109, 930-935 Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood

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Michael
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:09 pm

Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#51 Post by Michael » Fri Oct 31, 2008 7:40 am

Is the new print making its run throughout the country? Does anyone know if it's coming to NYC?

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Matango
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#52 Post by Matango » Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:08 pm

"I have the old laserdisc of SHANGHAI EXPRESS, so I'm willing to wait for whatever Criterion puts out."

The new Universal UK Region 2/4/5 looks pretty good to me. No extras, but I already watched it three times. Good value, great film. I'm taking the first-class overnight train up to Peking from Hong Kong next week, so I'll be closing my eyes and imagining Marlene and Anna in the next carriage. 8-[

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HistoryProf
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#53 Post by HistoryProf » Sun Nov 29, 2009 4:01 am

so with all this talk of new prints and whatnot, is there any confirmation that this is in the pipeline for being redone - or at least on the shortlist for consideration? I'm not talking blu even....just utilizing the reportedly awesome new restoration Universal did and making this worth the money. My wife absolutely adores this movie, and we've checked it of the library a few times...but i've come extremely close to just saying fuck it and buying it in the recent B&N sales - But I worry that once I do we'll get the announcement for the re release!

blah blah blah I know....can anyone confirm or deny the rumors that this is among the early titles that will get remasters?

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tojoed
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#54 Post by tojoed » Sun Nov 29, 2009 5:55 am

^ For now, why don't you buy the Region 2? It's better than the Criterion and cheap,too.

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Blonde Venus (von Sternberg, 1932)

#55 Post by knives » Sat Jan 02, 2010 10:59 pm

I just got done with my first three von Sternberg's I have to say this is without a doubt my favorite. In broad terms of what I liked from all three I have to say he is a master of actors and traditional editing. I haven't seen too many people who shift an actors performance to so many extremes, but Dietrich comes off as three different people here. I actually preferred The Devil is a Woman on that front because it seems to use the energy of screw-ball acting in a myth building drama. As for my preference to Blonde Venus I really can't figure why. It's seems the most complex I suppose. Dietrich journey feels more real than other similar ones shown during this period. I could feel and understand every action. Even odd things like the caricature of a husband and the unaging son feel completely natural in context. The production design too is amazing. Fakeness never seemed so real. Now I'm goign to have to hunt down all the rest.

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zedz
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Re: Blonde Venus (von Sternberg, 1932)

#56 Post by zedz » Mon Jan 04, 2010 5:14 pm

Blonde Venus is my favourite too, and I have no idea why either. Part of it is seeing that high style applied to more (comparatively!) down-to-earth subject matter and part of it surely the 'Hot Voodoo' number. It seems like it was conceived strictly to outdo the outrageousness of the opening number in Morocco and in succeeding it becomes one of the most delirious moments ever to come out of Hollywood.

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HistoryProf
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#57 Post by HistoryProf » Wed Jan 06, 2010 10:22 pm

Watching this on TCM tonight and it's quite clearly the flawless euro print that's been mentioned...but still showed the 21st century Universal logo intro before it started. It looks a thousand times better than the CC disc though....which makes me sad. I can't help but imagine this transfer being used for a blu re-release *drools*

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HistoryProf
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#58 Post by HistoryProf » Wed Jan 06, 2010 10:24 pm

tojoed wrote:^ For now, why don't you buy the Region 2? It's better than the Criterion and cheap,too.
i'm R1 only....and i can't even afford to keep up with that :(

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knives
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#59 Post by knives » Wed Jan 06, 2010 10:42 pm

I suspect Criterion will redo the disc with the R2 print when they release Underworld ect.

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Napier
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#60 Post by Napier » Wed Jan 06, 2010 11:41 pm

I happened to catch this on TCM as well. The print did indeed look much better than the CC disc. Here's hoping to a BD release! It truly is a wonderful "little" gem. And definitely a film that needs Criterion's utmost attention. (It even lives in their corporate headquarters). I calmly await my pictureboxed version.

HarryLong
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#61 Post by HarryLong » Thu Jan 07, 2010 10:36 am

Napier wrote:The print did indeed look much better than the CC disc.
Goldang it. I was working & couldn't make a burn.

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Westwood
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#62 Post by Westwood » Sat Jan 09, 2010 9:12 am

Are you guys talking about TCM in America? TCM France had a Marlene Dietrich "Intégrale" cycle for the whole month of December 2009, I recorded all of these but haven't watched or compared them yet.
I was most happy with finally having The Montecarlo Story in widescreen.
I also have the Marlene Dietrich 18-disc "The Movie Collection" from the UK but again not compared anything. Are those prints any good?

Is that awful new Universal logo being placed before old movies a real indication of the "time" of the print?

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Westwood
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#63 Post by Westwood » Sat Jan 09, 2010 9:36 am

Can I ask you guys how you can compare quality of the image of movies when you have more than one copy? Surely quickly changing the discs in the player is not the best way to detect minor changes.
Do you take screen grabs with the computer? Even so, would that be print screen and paste? Is that how they do it at dvdbeaver?
I doubt my pc will play R1 dvds :(

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Peacock
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#64 Post by Peacock » Sat Jan 09, 2010 1:23 pm

Westwood - just download VLC - it's free and region free...
And some people Print Screen, some use free screen grab software and some of the producers, critics etc buy special software.

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George Kaplan
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Re:

#65 Post by George Kaplan » Sun Jan 10, 2010 5:30 pm

david hare wrote:Her entire contract with Atwill is the Sadist to the the Masochist. She humiliates him at every opportuinity, perferably always publicly. And she always has to come back, just as he always has to come back. They dont' exist without each other.

But this is just the surface of course. Among other things I often get the sensation she is efffectively "Directing" (that's to say, creating, forming and shaping) her own character in real time as the movie progresses. Certrainly I now view her as the co-auteur of this picture.
The question of authorship is at the heart of the film. And because the film is so artful in this respect it has come to be one of the more widely mis-read of films. I think, the most important thing to keep in mind is that, most everything we see of Concha, and, certainly all of her most devilish, bitchy, amoral, whatever-you-want-to-call-it behavior is recounted for us, and all importantly for Antonio ("you just wanted to keep me out of your preserves!"), by Don Pasqual. But Pasqualito is one of fiction's greatest unreliable narrators - in a pantheon that includes Emily Bronte's Nelly Dean, Ford Madox Ford's John Dowell and Nabokov's double-act of Humbert Humbert and Charles Shade. Not for nothing is John Dos Passos the screenwriter; no matter how much was actually "written" by Sternberg. And by Dietrich herself! I've often wondered if her claim of favoring DIAW because she is "most beautiful" in it, (Really Marlene?) isn't itself unreliable. Critics tend to de-value Dietrich's contribution to the collaboration (certainly she is the junior partner behind the camera), often revealing a sexist tendency (see David Thomson.) It would be consistent, however, with her lifelong carrying of the torch for Sternberg's artistry that she might seek to obscure whatever authoring is hers in the project.

Has anyone ever read anything substantive about the production of this film or the writing of this script? I've not and would love to. Sarris has described the film's art as "bone dry," which gets at the strange hallucinatory atmosphere of the film. The whole thing seems produced in a kind of vacuum. Look at the beautifully weird paucity of credits. As if Joe and Marlene got some friends to pitch in, uncredited, on some cockamamie dream project, after hours, while no one is looking particularly Lubitsch. All the other six films are shot by ASC cinematographers. Here Sternberg is credited as producer, director and cinematographer (with uncredited camera operator Lucien Ballard about to graduate.) The Furthman scripted films, not only bear his authorial stamp but, are placed within a long, highly-developed Hollywood career. Dos Passos? This one credit. No credited editor, art director, music composer, songwriters (others can hope for a restored AMBERSONS but I'II dream of the cut number "(If It Isn't Pain) Then It Isn't Love".) Then factor in the outrage of the Spanish government and the "destruction" of the film and negative (?) and it's one very bizarre, very unique, yet shrouded production history.

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Minkin
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#66 Post by Minkin » Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:43 pm


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Derek Estes
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#67 Post by Derek Estes » Wed Jul 06, 2011 5:47 pm

I hope this is soon to be upgraded. Possibly when Criterion finally releases Shanghai Express and Dishonored. A complete set of the Von Sternberg/Dietrich films would be wonderful.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#68 Post by matrixschmatrix » Tue Jul 19, 2011 4:58 pm

I'm not sure I understand exactly what's being said here, but it sounds like it may explain the poor PQ of the Criterion:

From an interview with Torsten Kaiser of TLEFilms:
Do you own the DVD of Scarlet Empress?

KB: I don't believe I have that one.

TK: If you know anyone who has a copy, just pop it in for a moment and watch the grain go by. You can shake hands with every single piece of grain in the picture. The specks of grain are that large. The problem was that they used the wrong stock. The image became extremely soft in the process, lost a lot of its resolution and density, and therefore lost significant gradation. The grayscale went to pieces, and there was very little registration and detail. Obviously, that makes it impossible for us to do anything more, even in the digital world.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#69 Post by Roger Ryan » Tue Jul 19, 2011 5:16 pm

It sounds like Kaiser thinks Sternberg used the wrong film stock when shooting the picture and that there is no way to improve the image much even with digital tools (unless this film was later transferred poorly to safety stock and the original elements are long gone).

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tojoed
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#70 Post by tojoed » Tue Jul 19, 2011 5:27 pm

There's not much wrong with the UK disc, so I'm assuming he's talking about the Criterion.

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swo17
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#71 Post by swo17 » Tue Jul 19, 2011 5:42 pm

Do you own the DVD of Scarlet Empress?

KB: I don't believe I have that one.

TK: If you know anyone who has a copy, just pop it in for a moment and watch the grain go by. You can shake hands with every single piece of grain in the picture. The specks of grain are that large. The problem was that they used the wrong stock. The image became extremely soft in the process, lost a lot of its resolution and density, and therefore lost significant gradation. The grayscale went to pieces, and there was very little registration and detail. Obviously, that makes it impossible for us to do anything more, even in the digital world.
He's talking about what Universal did when they made a copy of the film after acquiring it from Paramount in the '50s.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#72 Post by Roger Ryan » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:03 am

swo17 wrote:
Do you own the DVD of Scarlet Empress?

KB: I don't believe I have that one.

TK: If you know anyone who has a copy, just pop it in for a moment and watch the grain go by. You can shake hands with every single piece of grain in the picture. The specks of grain are that large. The problem was that they used the wrong stock. The image became extremely soft in the process, lost a lot of its resolution and density, and therefore lost significant gradation. The grayscale went to pieces, and there was very little registration and detail. Obviously, that makes it impossible for us to do anything more, even in the digital world.
He's talking about what Universal did when they made a copy of the film after acquiring it from Paramount in the '50s.
I was lazy and didn't read the quote in context. Kaiser establishes that there were a number of films Universal acquired from Paramount in the 50s that suffered from poor preservation - CHRISTMAS IN JULY being another title.

This really is a great interview and brings to light the numerous issues that can occur when films are being prepared for digital media release.

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hearthesilence
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#73 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Jul 20, 2011 3:01 pm

So basically, unless you have a pristine print pre-dating Universal's acquisition of those Paramount films in the '50s, this film (and many others like "Christmas in July") is going to look a lot grainier and yet a lot softer and less detailed than they should? That really, really sucks...

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Doctor Sunshine
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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#74 Post by Doctor Sunshine » Wed Jul 20, 2011 3:30 pm

The quality would vary depending on the safety stocks they used for each film--some were done on fine grain, some coarse. Mayhaps we'd better reproduce the entire relevant section:
Blu-ray.com wrote:KB: Do these challenges come as a surprise?

TK: Hell yes. I definitely would say yes. Surprises are always in the cards. Preston Strurges' Christmas in July is coming out pretty soon on DVD, but the image is simply too poor for a Blu-ray release. The Christmas in July image is so particularly bad because of copying issues. Earlier, you were asking me about film elements and the condition that they're in. Well, Christmas in July really stands as one example of how photo-chemical processing can sometimes be a disaster for a film. In the '50s – 1953, I believe it was – Universal obtained a large portion of the Paramount catalog. But in adding it to their own catalog, Universal discovered that the shipped material was largely nitrate that's not only dangerous and very flammable. The decision was made to copy it right away to safety material. Now, the copying itself was not a problem, but the manner in which it was copied certainly was. Much of it had to be done then hastily, and on any stock that could be could found - often not on fine grain, but on coarse grain stock – and that created several huge problems. Do you own the DVD of Scarlett Empress?

KB: I don't believe I have that one.

TK: If you know anyone who has a copy, just pop it in for a moment and watch the grain go by. You can shake hands with every single piece of grain in the picture. The specks of grain are that large. The problem was that they used the wrong stock. The image became extremely soft in the process, lost a lot of its resolution and density, and therefore lost significant gradation. The grayscale went to pieces, and there was very little registration and detail. Obviously, that makes it impossible for us to do anything more, even in the digital world. It's the same thing with VHS. Some people didn't like the noise of VHS, so hardware manufacturers came up with the idea of pushing a button and "enhancing" the image. Really, it would simply wipe the living hell off of everybody who was on the picture, leaving all kinds of noise at the edges in the process. It was one of the worst things I've ever seen and, in some cases today, the industry sometimes commits the same mistakes that were made in the days of VHS.

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R0lf
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Re:

#75 Post by R0lf » Tue Jul 03, 2012 5:16 am

Michael wrote:The plot itself appears kind of ridiculous - the ups and downs of a German cabaret singer/housewife who decides to prostitute to make the quick buck to support her husband and so forth. But you're not watching Venus for the story. You're watching it for Marlene and Sternberg's specacular, weird, gorgeous style.
I've been reading the comment over and over that the story for Blonde Venus is ridiculous.

I think the ridiculousness in this movie stems from it's total dedication to taking the role of a woman in society dead serious and following it through to it's realistic conclusion within the social model (the original comment uses the words "decides to prostitute" when prostitution is the only option for gainful employment a woman has at this time).

The ridiculousness stems from how absurd the woman's role in society is to begin with.

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