Ryan's Daughter

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Lino
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#26 Post by Lino » Thu Feb 09, 2006 2:38 pm

Thanks for the link and big, big kudos for Glenn! Maybe this will start getting people reassessing this wonderful, wonderful film. Yes, it got out at the wrong time; yes, people were no longer interested in big widescreen melodramas; yes, the film was just too big for those who don't care about these things; but is it not a perenial classic now? Is it not something born out of great minds? Is it not something created by great talents? Does it not touch you and move you? Don't you feel grateful for those 24fps at the end of those 3 and a half hours? YES! YES! YES!

J M Powell
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#27 Post by J M Powell » Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:20 pm

Can someone verify that the disc change occurs at intermission (not at some other point in the film, like they did with at least one release of Lawrence)? I'm pretty sure I remember reading that they did it right, but now it comes time to place my order it seems I can't relocate that information.

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Lino
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#28 Post by Lino » Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:47 pm

From a few posts above:
tavernier wrote:Here's the lowdown on this set:
- the movie is spread out over both discs, 1:47 on disc one, 1:38 on disc two. There's entrance music, an intermission, an entr'acte, and closing music.
- the commentary, with 13 different people, is a jumble with some occasional insights (I didn't listen to all of it yet)
- on disc two, there's the new "Making of" doc (48 minutes) and two vintage docs ("We're the Last of the Traveling Circuses," 20 minutes, and "A Story of Love," 6 minutes)
- the 5.1 audio is nicely spaced but it would be nice to hear the original audio
- oh, yes: the transfer is simply amazing! Lean was a master stylist, and it shows again here.
So, I guess the answer is a maybe yes, J M Powell. I still haven't bought it yet but I think that this time Warner honored the two parts of the movie and spread them accordingly across the 2 discs.
Last edited by Lino on Fri Feb 10, 2006 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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FilmFanSea
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#29 Post by FilmFanSea » Fri Feb 10, 2006 2:10 pm

From Dave Kehr's February 8th DVD column at the NY Times:
Watching Warner Home Video's new edition of David Lean's "Ryan's Daughter" is almost enough to make you believe that high-definition DVD has arrived ahead of schedule. Transferred, according to the back of the box, from restored 65-millimeter picture and audio elements, this is simply one of the most spectacular video presentations I have ever encountered, a marvel of pinpoint resolution and stable, saturated color. With its 206 minutes spread luxuriously over two discs (the 195-minute feature has now been filled out with its overture, intermission and exit music), the "Ryan's Daughter" DVD may not recreate the endangered experience of wide-gauge filmmaking (somehow, those Imax documentaries just aren't the same), but it does suggest its breathtaking scale. [emphasis added]

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kieslowski_67
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2005 5:39 pm
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#30 Post by kieslowski_67 » Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:41 am

J M Powell wrote:Can someone verify that the disc change occurs at intermission (not at some other point in the film, like they did with at least one release of Lawrence)? I'm pretty sure I remember reading that they did it right, but now it comes time to place my order it seems I can't relocate that information.
I checked this last night and it did change disc at the intermission.

Again mad props to the great transfer. This is absolutely one of the very best, if not the best transfer I have ever witnessed on my large widescreen HDTVs.

J M Powell
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#31 Post by J M Powell » Fri Feb 17, 2006 9:14 am

Thanks. Ordering now.

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Gordon
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2004 8:03 am

#32 Post by Gordon » Fri Feb 17, 2006 3:22 pm

Tbe UK edition is only £11.99 from CD-WOW, if you use this link: CD-WOW £1.00 discount

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skuhn8
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2004 4:46 pm
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#33 Post by skuhn8 » Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:57 am

More to do with the film itself than the DVD per se, but found this little anecdote in Stuart Galbraith--ahem--IV's The Emperor and the Wolf:

Invited to a meeting of the National Society of Film Critics in New York, Lean recalled:

It was one of the most horrible experiences I have ever had. I remember Pauline Kael meeting me at the door and leading me by the hand to the table where there were ten or twelve critics and they sat me at the head of the table and within seconds they started grilling me in the most unfriendly fashion. One of the most leading questions was, "Can you please explain how the man who directed Brief Encounter can have directed this load of shit you call Ryan's Daughter?" It really cut me to the heart, and that was Richard Schickel. I think he's a jolly good writer, by the way. And it got worse and worse....I was a fool to stay there, of course. I remember saying to Pauline Kael at the end, "You won't be content until you've reduced me to making a film in black and white and 16mm." And she said, "We'll give you colour."

Funny. And interesting that perhaps the only interesting anecdote in a 800+ page book about Kurosawa and Mifune has nothing really to do with them.

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tryavna
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#34 Post by tryavna » Thu Apr 26, 2007 5:16 pm

skuhn8 wrote:Funny. And interesting that perhaps the only interesting anecdote in a 800+ page book about Kurosawa and Mifune has nothing really to do with them.
Frankly, I'm surprised that you made it all the way through the book. Unfortunately, Galbraith just isn't a very insightful writer, though I feel bad because he seems to try very hard.

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skuhn8
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#35 Post by skuhn8 » Fri Apr 27, 2007 1:27 am

tryavna wrote:
skuhn8 wrote:Funny. And interesting that perhaps the only interesting anecdote in a 800+ page book about Kurosawa and Mifune has nothing really to do with them.
Frankly, I'm surprised that you made it all the way through the book. Unfortunately, Galbraith just isn't a very insightful writer, though I feel bad because he seems to try very hard.
It wasn't easy; it reads like a very lightly annotated inventory.

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

Re: Ryan's Daughter

#36 Post by Matt » Wed Apr 20, 2022 1:12 am

Sure, why not bump a thread that’s been dormant for 15 years.

So, I just saw this film for the first time recently. In the spirit of Criterion, three things:

It’s an adaptation of Madame Bovary

The weather was so miserable along the Irish coast that most of the (gorgeously shot by Freddie Young) beach scenes were shot in South Africa

The theme tune sounded very, very familiar to me, even though I had never seen the film before, and then I realized that it was the melody of the song “It Was a Good Time” which I knew well from Liza with ‘Z’ and which I always assumed was one of the Kander & Ebb tunes cooked up for the show. It added an unexpected comic element to the film thinking of Liza Minnelli in her white Halston pantsuit, belting out across the windswept grasslands.

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Roscoe
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Re: Ryan's Daughter

#37 Post by Roscoe » Wed Apr 20, 2022 9:13 am

Why not indeed. A more interesting movie than it's reputation would have us believe. It really begs to be seen in a cinema, rather than TV. The movie's got some problems, no doubt -- mostly for me having to do with John Mills' over the top performance, that ridiculous fake set of teeth, and Lean's over the top insistence on blowing our ears out with music to underline everything. But the high quality of the performances makes up for a lot of it, and the really stunning location cinematography.

Check out Kevin Brownlow's account of the film's production in his Lean biography. Lean's dealings with Mitchum are most interesting.

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