Not Forthcoming: California Split

[therewillbeblus]

It's a really bad idea anyway, as it'll only encourage other rightsholders to charge full whack instead of lowering their fees to something commercially viable.

Good point, just grasping at straws over here, though I trust the label’s financial team already did plenty of that over the last four years

[Forrest Taft]

I assume Indicator could put out the version that was on DVD if they wanted to? In other words, these licensing issues apply only to the original cut?

[therewillbeblus]

As much as I want to have this film out on blu full-stop, I admire and support the ethical rigidity around releasing the uncompromised version of the film. For similar reasons Michael B stated above, I’d hate for Indicator to set the standard for themselves or the film that they can bend their ethos, which may have consequences on other labels doing this for other releases and/or negatively reinforce any chance of getting the untouched version of California Split in the future. Same goes for Ishtar

I’m sure their planned release would have released both cuts though

[Drucker]

Right but seems like with Ishtar, Indicator are trying to hold themselves to a very high standard. They do the release the right way, or not at all. And good for them.

I'd add that these films are far from unavailable. Both are available to stream (California Split constantly shows up on the channel). I'm sure it also has an old DVD that can be obtained. And the Sony blu of Ishtar remains in print. It's just that if Indidcator is going to release it, they have certain standards they plan to maintain.

EDIT: TWBB made basically the same point, beat me to it.

[TIVOLI]

While it has been a long good-bye for California Split on a proper Blu-ray, Indicator deserves nothing but praise for doing their best to make it possible.
I am just thankful that I decided to hold on to my old DVD.

[swo17]

Does the DVD present the film in an uncompromised version?

[dwk]

I'm pretty sure the DVD is cut

[therewillbeblus]

I'm pretty sure the DVD is cut

It is, and the film is still a masterpiece either way, but I definitely felt like the uncut version I watched on Amazon a year or two ago was better, even if I can’t place exactly where the changes were from memory

[Never Cursed]

If there's a more moving depiction of male camaraderie on film than this, I don't know of it. The most important (and difficult) work Altman does here is to highlight without judgment how the central Segal-Gould friendship is destructive and life-affirming at the same time, how two people can platonically kind of need each other in a way that both exploits the symptomatic parts of their personalities and makes them whole. There is on the one hand a sad or discomforting aspect to this relationship in the ways that each participant uses the other to further that psychological feedback loop of adrenaline and praise. The scene where Gould reacts to learning of Segal's hail-mary Reno trip by forcefully inserting himself into Segal's "vision" for it (after he has just finished describing how he "needed" to go to Mexico alone because Segal wasn't in that vision) is really striking for this exact reason - it's a powerful choice for Gould to deploy his wiseacrey charm as a strategy to essentially disarm and manipulate Segal into letting him tag along. But not only does Altman refuse to take a prescriptive moral stance on the various dependencies facing our characters, he views their reliance on each other as this beautiful innate trait that helps them thrive as human beings. It isn't depicted with the same emotional swell, but the delicate dance of magnetic polarity that the two do in Reno (where, when Segal asks Gould to stay away from him, Gould only becomes more curious about how Segal is doing until the big roulette payoff makes them adhere back together for the remainder of the film) so strongly evoked the final gleeful reunion in Licorice Pizza that I now assume this specific part of this specific Altman film is the tonal germ of much of what Anderson is doing in his shaggy-dog story. Like Alana and Gary, Bill and Charlie are both genuinely and asymptomatically made happier through their symptomatic bond, and it is a sign of real emotional honesty and maturity to completely depict the consequences, good and bad, of these expressions of love.

Also, I know TWBB made this exact same point elsewhere on the forum, but it bears repeating that this has an all-time great comic one-liner that deserves so much more recognition:

SpoilerShow

Goddammit lady, you don't throw oranges on an escalator!