The Annotated Kino Catalogue

[MichaelB]

Ever watch tv or go to the shithouse Times Square or outer boro movies in the late sixties or 70's and see a garbage no budget fillm? That's how the films looked good portion of the time. Ever see a technicolor western, or even something like MARY POPPINS on TV or on a dupey tape from decades old exposures/duping? Do you know how far from original technicolor we've come from the very vintage of the films, when contemporary? We year by year-- with digital color correction, edge enhancement, contrast boosting, grain zapping, etc-- edge further and further away from seeing what audiences saw when they went to the theaters to see the films we so lionize.

I ran a repertory cinema from 1989-95, and vividly recall the abysmal state of the prints that I had to put up with, even to the point of having to stick written apologies-cum-warnings in the box office window - but I'm not remotely nostalgic about this. On the relatively rare occasions that we managed to get hold of a sparkling new print, it was blindingly obvious how much we were having to excuse most of the rest of the time.

At the time, of course, we had no practical alternative, which is of course your argument as well - but my beef with Kino's Pomegranates is that a superior transfer already existed: until I bought the Japanese DVD recently, Channel Four's broadcast of 1990 or thereabouts was the best version I'd seen of this film in any medium. (Certainly better than the 16mm distribution copy).

Now, I'm well aware that borrowing other people's transfers is fraught with diplomatic and logistical difficulty, particularly given the transatlantic and technological divide was far greater in the early 1990s than it is now (I believe Kino's transfer was originally made for its VHS release in 1993, and C4's transfer would of course have been in PAL). Also, to be absolutely fair, C4's version was the Yutkevich cut, and it's clear from the quality gap between the Japanese (Yutkevich) DVD and its rivals that there's an equally wide quality gap between the various source materials.

But the reason the Kino disc was such a disappointment to me when I bought it back in 2001 or whenever it was released was because it was so drastically inferior to what I already had on tape. Quite apart from anything else, while I accept all your arguments about original negs, wet-gating and everything else, that doesn't excuse the aesthetic abomination of those subtitles. (C4's were markedly superior on that score too).

[MichaelB]

Sorry, just thought I'd add a quick addendum - I'm not remotely slagging off Kino on principle, as I absolutely understand how difficult it is to operate in this market and how adventurous much of their catalogue is (as HerrSchreck has pointed out many times, it's often a lot more adventurous than that of more lauded labels) - and I've bought vast chunks of it over the years, usually very happily.

Most of my reviews of their stuff have been extremely positive - certainly a lot more positive than a pristine digital image fetishist would countenance - and I generally only get hyper-critical when a superior alternative is also available, or if I genuinely feel that more could have been done without breaking the bank.

[Tommaso]

this most obscure of directors. The fact that there are thousands of people buying this man's films-- and pretending to know what they're seeing-- in all the major dvd markets around the globe is very very very new...

I really am not sure about this, being only able to speak about us Europeans here. As Michael already pointed out, "Pomegranates" was shown on TV in 1990 in the UK, and several times in the 90s here in Germany. "Ancestors" raised a lot of interest when first shown in the West in the 60s. I think there is even a book containing essays by Paradjanov released in the 90s in France (?). "Ashik" premiered in 1988 at the Munich film festival and was much lauded. Paradjanov was released from prison before the end of his term due to the intervention of some major figures from the European film world (including Godard). I have also seen several documentaries about the man on German TV in the 90s. So this doesn't seem to me to be an 'obscure' , totally unknown director. That people only now buy the man's films is rather due to the fact that they were simply not available, or that people abstained from the Kino versions because they were known to be inferior. And perhaps it was not possible to get the materials for a good resto like the FsF "Shadows" earlier?

[HerrSchreck]

Come on Tom, I didn't say nobody knew who he was. Obscure doesn't mean completely unknown. Yes, he was not completely unknown. And yes when he was alive he got some slight attention outside hardcore circles. Simply providing examples of exposition ("I don't know Schreck, Kino toured the print on the disc prior to the disc and folks went to see it") doesn't mean the man's audience equaled anything like what it is today, which still isn't all that much. At least here in R1 land.

Germans are hardly interested in their own film heritage-- you and I both know you can't find a thing there. You're telling me PARAJANOV is popular there? And was prior to the advent of home video???

Are you saying Parajanov is popular? SHADOWS is not available anywhere in the USA. POMEGRANITES is one of the most notoriously difficult sound films ever made. My point should be overwhelmingly self evident.. just watch the film and forget about the world in which you are presently immersed.

We're talking Parajanov.

[Tommaso]

I'm not saying he was or is popular, I just think that an audience that goes for Tarkovsky or Godard (for example) will certainly be interested in Paradjanov as well and will probably have seen his films one way or other before they came out on dvd (although I never managed to see "Shadows" anywhere before the FsF disc). That I didn't have mass success outside the 'world I currently live in' in mind should be obvious. But then a great percentage of directors discussed here on this forum would be 'unpopular'. Thinking of 'obscure' directors, I would name perhaps Manfred Noa, Bernard or Hrafn Gunnlaugsson (for instance), but not necessarily Paradjanov. This has nothing to do with the challenges Parad's films obviously pose to the viewer, but to the amount that he has been mentioned in books or TV documentaries or by film 'freaks'. And yes, I would say a lot more Germans have seen Paradjanov films rather than even something by Dovzhenko, or talking about German silents, probably even Ruttmann (excluding film scholars).
The fact that they are now out on dvd and are discussed on forums like this will of course much increase the knowledge about these films and their makers. And many people reading these discussions here will be more tempted to buy a dvd of a film if they know that the respective transfer/package is excellent. Looking at the Quay Brothers, for example. I would not even have heard about them if it hadn't been for this forum, and man, what a revelation that was! But for the 'general public', they are probably as obscure or little known as Paradjanov.

[skuhn8]

Aren't we quibbling a little about grades of obscurity? I've seen a baker's dozen Godard films and just about everything by Tarkovsky except that steamroller/violin piece...but had never heard of Paradjanov until this forum, and then only recently. I'm inclined to think I'm not alone in my ignorance.

As for the Bros. Quay, well when Paradjanov gets off his lazy dead butt and makes an award winning Peter Gabriel video seen the world over we'll upgrade him from 'most obscure' to just plain 'obscure'. [support emoticon-free spaces]

[Tommaso]

As for the Bros. Quay, well when Paradjanov gets off his lazy dead butt and makes an award winning Peter Gabriel video seen the world over we'll upgrade him from 'most obscure' to just plain 'obscure'. [support emoticon-free spaces]

Well said, though I never knew the Quays were responsible for "Sledgehammer' until the BFI disc happened to mention it. Paradjanov already looks like a music video from time to time, though more like something by Dead Can Dance. Let's settle for obscure, then, as long as those reading this forum now have heard about those guys (elitist mode on now) [choose any emoticon you can find]

[Scharphedin2]

The film history books that I could get my hands on, when I was first beginning to explore the world of film in the '80s all mentioned Paradjanov in glowing terms (to the extent that they talked about Eastern European films at all). Naturally, Paradjanov was therefore high on my list of things to get to see, but never had an opportunity until Pomegranates, Suram Fortress and Ashik were released on DVD.

Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors I remember reading about in the same sentences as Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev in more than one place, and it has really been on my top ten of "holy grail films" ever since, but it is only now that a DVD has been made available by FsF.

I never got into the bootleg VHS market (very probably I could have seen these films that way), but I did follow the listings at local art houses and film institutes, where I happened to find myself over the years (Copenhagen, Chicago, Bruxelles), and I honestly can't remember ever seeing Paradjanov's films screened. The same cannot be said for Tarkovsky, Godard, or the Brothers Quay (in my exeperience) -- their films I managed to at least sample both in theatres and on official (laserdisc) releases up through the '80s and '90s.

All this just by way of a case study in someone aware of these films existence, and desire to seek them out, but incapable of doing so, until the advent of DVD.

[Felix]

Channel Four's broadcast of 1990 or thereabouts was the best version I'd seen of this film in any medium. (Certainly better than the 16mm distribution copy).

If you are paricularly interested it was 1988, I watched it in April so round about then. I couldn't even pretend that I "knew what I was seeing", but it sure looked good. David Byrne had expressed a fondness for it round about that time.

(Legend of the Suram Fortress followed about a year later maybe and Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors -if that is the earlier film B&W film?- a couple of years later on BBC2'S Russian Spring season. Oh well, at least British telly served us well until the advent of DVD...)

[Tommaso]

I finally watched Tourneur's "Lorna Doone" yesterday. Weeelll.... it's a solid piece of filmmaking, but comes nowhere near the glories of "The Blue Bird" in my view. That has little to do with Tourneur's direction, which is impeccable, although not very inventive. The problem is the story itself: good Lorna gets captured by some band of outlaws as a child and identifies with them as a grown-up girl, while there's still this childhood lover of her who wants her back and finally manages to get her (does that sound somewhat familar from "The Searchers"?). In between Lorna is made a lady at the court of King James II only to learn that she really loves the guy and his peasant life. This is as funny (unintentionally) as it could possibly get and the schmaltzy dime novel(or worse)-kindof-intertitles don't make it any better... what really saved the film was Madge Bellamy, and I don't find her overacting as bad as the reviewers on digobsessed and dvdtalk say. She perfectly fits into the story and its unashamed over-romanticism, and well, she's incredibly lovely on top of it. Now I know where the young Kate Bush got her role model from....

The transfer is quite nice, though the print of course is not in the best condition (much better than "Blue Bird" though), the tintings are beautiful, and the musical score is plain excellent. A nice dvd from Kino, which more and more convinces me that they are not so bad at all as long as they don't do PAL/NTSC-transfers. Recommended for Sunday afternoon viewing, or in the evening if you happen to have one of those really romantically inclined girlfriends around....

[MichaelB]

What this whole discussion of Paradjanov and "obscurity" reveals is how dependent individual territories are on sympathetic distributors.

For instance, Andrzej Zulawski seems to have a solid cult reputation in France, where his films invariably seem to open theatrically, and L'important c'est d'aimer plays forever in rep. Yet in Britain he's pretty much unknown, aside from a brief flicker of notoriety when Possession ended up on the "video nasties" list of titles the Director of Public Prosecutions wished to see suppressed.

Conversely, Paradjanov has always had a reasonable arthouse profile in Britain - probably not quite at the level of Tarkovsky, but WAY above pretty much any other Soviet director of the 1960s, 70s and 80s: I honestly can't think of anyone else who comes even remotely close. (Elem Klimov, possibly - but the other big names like Kira Miratova, or the Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky brothers barely had their work screened even in festivals). Certainly, you'd be hard pushed to find a serious British film buff who hasn't at least heard of Paradjanov, even if they've never actually sampled the work - the mere fact that Sight & Sound has run two comprehensive surveys of DVD availability (by Tony Rayns in 2001 and my more recent piece in the current issue) speaks for itself.

And Tarkovsky himself was a major arthouse player in British cinemas since Ivan's Childhood but - as far as I can make out - was practically unknown in the US until the 1980s. The same is true of Krzyszstof Kieslowski - aside from Blind Chance, us Brits got all his work from Camera Buff onwards at the time of the original release, and his mainstream arthouse reputation stems from the late 1980s release of the Short Films About Killing and Love and Dekalog. Yet in the US, he was pretty much totally unknown until the early 1990s.

This cuts both ways, of course - Lina Wertmuller had far less of a reputation in Britain than she did in the US, and we had a lot of catching-up to do with Pedro Almodovar, whom Pauline Kael was raving about years before any of his films opened in London. But all this spells out the dangers of referring to someone as "unknown" or "obscure" in an international forum!

[HerrSchreck]

I think the danger is the opposite-- to see the zone which you personally inhabit, or the atmosphere inherent to an "international forum", as all encompassing.

Mike-- technically the vast bulk of the stuff we discuss on this forum, to the average man in the street, is obscure. This is why we come here to this very small forum, which is open to everybody in the whole world: find those few people scattered about the globe who give a shit about what we give a shit about, and signal one another when tiny films are treated like big films by brave little companies.

Break the surface of the water in which you swim-- you are surrounded by like minded folks, working in some capacity at the bfi. I can go to film forum here in NYC too, see the tiny theater filled with film students, professors, and cineastes. In a city of millions and millions and millions, through a week long run, a couple thousand will go see Parajanov. Not all will understand what the fuck it is they are looking at. Fewer will be inclined to really obsess over it-- and out of those, some will seek out a dvd. Many will not like it at all.

The majority of Russians & Ukranians I speak to have no fucking clue who I'm talking about when I bring Parajanov up (we've got a huge clot of them here in NYC and when I meet them I try to forge common ground by bringing up aspects of their culture I am familiar with... since they're in my country). Yes they know Tarkovsky-- not all, but most-- most don't even know who Khalatozov is... never heard of CRANES, never heard of BALLAD OF A SOLDIER. These are Cannes darlings telling epic melodramas.

So let's say that Britain is The Non-Russian Populace In The World Most Hip To Parajanov. I'm going by what you say and taking it to an extreme strictly for example. What percentile of the population would you imagine know who he is? That you could walk on the street, mention his name, and (like "Jaywalking") get names of his films, and descriptions of plot, etc back. What do you think that number is? And among them, how many have actually seen a film by him?

I never said he was unknown, I said he was obscure. SAYAT NOVA is practically a HOME MOVIE. It was made probably with a smaller budget than an Ed Wood movie. Other of his films, like SHADOWS, had more of an audience (and production budget), and had some hippy dips who went to see it in the one or two cinemas it played in as it passed thru town in very very very big cities only, because, like a Jodorowsky pic, like many other midnight movie type pics, it was a trip. This one film caught a tiny little fire being in the right place at the right time, like Ravi Shankar, but nowhere near as successful or known. Many of the folks who went to see it at the time couldn't tell you the name of the director today, and were p[robably so stoned they couldn't tell you the title... let alone what the thing was about. Interestingly, this is the one film not available in R1. Janus holds the rights, but have done nothing with it. Wonder why, though I'm praying for a CC......

Obscure is meant in all encompassing sense-- obscure meaning seen and heard of by very few, and obscure in content, meaning difficult to grasp or understand. As in "obscurantist", a term relentlessly hurled at Tarkovsky owing to the vaguery in his pictures. The obscurantist qualities in Parajanov makes the bulk of Tarkovsky look like an episode of SEX AND THE CITY. In those terms Parajanov is the quintessential obscure arthouse director, and POMEGRANITES may be the most difficult and extreme film ever made.

And the Konchalovsky thing i e "not even screened in festivals" has me puzzled: didn't this guy do RUNAWAY TRAIN with Jon Voight and Eric Roberts, from a Kurosawa treatment? Wasn't SIBERIADE pretty well known and consistently distributed?

[MichaelB]

OK, we're running into severe danger of semantic quibbling here. Clearly, Paradjanov isn't going to be recognised by the average man in the street, but I never claimed that. What I did - and still do - argue is that his profile as far as British arthouse cinema audiences are concerned is significantly higher than you're making out, at least in terms of name recognition.

In other words, if you stop one of the regular clients of the ICA, Curzon Soho or Renoir cinemas in the foyer of and ask them to name major Soviet filmmakers, the chances are overwhelmingly likely that Paradjanov will be on their top-of-the-head shortlist along with Eisenstein and Tarkovsky - even if they don't know that much about Soviet films generally. And the chances are even more likely that Kalatozov won't.

And the reason for this is that Paradjanov's films crossed over into UK rep and were widely recognised as being films d'auteur. Fairly or unfairly, Kalatozov's didn't, and weren't - my mother raved about The Cranes Are Flying (which she saw at university in the 1950s) for decades before I had the chance to see it, but it simply wasn't shown anywhere in the 1980s and 1990s. I am Cuba had a recent theatrical revival, but I don't think any of his other films have ever had a commercial release in Britain.

And the Konchalovsky thing i e "not even screened in festivals" has me puzzled: didn't this guy do RUNAWAY TRAIN with Jon Voight and Eric Roberts, from a Kurosawa treatment? Wasn't SIBERIADE pretty well known and consistently distributed?

Obviously his American films opened theatrically (though I don't believe Maria's Lovers or Shy People made much impact)- but his Russian films, if they opened at all (and most didn't) generally closed in a fortnight - and I don't think any of his post-Soviet films have played at all outside one-off festival screenings. I'd also have to check if Siberiade opened theatrically at all, but I know for a fact that it never passed into UK rep (I pretty much lived in London's rep cinemas in the 1980s, and would certainly have recalled regular bookings) and that its profile was low to nonexistent. I honestly think Ruscico's DVD was the first chance I'd ever had to see it.

In the 1980s and 1990s films had to run a two-stage gauntlet to get into regular rep - first of all, they had to make a reasonable splash on their initial run, and secondly (and this was the difficult part), they had to appeal to a tiny handful of independent cinema programmers, and appeal enough to justify repeat bookings. Paradjanov managed that crossover - his films weren't exactly screened weekly, or even monthly, but they were at least reasonably accessible (I certainly booked them enough times in the early 1990s), which automatically makes his work less "obscure" than most of the other names cited in the posts immediately above this one.

And, as mentioned above, Channel Four even ran a three-film retrospective shortly after he died, which would have been unimaginable for any Soviet filmmaker other than Tarkovsky - and Pomegranates had a repeat outing. Trust me on this - even in the 1980s and 1990s, two screenings of a foreign-language film on a national terrestrial television channel was a very very rare event: most couldn't even manage one.

Not bad for something that's "practically a home movie"!

(I'd say the same is also true of Parisian audiences, by the way - Paradjanov's films were usually playing in rep when I visited, and one of the cultural high points of my life was a revival of Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors on a new print on a huge screen. In fact, as soon as I got back I contrived an excuse to book the British distribution print)

[HerrSchreck]

Before I shoot myself, how about you describe "obscure" for me. This way, since you are Really Interested In Having This Conversation, we can have an agreed upon bottom line towards which to work towards in terms of definition. I see postings generating their own closed, excited momentum related to standpoint & proximity which is not helpful here.

I have witnessed Parajonov retro's too (I included them above... they happen 2 or 3 times ever 10 or 15 yrs in a very westernized country like US & UK & 2 or 3 others in Parajanov's case); the fact of their existence in the long view has nothing to do with what I'm talking about-- because they don't happen anywhere near as frequent enough. I didn't say Parajonav was the invisible man. Evidence of his existence, or occasional living people appreciation, doesn't make him Not Obscure. Triumphal announcements of your encounters with aforesaid doesn't null the point. We wouldn't be discussing him if that were the case. We know there are showings, we know there are dvd's..

Kiddo-- most of the filmmakers we talk about here are obscure. Murnau is obscure outside of our little circle. Kielsowski is too. Hell the average man on the street doesnt know who fucking Kurosawa is. Don't you realize how funny it is to hold up the super-rare Parajanov retrospective on the arthouse circuit as an argument? How many people on this site do you think have seen his films? Whether you like it or not Tarkovsky is obscure, Eisenstein is obscure-- good friend, you must stop using your own eyeballs as a gauge. You seem to be too deeply entrenched in the forest to see it's small size upon the planet encompassing it. And beyond his rare arthouse exhibition in the UK, that market is teeny tiny teency. Ask your Russian friends if they've heard of him, never mind seen a film by him. Sliver interest audience in an obscure subject doesn't define it's obscure-- it's the rest of the world. It's like walking into the theoretical math dept at MIT and saying "quantum bla blah experimental math is not obscure-- look (waves hand around room) at all these wonderful people!|"

What I did - and still do - argue is that his profile as far as British arthouse cinema audiences are concerned is significantly higher than you're making out, at least in terms of name recognition.

And please Mike-- this is what makes me want to drive sewing needles thru my brain. Where in my post did I allege a particular sum of British Parajanov fans? Didn't I ask you--

So let's say that Britain is The Non-Russian Populace In The World Most Hip To Parajanov. I'm going by what you say and taking it to an extreme strictly for example. What percentile of the population would you imagine know who he is? That you could walk on the street, mention his name, and (like "Jaywalking") get names of his films, and descriptions of plot, etc back. What do you think that number is? And among them, how many have actually seen a film by him?

I meant that non facetiously. I asked you what YOU make the British audience out to be. I never made the sum out to be anything.. because this gets closer to the core definition of (this is getting embarrassing) ahem, Obscure. Yet you keep falling back to your own encounters a few times a decade with him, experiences I've had too which have lkittle to do with what we're talking about here. (This kind of stuff happens to me all the time on the board-- hurl answers at me to questions I never raised, as though I raised them, as though that settles it.. I seem to be a target for weekend adrenaline smokers in overdose).

I also asked about content, and the cinematic term "obscurantism", which Parajanov clearly embodies to the extreme, far beyond Tarkovsky, it's usual poster boy. In terms of popularity and content-- and we probably should just drop this beyond your next post because I think the breadth of our view is different on this-- I think it's safe to say Parajanov is quite obscure... and that he in fact worked towards that obscurity via the difficulty of his fabulous, sublime art.

[GringoTex]

Kiddo-- most of the filmmakers we talk about here are obscure.

You said that Parajonav was the "most obscure." This is not the case. In post-Eisenstein Soviet Cinema, he's number two in popularity (in the U.S. at least) behind Tarkovsky. He's a repertory staple. I know this because, like Michael B, I ran a repertory cinema and it was my job to know.

[tryavna]

Hell the average man on the street doesnt know who fucking Kurosawa is.

Not even after that Bare Naked Ladies' song!?

[HerrSchreck]

You said that Parajonav was the "most obscure." This is not the case. In post-Eisenstein Soviet Cinema, he's number two in popularity (in the U.S. at least) behind Tarkovsky. He's a repertory staple. I know this because, like Michael B, I ran a repertory cinema and it was my job to know.

I just spit coffee across the room. So that was where that notorious THE SILENT FILMS OF BARBARA STREISAND fest took place.

Guys: I said:

the transfer represents the film on the then-only-available reels of this most obscure of directors.

as in, "You might want to order a sangria before you eat this most salty of pork-and-clam dishes," as in, "In Friendly Normal People World, your interlocutor is not implying he's taken a global food survey, has eaten every dish on offer in all countries, and has determined that aforesaid pork'N'clam is official crownwearing Lord High Emperor in saltydom."

In terms of film I can think of a plenty of directors who are more obscure than Parajanov-- Epstein, my friend Kamal from the Jerky Boys, hell probably even Dovzhenko. I never said Parajanov was the most obscure director on the face of the earth-- I've never even given this juvenile idea any thought.

So everyone slip an opium suppository, calm down, and take your gunsights off me and try elsewhere. I'm done with this Very Absurd Argument.

(Though learn what not to do via GringoTexisms: claiming:

he's number two in popularity (in the U.S. at least) behind Tarkovsky

without naming your sources. According to who? And the "authority dropping" i e "I worked at XYZ film thingy and aught to know." Yes I work inna biz by try at all costs to keep that out of this-- for the primary reason that scholarship is notoriously unreliable, chock full of holes and hypocricy, ever contradictory, and the kinds of industrial participation I hear touted are almost embarassing.

[Scharphedin2]

For anyone interested, this thread will offer a lot of info and links that can be useful to anyone presently considering the DDD half price sale on a big chunk of Kino's titles.

The list is obviously at the beginning of the thread, and it is unfortunately not complete and not up to date. However, do read the comments that follow, as there are many good recommendations, and also sensible words of caution on some of the titles.

[Darth Lavender]

Just finished, finally, watching this film.

The movie itself is a fine curiosity. There's plenty of Expressionist-era films that I would more strongly recommend (mostly, the obvious ones, Caligari, Faust, etc.) but for anyone heavily interested in this particular genre, Warning Shadows is a solid film with a couple of exceptional moments (the use of the flowers, towards the end, the use of mirrors in a few scenes, etc.) and enough novelty value (the 'no intertitles' approach and basic premise) to be well worth a look if you get the opportunity.

The DVD, however, is from Kino and it is terrible (but I repeat myself*) It suffers from the same severe and constant 'jaggies' as Kino's Die Nibelungen and MoC's Faust (probably because all are from the FWMS, whose skill in producing fine restorations is surpassed only by their proficiency in ruining those films with NTSC>PAL (or PAL>NTSC) conversions. Also, there are, literally, no extras at all on the Kino DVD.

*Acknowledgement to Samuel Clemens.

[Ledos]

probably because all are from the FWMS, whose skill in producing fine restorations is surpassed only by their proficiency in ruining those films with NTSC>PAL (or PAL>NTSC) conversions.

Just for the record, FWMS or Transit are not ruining films with conversions. They do straight PAL transfers.

[HerrSchreck]

Lessons on How to use the Apostrophe:

Possessive--

"That guy's review facts are not straight."

Contractions:

"The facts in the above review aren't straight."

[Tommaso]

Just for the record, FWMS or Transit are not ruining films with conversions. They do straight PAL transfers.

Precisely, and I have to agree with Darth on "Warning Shadows". I had hoped after "Sir Arne's Treasure" (which looks really GOOD!) that Kino finally had found an acceptable way of doing these conversions, but the "Shadows" dvd has sadly taught me otherwise. Apart from the jaggies, there is constant haloing around characters and objects, almost as bad as on their "Holy Mountain" disc. Still, I really loved the film, it's absolutely stunning in its playing on multiple levels of realities, and that dark sado-sexual undercurrent that runs through it. And damn brilliant visuals all the time. Absolutely essential for anyone interested in silents, and I only hope that MoC or the bfi will one day bless us with a good edition of it.

[HerrSchreck]

Sadly, don't hold your breath. Do yourself a favor & take rarities like this, WAXWORKS, MAN WHO LAUGHS etc & get them off your projection screen tv's. Only top tier silents like the main Murnau's & Langs are going to get a-plus treatment. Learn this fact or you boys are still going to be here fifty years from now complaining about this stuff... or at least until the full fledged hi-def days. One can only hope & wait.

[Ledos]

I'm somewhere in the middle on this issue. It certainly has a number of the usual Kino problems, but I don't think the picture quality is all that bad, overall. This is due to a good restoration rather than Kino's way of handling it. At the same time I'm glad they did go ahead and release it which no-one else has bothered to do yet. That is, except Murnau Stiftung themselves who actually released it on DVD without any soundtrack. This release was intended for movie theaters, so perhaps it can still be ordered if you pretend to be a movie theater .

[Tommaso]

Yes, in no way should those deficiencies stop anyone from buying this utterly magnificent film. But this thread is there to point them out. "Shadows" indeed is a rarity, but clearly obscurity here doesn't mean it's a marginal work. Thus it would grace the catalogue of any company doing silents, and considering the release record of the Bfi, with things like "Piccadilly" or "People on Sunday", I won't give up any hope yet.

One can only hope & wait.

Amen.