Forthcoming Lists Discussion and Random Speculation Vol. 5

[Matt]

I would collect the eclipse sets if they had some form of extras on them.

[zedz]

I would collect the eclipse sets if they had some form of extras on them.

Hey, I'd buy Coldplay albums if they actually contained unreleased music by Charles Mingus!

[Drucker]

Zedz, a Demy retrospective just finished at film forum in NY, for what it's worth.

[Black Hat]

Yes the restorations looked great. I had only previously seen his big three but was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Une chambre une ville and the ridiculous but terrific fun of Donkey Skin, put Delphine Seyrig in anything and I'm sold.

[nolanoe]

I kind of... really... umh... hate Les Demoiselles. I only managed to watch an hour - everybody always claims Demy's films are SO DARK!!!!1!, yet I found it entirely saccharine and almost unwatchable so.
Les Parapluis is touted as a masterpiece I understand, but... I am not convinced I'd like that one either. Lola looks interesting, though.

[knives]

I don't know where anyone would claim Demy dark, melancholy maybe but in this case that would be straining, but at the same time its hard to see Les Demoiselles as saccharine when it utilizes its musical forebearers to present the impossibility of a clean Hollywood love. The use of Gene Kelly strikes me as telling since his musicals were definitely the shift in the genre to dealing with post war life (I'm thinking particularly of those two Donen ones). So yes, you are not getting La Chinoise or whatever 'dark' means to you, but you aren't getting deluded sap either. Maybe if you had watched the whole movie you'd have known that.

[zedz]

I kind of... really... umh... hate Les Demoiselles. I only managed to watch an hour - everybody always claims Demy's films are SO DARK!!!!1!, yet I found it entirely saccharine and almost unwatchable so.

So you saw the part where Demy was setting the film up as if it were going to be a simple, straightforward happy romance, but not the part where that doesn't happen? (Did you completely miss the serial killer as well?)

And you still have no self-consciousness about pontificating on what's 'wrong' with the film? This is precisely why people who haven't seen a film really shouldn't have any right to express an opinion on it. They just end up looking foolish.

[domino harvey]

To be fair, would you really value the opinion of anyone who hated the film even if they did see the whole thing?

[feihong]

It's hard for me to imagine someone hating Umbrellas of Cherbourg or Les Demoiselles, even when I see their posts in front of me. I had a similar experience once of someone telling me to my face that they thought of Umbrellas of Cherbourg as cornball and insubstantial, and it became so hard to articulate an alternative view, because I found that opinion so distressing.

I wonder if its because for some of us, early Demy movies hew so close to an essential idea of what film is or should be? The giddiness of the mood of Les Demoiselles, and the chanciness of love in that mood (reminiscent to me of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in that affection is seen in both narratives as subject to fickle whim and chance encounter), seems profound and even a little sobering to me, even though the tone of the picture is exuberant. And I would say that The Umbrellas of Cherbourg has at its core what David Thomson referred to (talking about Jean-Pierre Melville) as "prickly French truths," that modulate the mood of the film in subtle ways. I don't see it as "dark," in the Tim Burton or the David Fincher sense of the term. But I think the Demy films are open to the risk, and flux and tumult of real life in a way to which American musicals often seem to be opposed. Not that there isn't subtlety or interest in the American musical; but the tone Demy brings to his films is very personal and unique, and Les Demoiselles is as filled with that privileged air as Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

[movielocke]

It's hard for me to imagine someone hating Umbrellas of Cherbourg or Les Demoiselles, even when I see their posts in front of me. I had a similar experience once of someone telling me to my face that they thought of Umbrellas of Cherbourg as cornball and insubstantial, and it became so hard to articulate an alternative view, because I found that opinion so distressing.

when I was in college a girl in my dorm I had been flirting with on and off for most of the first semester was taking a class (intro to film) in the spring that I'd taken in the fall. I mentioned that I was jealous, because their first film was Singin' in the Rain, and I'd always wanted to see it with an audience and on 35mm (as it happened I wasn't working and found an open seat when the screening started). Afterwards I asked her what she thought, and she said, basically, that it was cornball and insubstantial. I found that opinion so distressing I don't think I spoke to her for the rest of the year. ten plus years later she's standing behind me at a whole food checkout line and strikes up a conversation and the only thing I could think of the whole time she was making small talk was, "you didn't like Singin' in the Rain!"

[Black Hat]

Ha. I broke up with a girl after watching The Third Man because she didn't get it. Funny thing about Demy is that his whole thing is about social commentary, although because a lot of it is subtext or very much French working class I can see why someone would miss it. I find Cherbourg and Rochefort to be completely different films with the former being far more coherently structured than the latter. However, I find Rochefort to be the more memorable of the two and definitely the one I would pop on to watch a random scene of. I'd like to see it again but I might take Une chambre en ville over both, what an underrated film.

[J Wilson]

Les Demoiselles is probably the one film I'd pick to see in a theater that I haven't already seen. I considered driving the six hours to and back from Chicago when it showed there a few years ago but scheduling (and my wife) wouldn't allow it. It and Cherbourg are my two favorite musicals, period.

[ianungstad]

Night of the Hunter blu is out of print:

http://dvdlist.kazart.com/queryDVDList2.php3?id=189036" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe Night of the Hunter; Breathless; The Last Wave; 400 Blows are just in limbo awaiting new dual format editions.

[Cinephrenic]

Regarding Night of the Hunter, could mean a 3-year license agreement has come to end. It was released in November/2010. Just speculation on my part. Why would Criterion waste time re-releasing dual formats?

[dwk]

The Night of the Hunter blu-ray is probably going to be re-issued in a two-disc scanavo case not as a dual format, as the only reason it was a digipak was because they didn't have the two-disc blu-ray scanavo cases when it was released.

[movielocke]

they could always have a five disc digi pack made for DF, like they are doing for Mad World. I might have to sell my digi copy and rebuy in scanavo if they do reissue it though.

[movielocke]

Night of the Hunter blu is out of print:

http://dvdlist.kazart.com/queryDVDList2.php3?id=189036" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe Night of the Hunter; Breathless; The Last Wave; 400 Blows are just in limbo awaiting new dual format editions.

Is Stories of Floating Weeds also in this situation?

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dvd-sto ... ting+weeds" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[swo17]

B&N's website has always had a problem recognizing that as a Criterion title.

[Noiradelic]

Maybe Night of the Hunter; Breathless; The Last Wave; 400 Blows are just in limbo awaiting new dual format editions.

The Breathless and 400 Blows pages on the Criterion site, under the Blu Rays, has a "Buy at Amazon" and "(details)" link. Clicking on the "details" link opens a window that says:

Unfortunately, we are not able to offer this product for sale on Criterion.com. Please note that it is not out of print and is available at other retailers, like Amazon.com.

This the first time they've had this message and the links on product pages?

Night of the Hunter and The Last Wave are still available there.

[ianungstad]

Criterion posted on Facebook that they are making packaging changes and these titles will be re-solicited. (They replied to a query about Breathless and 400 Blows but this probably applies to all these titles)

[CSM126]

This the first time they've had this message and the links on product pages?

Hardly. Life Aquatic has been that way a long time and they've done it with some other films, usually on a temporary basis such as in-between printings.

[ianungstad]

Barnes and Noble has Night of the Hunter in stock but they are not including it in their 50% off sale. They are asking full msrp. Amazon only has it from third party sellers with the cheapest price being $52.

I wonder with these titles going out of print if they are waiting for dvd stock to deplete before reissuing as dual format releases. They could also be waiting to sell off their Image stock before printing new runs with Sony in the new year.

I doubt they lost the rights to any of these titles.

[Moe Dickstein]

I'm sure it's burning off of Image stock. This has become a somewhat widespread thing the last few months. We'd have heard a lot more if any of them were legit OOP

[giovannii84]

Im thinking this might be due to Criterion's decision to go dual format. In the dual format announcenent they indicated a big factor in the decision was the cost of producing different packaging.

As they start to run low of stock for existing titles, rather than produce more units of DVD & more units of BD, they may instead repackage them as a Dual Format edition. This may be the case for Breathless, The 400 Blows & Night of the Hunter.

The DVD only releases may be earmarked for a BD upgrade sometime soon, and we'll get the dual format when it eventually happens.

[bugsy_pal]

I also noticed that the Antoine Doinel collection was not going for 50% in the B&N sale... not sure what this means