It's a tad late to post on these releases from 2006, but we all need to take a closer look on the extraordinary silent titles presented by the Danish Film Institute:
Atlantis (August Blom 1913)
Verdens undergang/The end of the world (August Blom 1916)
Himmelskibet/A trip to Mars (Holger-Madsen 1918)
All films have bilingual danish and english intertitles. A special thanks to a certain person who helped me get these gems.
Does the FSF have English subtitles? (no?, ) It looks so beautiful. And to think: this has been my perennial answer to the question What Black & White Film Do You Wish Was Shot In Color? Criterion!!!! License this shit, motherfuckers!!!
Mmm that looks much better. The UK version is truly shocking. One of the worst transfers I've seen. That second capture might actually be considered as "flattering".
My 15 year old off-the-air VHS could have looked better had it been transferred to DVD using a handheld camera pointed at an old 14 inch tube from the sofa.
The FSF Distant Thunder looks fairly good, though:
That awful UK Charulata comes with the following mystifying remarks on the back cover:
Reproduced from violage [sic] source for the sake of appeal, hence possibly compromising on quality. THE DVD VIDEO DISC FORMAT OFFERS THE BEST VIDEO & AUDIO QUALITY IN YOUR HOME. The DVD disc is Digitally Mastered from Original Film, offering sharp crisp digital video & audio quality that you can experience in your home theatre.
Thanks for posting those shots, Mister Zob. Is that French disc anamorphic? Does it have english subtitles like Malavida's edition of The Saragossa Manuscript?
The Hourglass Sanatorium is an incredible film - it is very strange and demands close attention. The style is very Bava-esque and the music is highly ethereal.
I had noticed your "Polish with French subs only" statement, but I just wanted clarification. That's a weird move by Malavida, as their Saragossa Manuscript DVD has English subtitles and they are white, unlike the yellow subs on the vertically-stretched Image Entertainment R1 disc. Though his films are often too philosophical for their own good, Wojciech Has had incredible vision and imagination and more of his films should be available on DVD outside of Poland. I admire him more than Tarkovsky.
Trying to teach myself how to do some screen captures, so bear with me. These shots are from the four short documentaries (from the early '50s) on Disc 1 of the PSD: Andrzej Munk set:
The greatest film on the foreign legion from the 30s along with La Bandera and Beau Geste. Marcel Carné was assistant director for Feyder and Charles Spaak wrote the script. With names like Charles Vanel and Françoise Rosay on the list it is quite obvious that this is a work of quality. Bonus: Charles Vanel ou la passion du métier.
Last edited by Knappen on Tue Oct 02, 2007 5:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Thanks. I don't think this is one of Pathé Classique's better DVD releases. They've used a lot of image smoothing and contrast boosting on what was probably a very worn, grainy print - maybe even the same one used by the Japanese DVD, which is a warts-and-all edition. Also, Pathé are still not including the original mono soundtracks on these old films, which is a real shame.
Masahiro Shinoda's Punishment Island (Toho, R2 JP).
The film is visually truly arresting. Unfortunately the captures came out squeezed vertically. If someone can instruct me how to achieve the proper aspect ratio, I would be thankful and will repost.