been entirely preserved at Moscow Gosfilmofonds. It contains german intertitles which where unknown until now. These new intertitles have been inserted during the very recent restoration of the movie, which explained the duration longer by 7 minutes".
lubitsch wrote:It's certainly not true that "this collection features new high-definition transfers of all five films from the finest archival elements" as their facebook post from 20th april says.
It's a bit harsh to say that. After all, the censored version IS a new HD transfer from most likely its finest archival elements.

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Tommaso
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#39 Post by Tommaso » Tue Oct 25, 2016 4:53 pm

I'm sorry, the new version makes a lot of difference, not least because of the beautiful orange tinting, much better than the weak sepia-orange on the old version. And even at PAL speed, the new version is eight minutes longer, which if it doesn't indicate new material added - I didn't make a shot-by-shot compariosn - at least means a better playback speed.

Here are some screenshots from the arte HD-TV transmission of the 2015 resto:
Image
Image
Image

Please also note that the credits and all the intertitles are now in the original, typical UFA font of the time, not in the somewhat whimsical recreated font that the older version has.

In other words, it's superior in every respect, and it's beyond me why MoC didn't use this new resto for this box set.

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hearthesilence
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#40 Post by hearthesilence » Tue Oct 25, 2016 5:59 pm

I wanted this set mainly for two films. Tartüff was one of them...guess I'll be spending my money elsewhere!

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TMDaines
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#41 Post by TMDaines » Tue Oct 25, 2016 6:34 pm

I just deleted my Arte TV recording the other day...

This is very odd and most unlike MoC.

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domino harvey
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#42 Post by domino harvey » Tue Oct 25, 2016 6:35 pm

I just burned my disc and salted the earth where I buried it

Honestly, it is disappointing we didn't get a newer resto, but at least the one we got isn't bad

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DeprongMori
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#43 Post by DeprongMori » Tue Oct 25, 2016 6:56 pm

Damn. That's disappointing. Unfortunately it's not the type of issue that they would be likely to fix with a replacement disc.

Had I known, I would have held off picking this up. I already had all the films on MoC DVD. I'd hate to have to stop assuming the MoC releases are going to to be first rate and I can safely pre-order them.

aewb
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#44 Post by aewb » Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:06 pm

Tommaso wrote:I'm sorry, the new version makes a lot of difference, not least because of the beautiful orange tinting, much better than the weak sepia-orange on the old version. And even at PAL speed, the new version is eight minutes longer, which if it doesn't indicate new material added - I didn't make a shot-by-shot compariosn - at least means a better playback speed.
The blu-ray tinting is almost indentical to the version screened on Arte but there is still the issue of the longer runtime. Has anyone compared the two versions to see what's been added?

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Tommaso
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#45 Post by Tommaso » Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:54 pm

If you allow me another screenshot, from the initial notes of the new resto:

Image

In short, additional parts not included in the Gosfilmofond print which formed the basis of this restoration were inserted from both the US copy and a formerly unused Swiss copy. The former were tinted dark orange, the latter in a rose-coloured tone. There are not that many of these slightly differently coloured moments in the film, but they are there and clearly visible, and thus the newly inserted parts can be easily identified. So this is not a longer version just because of new intertitles, as the statement by Olivier Père that tenia quoted in his post wrongly indicates.

Another plus of the new resto which I forgot to point out in my earlier post is the full orchestral music, adapted from the original 1925 score by Giuseppe Becce, which really works extremely well, even though the chamber ensemble score of the old version isn't bad at all, either.

Well... as some of you know, I can be extremely critical if it comes to Murnau-Stiftung, but here is a case where they for once did everything completely right in my view.

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andyli
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#46 Post by andyli » Tue Oct 25, 2016 8:47 pm

Gosh, I just placed an order for it. I wonder if Kino will look into the new restoration and give it a US release. Never have I thought that one day I'd expect Kino to outdo a MoC release.
Last edited by andyli on Wed Oct 26, 2016 5:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Cronenfly
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#47 Post by Cronenfly » Tue Oct 25, 2016 10:29 pm

As far as I can tell, the rest of the package is pretty solid, so I would not feel too badly about ordering it. And I'm sure any Kino release of Tartuffe would be available individually, in the, perhaps unlikely, event that they succeed where MoC failed.

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TMDaines
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#48 Post by TMDaines » Wed Oct 26, 2016 4:42 am

It would be great to see someone do a detailed comparison between the two.

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lubitsch
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#49 Post by lubitsch » Wed Nov 16, 2016 4:58 pm

I asked MoC about the new restoration and why it wasn't used in the box. The answer is "although efforts were made on our part, this version of Tartuffe was not made available to us."
So FWMS didn't license the resto to them, one of their best customers. That's rather puzzling. I now wrote to FWMS why they would sit on it, let's see if I get an answer.

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hearthesilence
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Re: BD 140-144 Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925

#50 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Apr 23, 2020 3:37 pm

Tommaso wrote:
Tue Oct 25, 2016 4:53 pm
I'm sorry, the new version makes a lot of difference, not least because of the beautiful orange tinting, much better than the weak sepia-orange on the old version. And even at PAL speed, the new version is eight minutes longer, which if it doesn't indicate new material added - I didn't make a shot-by-shot compariosn - at least means a better playback speed.

Please also note that the credits and all the intertitles are now in the original, typical UFA font of the time, not in the somewhat whimsical recreated font that the older version has.

In other words, it's superior in every respect, and it's beyond me why MoC didn't use this new resto for this box set.
FYI, Kino has included this version (as well as the 2013 HD scan of the U.S. version featured in MoC's box set) in their new BD release.

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