Man with a Movie Camera

[EddieLarkin]

Maybe the restoration doesn't synch up to the Nyman score?

They didn't need an excuse to drop the Nyman score altogether, but boy that would have definitely been it!

[EddieLarkin]

The BFI's trailer for their cinema release this month is sourced from the new restoration. On their booking page, they confirm they're using the new Lobster restoration and note they're showing it with the Alloy Orchestra score. Meaning that yes this is probably down to them feeling the Nyman score was more important than a vastly superior picture when it came to the Blu-ray, which is ridiculous. Surely they understand there is an expectation from any label that releases a new restoration in cinemas, that their timed Blu-ray release is from the same source?!

Personally I think they've really shot themselves in the foot here and have seriously risked their credibility. The next time they take part in a cross territory release, the Chaplin Essanay films for instance, I will be dreading a similar scenario. The best thing they can do is recall and get the score synced up to the new restoration, or drop it altogether. There's less than 45 seconds difference between the two masters so it surely can't be too hard, especially after the huge efforts they went to to sync the Carl Davis scores to the Chaplin Mutuals.

[TMDaines]

And it had been such a great year for the BFI until now.

[Caligula]

Just cancelled my pre-order. Flicker Alley will get my money, instead.

[manicsounds]

With the BFI disc running 67 minutes and the Flicker Alley/Lobster running 67 minutes as well, I don't think the audio syncing is the issue.

[EddieLarkin]

Whilst that's true, they still run at different times. 1:07:50.833 vs. 1:07:07.041 to be precise.

[What A Disgrace]

I'm still keeping mine, but only for Tsivian's commentary and for The Sixth Side of the World.

[MichaelB]

Don't forget the new W.H. Auden subtitles on Three Songs of Lenin.

[Drucker]

I asked BFI on Twitter why they didn't release the new restoration on BD, here was their reply:

Unfortunately, despite long negotiations to secure DVD and Blu-ray distribution of the new restoration, we were unsuccessful.

We have endeavoured to make our release as good as possible by including Michael Nyman’s celebrated score, ...

newly commissioned music on the included short films, and other special features that are unavailable on other editions.

Still disappointing, as I love supporting BFI over other labels, but very nice that they replied!

[What A Disgrace]

I wonder if anyone in the UK has picked up the new restoration.

It doesn't matter to me; I have the Flicker Alley and am buying the BFI one for the commentary and for The Sixth Side of the World. I can't be the only person who is more excited to be seeing the other Vertov films for the first time, than I am to see The Man With the Movie Camera again.

[Dr Amicus]

But it does lead to the question that if the BFI haven't managed to get the rights did another UK distributor beat them to it? And if so, who?

[lentrohamsanin]

New restoration of Man with a Movie Camera with a soundtrack by The Cinematic Orchestra

Wow!

[manicsounds]

The French Blu-ray, does it not include the Russian intertitlrs? Only French intertitles?

[RobertB]

The French Blu-ray, does it not include the Russian intertitlrs? Only French intertitles?

The opening titles are French only (with English optional subtitles). The film does not have any intertitles.

[MichaelB]

Although the MoC edition subtitles the vast majority of onscreen text. I'm not sure about the others.

[RobertB]

The French disc also translated the onscreen texts. But in a light yellow font, so that will annoy some.

[Minkin]

New restoration of Man with a Movie Camera with a soundtrack by The Cinematic Orchestra

This Youtube link is gone. Does anyone have any further information on it? Is it a newer restoration than what's been put out by Flicker Alley /BFI/MOC/etc? I've been holding off all of these editions - as I care most about this score, so if yet another edition is coming out with the Cinematic Orchestra score, that would be dandy (although its been 2 years and no info since).

[manicsounds]

New restoration of Man with a Movie Camera with a soundtrack by The Cinematic Orchestra

This Youtube link is gone. Does anyone have any further information on it? Is it a newer restoration than what's been put out by Flicker Alley /BFI/MOC/etc? I've been holding off all of these editions - as I care most about this score, so if yet another edition is coming out with the Cinematic Orchestra score, that would be dandy (although its been 2 years and no info since).

This was just a user that synched the music and the 4K restored picture together. Nothing official.

[Stefan Andersson]

Original music for Man with a Movie Camera reconstructed; live performance in Luxembourg Nov. 23 alongside "a new print by Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, based on Vertov’s own nitrate copy acquired by the Filmliga film club in the city during his 1931 tour of Europe. The full-frame print reinstates all the rising and falling part numbers, and is less digitally processed than other recent restorations, making it much closer to the 1929 version of the film." This 2015 restoration was released on DVD by Lobster Films and Flicker Alley.

Source:
https://silentlondon.co.uk/2024/08/13/m ... nal-score/

Also:
https://www.philharmonie.lu/en/programm ... e900192a49 - about the live performance
https://richardbossons.academia.edu/research#papers - several papers about various aspects of the film
https://www.leogeyer.co.uk/ - about Leo Geyer who reconstructed the score

About the Eye Filmmuseum restoration:
https://www.academia.edu/29129254/About ... vie_Camera

[hearthesilence]

Original music for Man with a Movie Camera reconstructed; live performance in Luxembourg Nov. 23 alongside "a new print by Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, based on Vertov’s own nitrate copy acquired by the Filmliga film club in the city during his 1931 tour of Europe. The full-frame print reinstates all the rising and falling part numbers, and is less digitally processed than other recent restorations, making it much closer to the 1929 version of the film." This 2015 restoration was released on DVD by Lobster Films and Flicker Alley.

FWIW, I posted this back in 2015, and either the 2015 restoration is the same one shown at MoMA in 2011, or the EYE Film Institute did further work on what was shown then:

Did anybody else see the restoration at MoMA four years ago? I would love it if someone issued the historically appropriate score commissioned for that restoration, it was immense fun. From the program notes:

MoMA presents the U.S. premiere of the EYE Film Institute Netherland’s definitive new restoration of Man with a Movie Camera, which allows us at long last to appreciate cameraman Mikhail Kaufman’s dazzling Constructivist frame compositions by preserving the film’s original full-frame image. The opening-night screening features Filmharmonia Ensemble performing Dennis James’ critically acclaimed score, which was inspired by original accompaniment notes left by Vertov himself. A breathtaking and often startlingly funny vision of cosmopolitan life in Moscow and Odessa, Man with a Movie Camera remains among the most radical, and imitated, films in cinema history. It is a film about its own creation, about the material process of work, about cinema as a means of transforming perception and spatial-temporal relations, about the power of kino-pravda (“film-truth”) to unmask and banish oppression and ignorance, and about a New Russia rising out of the ashes of the Old, symbolized by the spark of the movie projector coming to life at the start of the film, and by the famous trick shot of the Bolshoi Theatre collapsing on itself at the end.

James said he was surprised to see Vertov's notes explaining that the film was a comedy, and having a score on the same wavelength makes an enormous difference. Here's an interview and sample, FWIW.

I imagine James must have received the same notes Leo Geyer did? (Again, I wish James's score was made available - it really is transformative when the music makes it very clear, without being too broad or on-the-nose, that you're watching a comedy.)

EDIT: I just notice James posted this over at Nitrateville in 2022:

The original score DOES exist. Filmmaker Dziga Vertov was also a musician and he gave detailed hand-written notes to the Soviet committee for film scoring for the creation of the score which do survive. I was commissioned by the Pacific Film Archive to assemble the Vertov score precisely in keeping in every way with these instructions. I have performed this throughout the USA over the years since together with my touring “Filmharmonia Ensemble”, performances that have included the invitation from film scholar Yuri Tsivian to present it both at the University of Chicago and then to open the complete Vertov films festival he curated at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

- Dennis James, Silent Film Concerts

FYI, Tsivian is mentioned in the first link posted by Stefan, particularly where it states:

"In 1995 Professor Tsivian published, in Griffithiana No. 54 (October), his translation of two documents that he discovered the previous year in the Vertov archive in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, Moscow. Document 1 consists of handwritten notes by Dziga Vertov of a ‘Music Scenario’ describing the type of music and sounds he thought appropriate for each film sequence. The second document comprises typewritten cue notes for cinema orchestras loosely based on Vertov’s notes."

[Stefan Andersson]

Many thanks for this update, hearthesilence!