Flicker Alley

[tryavna]

I've been staying out of this discussion because I'll wait to see the evidence for myself when TCM airs the two Gance films tomorrow night. But to "sshhhh": You must not have re-read any of the posts prior to Schreck's comments about La Roue because Schreck is by far the strongest advocate for Flicker Alley on this board (or at least in the top three). I think that what he has described raises a genuine concern. If a restorer/distributor is doing a disservice to the filmmaker's work as originally intended -- no matter how much that restorer/distributor's heart may be in the right place -- it needs to be acknowledged and discussed and (hopefully) prevented from happening again.

And I'm speaking as one of those people who has chosen to support Flicker Alley in the past, despite the decision to replace the original (or the original language of the) intertitles. It would be a real shame if what Schreck describes causes people not to purchase La Roue at all, but depending on what I see tomorrow night, I may sympathize with them.

[Donald Trampoline]

I quite liked the way that Pioneer handled their 2000 DVD of Akira where you could choose a subtitle track that brought up a symbol during the film that if you pressed it while it was showing paused the film and brought up a translation of whatever Japanese text was going past on the screen at that moment.

That's a pretty crazy solution (a lot of unnecessary bells and whistles), and is really not apropos to the discussion. We aren't talking about dense onscreen text at all. The solutions to this problem are much simpler and already exist.

[denti alligator]

Anyway, it may seem to crazy to cancel an order before I've seen the exact result, but the way I see it is: if when I see the results (either screen caps posted somewhere or I can rent the DVD) and I find it not that offensive, I can always buy a copy then. For now, I'm waiting and hoping the French put out a version.

[drdoros]

Just want to point out that when you're dealing with multiple sources and silent films, as I believe Flicker Alley and FPA had on the Gance titles, there were probably multiple intertitle fonts and languages. That's my guess why they didn't use subtitles but I could be wrong. It's definitely why what happened with some of our films.

Dennis
Milestone F&V

[What A Disgrace]

In any case, all details for J'Accuse have been removed. The only thing on the page now is "Coming September 2008".

[Kinsayder]

If an unsubbed French edition really is in the works, Flicker Alley may have been contractually obliged to cover up the original French intertitles. There's been a fair deal of excitement about these FA Gances in French cineaste forums like Dvdclassik, and Flicker Alley would be crazy to exclude that market if they didn't have to.

Just want to point out that when you're dealing with multiple sources and silent films, as I believe Flicker Alley and FPA had on the Gance titles, there were probably multiple intertitle fonts and languages. That's my guess why they didn't use subtitles but I could be wrong. It's definitely why what happened with some of our films.

EDIT: Yes, on reflection that may well be the explanation here. I understand that the Flicker Alley version was assembled from Russian and French prints: presumably the Russians had masked the original French in-image titles with their own translations, so those elements were already screwed (title-wise).

[HerrSchreck]

Holy canoli!

You know as soon as someone chimed in that they were cancelling a pre-order I had a feeling this was going to go hissing back like like a fuse to Jeff, who I've had very many wonderful conversations with via email with me relentlessly covering him with admiration. Jeff knows who I am, and he has every idea how much I admire his operation. I have fawned all over his operation & love it so much I almost regret not living in LA so I could work for him (but I'm a NY'er).

I paid 31.99 plus tax, my friend-- early copy from Kims. They do it all the time.

I never told anyone to cancel their pre-order, and even if I did that's what commerce in a wide open free market in front of watching eyeballs is all about. People will form their own variant opinions based on their own preferences gleaned from relentlessly meticulous reviews. You're selling to some very observant and intelligent folks-- not (to steal from Signor Harvey) Joe Dirt consumers. Denti is not a Flicker Alley hating bum-- he's a college professor who contends with languages before his students.. one who sets a very high criteria for his classroom material.

Imagine if Donald Krim sent a personal linebacker in crashing the Beaver or this forum every time a Kino disc was slammed by purists. The dude would get no rest! (My own volountary defense of the label, endless prosyletizing about "love" and "economics" and "thankless tasks" mostly fall on deaf ears). I've been such an "interesting" cheerleader for Shepard that Bret Hampton created an account seemingly just to find out who the hell this Schreck guy is, Preaching The Word nonstop like a naturally occuring accidental marketing dream come true. Nobody sticks up for you guys around here more than me. Personally I cant understand how some folks will choose to not see Phantom (and continue not seeing it for years until a german version comes out) instead of watching it with the english version intertitles... but this is the intellectual audience you contend with here.

I think you've discovered to your own embarassment based on the response you got and my post history that I'm your biggest friend around here. Whoever you are. When you put out a product, however, people will talk-- "ssshhhhhh" is most emphatically not the rule. Its the internet man.

I can haz mie own opinyon?

PS-- am I wrong or are there two different telecine sources here too? One exhibits chroma, the other is cleaner with solid contrasts.

PPS-- it is worth noting that the scenes with "covered over" zones where new intertitles are laid over are not that frequent. As I've gotten thru this, I've even found they overlaid english text over unblacked-out moving shots with no foreign intertitles... I don;t know how this was done unless scenes with no previously existing overlay were selected for this.

I still think it's a very good package. I'll be the judge of what gets returned thank you very much. But I'm just doing what we DO around here... talking about dvd's and What's On Them. If you find that disturbing, I'm sorry.

EDIT: if as was mentioned by Dennis the issue was in the elements, with variant languages existing on the composite, a simple disclaimer or note would go a long way to disarm the issue beforehand.

[Tommaso]

People will form their own variant opinions based on their own preferences gleaned from relentlessly meticulous reviews.

Exactly, and I never said that I would NEVER buy this edition. But look at the current release schedule all over the world: it's absolutely immense, with wonderful discs appearing at a pace that makes it close to impossible to keep up with them, both money-wise and perhaps even more important, time-wise. Only looking at silents, there is the new L'Herbier and the two Duviviers, "Silent Ozu", the forthcoming discs from Filmmuseum, the BFI "Cottage at Dartmoor", and occasionally something completely unexpected like "Brudeferden" (already out and certainly the greatest discovery in the last year). Add to this also some 'close to silent' films (historically), like "Vampyr" or "Mädchen in Uniform". And from time to time you'd also want to see something else, like the MoC Mizos or CC's Mishima discs, or Greenaway's "Nightwatching".

And I didn't have to think very long to put down that above list... What I want to say is: I can't buy nor watch them all at once, so what just happened to "La Roue" is that it dropped from 'top priority' to 'low priority' for me. Which was my reason why I abstained from "Phantom": first it was announced by MoC (though it still hasn't appeared), and secondly, I was able to see it on TV with original titles in the meantime. In other words: when I've bought and seen all the above mentioned discs and nothing else (even more must-have discs or a French edition of "La Roue") has been announced by then, i.e. July, it's likely I will buy "La Roue" then. But not now.
And I'm curious to hear from those that can see the TCM broadcast about how serious the problem is.

[denti alligator]

If there were no chance of another DVD coming out I wouldn't have cancelled. If I couldn't read French (knowing that the better DVD will probably lack English subs) I wouldn't have cancelled. But as it is, it's best for me to wait. That's all. I gushed about Flicker Alley's Melies set in the previous pages of this thread (DVD release of the year, so far!!), and have nothing against the company, per se. I think they're doing amazing work, despite insisting on translating intertitles. I may yet buy their edition of La roue. For now, given what Schreck has described, I think it's best to wait. I'm with Tomasso: there are dozens of other DVDs being released that now seem more appealing to me. If I had unlimited funds, I wouldn't think twice. But now I can reallocate my funds and think about getting the new AE Man Escaped, or the Gaumont silents set. I will DEFINITELY rent La roue. And I may yet buy it, but for now it's best to wait.

[Donald Trampoline]

Just want to point out that when you're dealing with multiple sources and silent films, as I believe Flicker Alley and FPA had on the Gance titles, there were probably multiple intertitle fonts and languages. That's my guess why they didn't use subtitles but I could be wrong. It's definitely why what happened with some of our films.

Dennis
Milestone F&V

I still would probably prefer to see that subbed when it's text that is in the shot itself (especially overlaid, or optically printed I think you say).
That has historical interest as well and the situation doesn't necessitate the blocking-over method. I can understand it for straight intertitles, I think. Somehow I would still prefer to see an in-shot handwritten letter the way the film print had it, regardless of language. Newly photographed stuff just doesn't sit too well with me at all. And if the multi-language issue is present, then the French should still be allowed to fly free. Producers may overthink how important consistency is and feel, if they've blocked over some Russian, then they have to cover up the French, but that would be a mistake I feel. It has been mentioned that these films hardly attract casual viewers. We can understand even without a disclaimer, but if you need one, it has indeed been done many times on silent film releases before (even preceding the film after you press play.)

Anyway, Flickery Alley is fantastic. The titles they release are jaw-dropping, the stuff we read about in film books and almost never expect to get the chance to see, La Roue and J'Accuse being very high on that list. I am currently enjoying the Méliès box set at home, for Pete's sake. What an incredible thing to be able to see all these in one set. (I can even begin to imagine and hope for the complete Griffith short films on DVD!!)

Flicker Alley's level of quality in presentation is equal to Criterion's. They are the top standard, a dream for silent film fans. The films are always presented in extremely high visual quality, and most importantly they always nail the correct film speed (at least from the ones I've seen). Their commitment to sets of extreme length, such as the almost-comprehensive Méliès, the Judex serial, La Roue, etc., is also stunning and probably starts to give us on this board the perhaps unwarranted confidence to clamor for the release of even more amazing silent films that we have been deprived of seeing as they sit in archives, screened only occasionally in far-flung places.

So, my level of confidence in the quality of Flicker Alley's releases is extremely high. I hope our criticisms of this one issue are not too upsetting or dispiriting to the overall mission of this great company, and I still hope the comments are useful. (P.S. - And I love Milestone too!)

[denti alligator]

Looks like Schreck spoke a bit too fast. Here are two emails I received from Jeff at Flicker Alley. I'll try to post images soon.

This edition consists of conflated Russian and French-titled materials and I was asked to deliver the final results with English titles that my colleagues at Lobster Film Studios in Paris made look exactly like the original French cards. We left the original French main titles to show this. In this particular case, Tuner did not want their audience to sit through nearly 4-1/2 hours of reading English subtitles over text in different languages. The same is true of J'Accuse.

Most of the intertitles are static and do not have moving backgrounds at all. As is explained in the quotations from Burel in the essay by William Drew that comes with the DVD, Burel exposed matted footage for possible use as titles later on. I know that colleagues at Lobster would not try to make themselves or me look bad and would have subtitled in English over moving images if called for.

and

To clarify the reference to Burel, moving image backgrounds were in the original film that contained a black matte (mostly) on bottom for possible use as titles and these backgrounds, although dynamic, do not in any sense continue the action from either side of the cards. I've supplied several screen grabs to illustrate this.

There are probably 10-12 instances of titles over images or on top of mattes out of hundreds of titles in Part One. Titles which appear over moving images were in several cases created from sections of the Russian print which contained clean moving footage, intercut with static intertitles (compared with the superimpositions in the French versions). The use of the Russian print added tremendously to this project.

Literally thousands of hours of work went into creating this, especially if you count Robert Israel's contribution, and many budget-based and resource-based decisions. People have asked me "Why didn't you do more digital clean up?" Well, the answer is that I wanted to spend the budget that I had to allow Robert to work with an orchestra for a symphonic score instead of him improvising at a piano for 4+ hours (7+ hours considering both films). I think that Robert's score compliments the story and was money well spent.

As I'm sure you and any other film makers, new media publishers, etc. on the Criterion Forum know, balancing the needs of the partners involved, limited budgets and availability of resources will shape the final product.

Thanks for your support, your orders, and your passion about my work. It is that same passion that keeps me at this as well in light of the many challenges inherent in the job.

Therefore, as you can see (see also caps in next post) the supposed "blocking out" is already there in the original. Nothing is being covered up to make room for English.

Jeff also told me that no Frenchy edition is in the works. The bottom line is: buy this edition! The actual moving image has not been tampered with. The only mark against it are the English titles, but this is minor compared to being able to see this film in this state and with a new orchestral score!

[denti alligator]

[domino harvey]

That's so much worse than I was imagining #-o
Looks like I will rent this first to see how good/bad it is for myself... assuming Flicker Alley releases are even on NetFlix? I can't see myself blind buying this without being aware of how distracting these additions are in context.

[denti alligator]

That's so much worse than I was imagining #-o

You're kidding, right? (I seriously can't tell.)

[HerrSchreck]

I can't see how I "spoke too fast" Denti-- I paid good money for this thing and am holding on to it. What I said was on it was on it: You will see in the disc itself there are scenes with english titles that have been superimposed "transparently" with no black background. The image takes up 1.33 to 1 of the screen. If this was a fully french/russian composite I can't see where the image real estate was located to superimpose these english titles. Unless they simply subbed onto previously unsubbed moving images. (and why they did it if this is not the style of the film)

I'm not going to hold on to a point with absurdity for one specific reason: this issue isn't even a big thing to me. Guys like you Dent & others are the dudes I stated this for, because I know what a pickle it's put you in in the past... mostly to my own bewilderment. You wanta watch film or you wanta watch intertitles? You wanta be thankful to see a great film hidden from your view forever or you wanta be ungrateful over an American prepared edition? Yet if Massino or you or SHhhh is trying to make it look like I'm firing from the hip, it's simple:

1) there are english intertitles superimposed over 1.33 images by Flicker Alley with no black background. Clearly this is a motif in the film.

2) L. H. Burel claimed ".. I claim credit as well for having been the first to suggest to Gance, on La Roue, and for having done it myself to boot, that he superimpose the titles onto the picture, instead of black titles filmed on white cards, which were cut into the film on the negative."

3) Since the intertitles are replaced, one would naturally construe that these black zones are the result of having to black out previously existing intertitles. It's the only rational conclusion to come to, based on the evidence.

If what Massino is saying is true, then Burel is not accurately articulating during his interview. Burel is saying he superimposed ONTO THE IMAGE, not into black areas.. (i e theoretically an in camera effect where the bottom half was not exposed while shooting live action, whereby illuminated white letters against a dark black background could be shot into the bottom half.) That's what superimposition is: one on top of the other. (If he was doing what Massino said, that would be an in camera split-screen.) .

The problem of superimposed intertitles, which Burel says he did, are like subtitles today. And when a disc producer wants to hide print-organic intertitles, like SHepard in Vampyr, and he's confronted with subtitles he cannot remove, he must black over them. Anyone would study the materials at hand, the history of this film, the few genuinely "superimposed" english intertitles, and come to the conclusion I did.

I'm not misrepresenting anything, as you can well see. But this is all Very Silly. You want to see La Roue within at least the next ten years? Buy the Flicker Alley edition. But as you can see from the caps it's a little ugly in places due to the creative nature of the film combined with the far-reaching decision to replace the intertitles. It was a fateul decision on this film. But still-- do you want to see the film? Buy it. You want to see it more than anything for an intertitle French Lesson? then wait.

I'm a little amused to find myself and Denti Alligator perceived at opposite sides of this issue. It's actually one of the more amusing quirks the inertnet makes possible. But really this is simply him coming around to my traditional and ever-ongoing enthusiasm despite these minor bleeps. As I said in my initial post, Jeff has to deal with TCM. He has to present english VERY-friendly versions of these films. Sometimes as in this or parts of Judex (or Vampyr, a SHepard disc), the decision winds up having image based repercussions that are unsightly.

[denti alligator]

Schreck, chill!

Let me be clear about this. I undertsood you to have initially pointed out that this edition of the film appeared to have taken sections where titles were superimposed over moving image and to have blacked-out those titles (in French) in order to put in English ones.

Jeff at Flicker Alley explains that those sequences with moving image and black "matte" areas were created as such by Burel:

To clarify the reference to Burel, moving image backgrounds were in the original film that contained a black matte (mostly) on bottom for possible use as titles and these backgrounds, although dynamic, do not in any sense continue the action from either side of the cards.

So nothing has been blacked out here. Or am I misunderstanding Jeff?

Jeff also notes that there are segments with moving image onto which they were able to superimpose English titles without having to resort to the kind of blacking-out we all fear because of the existence of Russian elements that don't have the superimposed titles:

Titles which appear over moving images were in several cases created from sections of the Russian print which contained clean moving footage, intercut with static intertitles (compared with the superimpositions in the French versions). The use of the Russian print added tremendously to this project.

This explains your query:

The image takes up 1.33 to 1 of the screen. If this was a fully french/russian composite I can't see where the image real estate was located to superimpose these english titles. Unless they simply subbed onto previously unsubbed moving images. (and why they did it if this is not the style of the film)

Jeff made it clear where this footage came from (Russian source) and that it jives with the original French presentation.

Now, I'd like to believe that I understood Jeff correctly. However, Schreck, if I'm not seeing things right (which is TOTALLY possible), I'm not here to argue. As you know, I'M ON YOUR SIDE on this issue.

Here are the possibilities:

a) I have misunderstood the emails from Jeff and Schreck's observations hold true. (I responded to the last of Jeff's emails to me asking point-blank "so, was any moving image blacked-out in any way?" -- just to be sure; so I should hear back from him soon enough.)

b) Jeff has clarified what has been done to the image and we have nothing (except the lamentable lack of original intertitles) to worry about. That is: the moving image has not been distorted or covered up in any way.

c) I've misunderstood both Jeff and Schreck and I'm a total idiot and am making a fuss over nothing.

Schreck, don't take this personally. I'd like to get to the bottom of this. We know the original titles have been replaced. Whether any portion of the moving image has been cropped, blacked-out, or distorted in any way is what's at issue here. Right? I understand Jeff to say: none. I could be wrong. Let's figure it out, nicely, together.

[Kinsayder]

A preview of Flicker Alley's J'accuse.

BEFORE:


AFTER:


(not really)

[domino harvey]

Oh my God, that's the most I've ever laughed at something on this board. =D>

[htdm]

On a more positive note, Flicker Alley has just posted more details on two upcoming sets.

The first is a two-discer called Hardships of the New Land which will include Ince's The Italian (1915) and Traffic in Souls (1913) as well as three shorts: Police Force, New York City (1910), The Call of the City (1912), and McQuade of the Traffic Squad (1915). Due out in July.

The second is the long rumored 5-disc pre-costume Fairbanks boxset called Douglas Fairbanks: A Modern Musketeer including: Flirting With Fate; The Matrimaniac; His Picture In The Papers; Mystery of the Leaping Fish; Wild and Woolly; Reaching for the Moon; A Modern Musketeer; When The Clouds Roll By; The Mollycoddle; The Mark of Zorro; and The Nut. Due in November.

[Galen Young]

Caught the TCM broadcast of La Roue last night -- thought the image looked fantastic and the title cards didn't bother me at all, so I'm still looking forward to getting my pre-order from Flicker Alley. I did do a double take when a quote by Baudelaire flashed by -- with his name spelled "Beaudelaire" -- anyone else catch that?

[unclehulot]

Just curious if there's any indication that the Brownlow documentary shown before the 2 films (The Charm of Dynamite) is to be included in either of these (or other) releases?

[tryavna]

OK, so I watched J'Accuse all the way through last night and the first half hour of La Roue. (I recorded that film and will watch all of it within the next week -- hopefully.) Here are a few impressions -- but just personal impressions:

1. Is it safe to assume that the original intertitles for J'Accuse no longer exist? Because unlike La Roue, there was no attempt to make the new English intertitles look like French intertitles from 1919. (In La Roue, you get things like the image of the wheel in the upper-left-hand corner of the intertitles, which is obviously an attempt to match the originals.

2. At the same time, however, there were posters, placards, handwriting, etc. in the original French on the Flicker Alley print of J'Accuse. (Letters that contained vital plot information were replaced with English-language inserts.) Also, I remember actually seeing one brief instance of an English subtitle for a bit of French that appeared within the frame. In this one instance, there was no blocking out of the image whatsoever. Now, what this suggests to me about the weird blocking out we see in the caps that Denti posted and that I saw a couple of times in the half-hour I watched is one of two things:

(A) Either the blocked out image is indeed inherent to the image as Gance intended and is therefore more along the lines of a "split-screen" effect, as Schreck suggested in his most recent post (with the blocking intended to be filled with text in whatever language the film was being shown in). Robert Osborne said something about how La Roue's editing was influenced by Gance's trip to America and his encounter with Griffith, so perhaps it's possible that Gance was thinking globally and was looking for a way for any language's text to be added to a print. Of course, here I'm just grasping at straws. I really don't know.

(B) Or it really is an example of Flicker Alley blocking out all the text because it exhibited multiple languages (as Dennis pointed out). And I must say that, at first glance, it is very reminiscent of what Shepard did with Vampyr, so I can see where Schreck is coming from. At the same time, the few instances I saw of it during the first half hour didn't seem as distracting to me as the stuff in Vampyr does. I'm not sure why that is, but if it is a solution made by Flicker Alley, it doesn't seem particularly invasive. And like Schreck says, there really aren't that many instances of it.

3. I also noticed the chroma (or moiring, or whatever you want to call it) that Schreck mentioned in an earlier post. But it actually appears to much more extensive on J'Accuse than on La Roue, for some reason. Perhaps this has to do with the digital tinting? It looked to my eyes like the tinting on La Roue was largely original. And most of the chroma that I saw appeared most prominently in the inky blacks of tinted scenes. (Of course, all of this is based on a TV broadcast version, so take this with a grain of salt. By the same token, however, these are the Flicker Alley digital restorations.)

4. I was rather disappointed by the docu on Gance that came on at 7:00. I know that Brownlow added a disclaimer at the beginning and that the docu itself is forty years old now. But it didn't seem to aim at any sort of comprehensiveness, covering only three of Gance's films. The real value of the docu came from the interviews with Gance and, even more interestingly, behind-the-scenes footage.

5. Was anybody thrown off by how tediously melodramatic the second part (middle section) of J'Accuse was? I mean, I loved the first and third parts and found the final half hour to be one of the most powerful and moving climaxes of the silent era. But the whole love-triangle plot just didn't do much for me.

To summarize, I didn't really see anything that should deter people from purchasing the Flicker Alley editions. But it would be good to hear some sort of definitive information about La Roue.

[denti alligator]

Jeff confirms that as far as he knows there was no blacking-out of moving image in La roue:

Again, it's my understanding that these are the original mattes which would
explain why some of the titles extend slightly beyond them. Unfortunately,
my colleague (and technical fact checker) at Lobster who prepared this work
has become ill and will be out for quite some time, likely until the fall.

[HerrSchreck]

An issue settling post with photographic proof, about the handling of superimposed titles in La Roue-- providing caps of an original untouched source print.

here by La cle du Ciel.

LH Burel clearly superimposed over shots... he did not drop titles into black areas within split screens.

[denti alligator]

Good to know. Wonder if Lobster is responsible for this, or if they had to deal with compromised sources?

Too bad, but according to FA no French DVD is in the works, so even if Lobster had butchered the source they were given we won't be seeing an unbutchered version in our lifetime.

Schreck, are you still mad at me?