528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

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swo17
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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#151 Post by swo17 » Thu Jul 18, 2019 12:05 pm

BD upgrade Oct 8, DVD remains OOP

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Matt
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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#152 Post by Matt » Thu Jul 18, 2019 12:12 pm

Well this is certainly an unexpected (and welcome) return, but I'm going to need some kind of info about the transfers. Are these going to use the same HD masters as the DVD set, or are these new scans?

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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#153 Post by Calvin » Thu Jul 18, 2019 12:37 pm

Matt wrote:
Thu Jul 18, 2019 12:12 pm
Well this is certainly an unexpected (and welcome) return, but I'm going to need some kind of info about the transfers. Are these going to use the same HD masters as the DVD set, or are these new scans?
The wording for the DVD set was "new, restored high-definition digital transfers" and here it's "high-definition digital restorations of all three films" so it certainly sounds like they're using the same masters.

It's a shame that they haven't included the new restoration of The Salvation Hunters, it would have fit perfectly here.

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HJackson
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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#154 Post by HJackson » Thu Jul 18, 2019 12:51 pm

Missed the DVDs when they went OOP and occasionally had the sick impulse to drop a few hundred, or whatever the asking price was, on a three-film SD set... so thrilled I get to grab these on blu having exercised some restraint!

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movielocke
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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#155 Post by movielocke » Thu Jul 18, 2019 1:47 pm

Matt wrote:Well this is certainly an unexpected (and welcome) return, but I'm going to need some kind of info about the transfers. Are these going to use the same HD masters as the DVD set, or are these new scans?
Even if the same transfers at the least the Blu-ray won’t be window boxed!

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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#156 Post by dustybooks » Thu Jul 18, 2019 1:58 pm

HJackson wrote:
Thu Jul 18, 2019 12:51 pm
Missed the DVDs when they went OOP and occasionally had the sick impulse to drop a few hundred, or whatever the asking price was, on a three-film SD set... so thrilled I get to grab these on blu having exercised some restraint!
I'm in the exact same boat. I love these films -- two of them among my favorite American silents of all -- and came close several times to pulling the trigger on ebay, so this is the most exciting announcement for me in a while. (I am, however, the dummy who just got the Haxan DVD a year or two ago.)

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Matt
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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#157 Post by Matt » Thu Jul 18, 2019 2:01 pm

movielocke wrote:
Thu Jul 18, 2019 1:47 pm
Even if the same transfers at the least the Blu-ray won’t be window boxed!
Ugh, I forgot about that. I thought I was going to be saving myself a little money for once.

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Cronenfly
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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#158 Post by Cronenfly » Thu Jul 18, 2019 2:50 pm

Glad that, like the BRD Trilogy, this is coming back as a set. Still leaves me pissed about Teshigahara, though.

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Roscoe
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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#159 Post by Roscoe » Thu Jul 18, 2019 3:37 pm

And no indication of what if any supplements -- I'm thinking we should check the page every now and then for information updates. I find it hard to believe this is going to be a "movies only" package.

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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#160 Post by Glowingwabbit » Thu Jul 18, 2019 3:41 pm

Roscoe wrote:
Thu Jul 18, 2019 3:37 pm
And no indication of what if any supplements -- I'm thinking we should check the page every now and then for information updates. I find it hard to believe this is going to be a "movies only" package.
It's an upgrade. It shows the same supplements as before.
SPECIAL EDITION THREE-DISC SET
High-definition digital restorations of all three films
Six scores: by Robert Israel for all three films, Alloy Orchestra for Underworld and The Last Command, and Donald Sosin and Joanna Seaton for The Docks of New York
Two video essays from 2010, one by UCLA film professor Janet Bergstrom and the other by film scholar Tag Gallagher
Swedish television interview from 1968 with director Josef von Sternberg
PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critic Geoffrey O’Brien, scholar Anton Kaes, and author and critic Luc Sante; notes on the scores by the composers; Ben Hecht’s original treatment for Underworld; and an excerpt from von Sternberg’s 1965 autobiography, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, on actor Emil Jannings
Covers by F. Ron Miller

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Roscoe
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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#161 Post by Roscoe » Thu Jul 18, 2019 4:01 pm

Glowingwabbit wrote:
Thu Jul 18, 2019 3:41 pm
Roscoe wrote:
Thu Jul 18, 2019 3:37 pm
And no indication of what if any supplements -- I'm thinking we should check the page every now and then for information updates. I find it hard to believe this is going to be a "movies only" package.
It's an upgrade. It shows the same supplements as before.
SPECIAL EDITION THREE-DISC SET
High-definition digital restorations of all three films
Six scores: by Robert Israel for all three films, Alloy Orchestra for Underworld and The Last Command, and Donald Sosin and Joanna Seaton for The Docks of New York
Two video essays from 2010, one by UCLA film professor Janet Bergstrom and the other by film scholar Tag Gallagher
Swedish television interview from 1968 with director Josef von Sternberg
PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critic Geoffrey O’Brien, scholar Anton Kaes, and author and critic Luc Sante; notes on the scores by the composers; Ben Hecht’s original treatment for Underworld; and an excerpt from von Sternberg’s 1965 autobiography, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, on actor Emil Jannings
Covers by F. Ron Miller
Serves me right for not scrolling all the way to the bottom...

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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#162 Post by nitin » Fri Jul 19, 2019 9:07 am

Cannot wait to revisit The Docks Of New York on blu, flat out masterpiece

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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#163 Post by dustybooks » Thu Oct 10, 2019 10:25 pm

Having missed this on DVD and spent the last five years or so trying to score a copy for a less than outrageous price, I'm thrilled it's been issued on Blu even though I gather that the contents are identical and the transfers aren't a huge upgrade. The Bergstrom video essay and the Sternberg interview as well as the booklet are splendid and illuminating enough to make up for the lack of a great volume of extras. And revisiting the films, I was amazed at how all three were even stronger than I remembered; I'd managed to forget, in The Last Command,
SpoilerShow
the absolute devastation of the moment when the train crashes.
And while it's only been a few years since I first saw The Docks of New York, I found it now minted as a masterpiece for me; its performances and atmosphere are infused with a kind of longing and sadness that seem both shockingly modern and like the calling cards of a film that could only have been made in Hollywood, at Paramount, by this director, at the end of the 1920s.
SpoilerShow
My first time through, I was frustrated by the final scenes, which seemed too much of a "happy end" copout to me along the lines of The Wind -- but on rewatching, I'm not entirely sure the final encounter between Bancroft and Compson is even particularly optimistic, with a palpable air of uncertainty to that beautiful pull away from her standing frozen in the courtroom, as she gets swallowed by other people and other cases. There's no comparison to the silliness of The Wind's ending, which has never stopped me from considering that a great film. And at any rate, everything before that moment is so close to flawless that I can't consider it as being harmed at all by its finale.
The appearance of this, The Circus and Haxan in rapid succession from Criterion is such a bounty for silent cinema fans, and I'm really grateful for it. More please.

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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#164 Post by nitin » Fri Oct 11, 2019 11:47 pm

The Docks of New York has been the best film I have seen this year and Von Sternberg’s films in general have been a great rediscovery.

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Re: 528-531 Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

#165 Post by The Curious Sofa » Sun Oct 13, 2019 4:03 am

I watched The Docks of New York last night, had never seen it before. Enjoyed it a lot but I wouldn’t place it above the better von Sternberg/Dietrich films, which I’ve just all re-watched. The movie is atmospheric, of course gorgeously shot and the performances are great. I had never seen Betty Compson in any of her silent movies, she is wonderful and has a timeless beauty which reaches out from the past.

The ending was indeed a little sudden and I found George Bancroft’s motivation difficult to figure out from scene to scene. To me he felt more driven by the demands of a melodrama than making much sense to me as a character beyond “all men are bounders”.

There is an attempt at authenticity here, Hollywood exploring a seamy slice of life story, which von Sternberg abandons by the time he builds his movies around Dietrich. The different countries of the Dietrich films are artificial dream spaces which pivot around Dietrich’s exoticism and star power. This makes inconsistencies in plot and characters easier to excuse. Even when the plot goes off the rails, as in Blonde Venues, there is always Dietrich’s meta star-persona, almost winking at you not to take things too seriously.

Again, loved the movie, but maybe I set my expectations too high after all the praise. Having just made my way through the wonderful von Sternberg/Dietrich Indicator set, I can’t help but judge the movie in the wake of that.

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The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)

#166 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Dec 13, 2021 7:48 am

DISCUSSION ENDS MONDAY, December 27th

Members have a two week period in which to discuss the film before it's moved to its dedicated thread in The Criterion Collection subforum. Please read the Rules and Procedures.

This thread is not spoiler free. This is a discussion thread; you should expect plot points of the individual films under discussion to be discussed openly. See: spoiler rules.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

I encourage members to submit questions, either those designed to elicit discussion and point out interesting things to keep an eye on, or just something you want answered. This will be extremely helpful in getting discussion started. Starting is always the hardest part, all the more so if it's unguided. Questions can be submitted to me via PM.

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Re: The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)

#167 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Dec 15, 2021 2:04 pm

I wanted to wait for some positive posts before trashing the film, but none of you want to talk about it for some reason, so here I go.

So I thought the movie kinda bad. The story is cheap, sentimental pap, a bourgeois fairy tale at odds with the supposed working class milieu it affects--but so what? Plenty of visually/technically stunning silents are also eye-rolling melodrama, including some I really like. What makes this one bad is that for one brief moment it finds clarity only to throw that clarity away like trash. The woman and man, in the sober light of day, realize there is no foundation for a relationship between them; the night before was the heady rush of fun and adventure, but otherwise their lives, needs, and personalities are too different to sustain a more intimate relationship. They aren't right for each other. This is a mature, adult decision, a decision to weigh the future against impulse, and for a moment the film seemed to've been building to something genuine and true, the preceding melodrama becoming context for an observation about human relationships. And then the film goes and ruins it by turning that real moment into a cheap blocking trick meant to delay audience gratification. The two say fuck it and embark on a relationship anyway, not in the sense of returning to a pre-dawn party mentality, which maybe could be a critique, but genuinely, as if their love were real and a relationship not just possible but necessary and obvious. It yanks the fakest, tritest conclusion out of a real adult moment, and for that the film plummeted from great to bad in a matter of seconds. If the film had been at the level of the final moments all the way through, it would've been merely inoffensive--enjoyable but vapid. But to've striven for something more, achieved it, and then blithely undone it as if what had been found were valueless? That turns the movie into a loss.

The worst film of the Sternberg silent set (and I don't even remember Underworld!).

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Re: The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)

#168 Post by denti alligator » Wed Dec 15, 2021 2:07 pm

Great write-up. I haven’t have the time to re-watch it, sadly, and hardly remember it from the first time. Maybe that’s telling?

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Re: The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)

#169 Post by dustybooks » Wed Dec 15, 2021 2:33 pm

I somewhat agreed the first time I saw the film -- though I so loved everything until the end that it didn't really affect my overall perception too badly, but I wrote this on my second viewing:
My first time through The Docks of New York, I admitted to being frustrated by the final scenes, which seemed too much of a “happy end” copout to me along the lines of The Wind, Victor Sjostrom’s haunting narrative of a woman alone that abruptly spins into controversial patness seconds before the fadeout. Essentially, when Bill Roberts wakes up and prepares to move on with his life forever — briefly moved enough by the sad image of his “wife” reclining, temporarily at peace, to leave an extra couple of bucks on her nightstand, a perfectly gruff and meaningless gesture — he ignores every confrontation his behavior elicits, a peripheral crime of passion included, until he has a change of heart after boarding his ship and returning to work, an admittedly unlikely moment of redemption that’s tempered somewhat by a courtroom scene that follows wherein Mae has been arrested for pilfering some clothes that Bill actually stole and gave to her. He takes the rap and goes to jail for her, and she promises to wait forever for him. It rang false to me initially, but on revisiting, I’m not entirely sure this final encounter is even particularly optimistic, with a palpable air of uncertainty to the beautiful closing pull away from her standing frozen in the courtroom, as she gets swallowed by other people and other cases. There’s no comparison to the silliness of The Wind‘s ending, which has never stopped me from considering that a great film. And everything before that moment is so flawlessly haunting it can scarcely negate the picture’s overarching tone of beguiling sorrow.
That said, I certainly understand the frustration that comes with experiences like this.

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Re: The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)

#170 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed Dec 15, 2021 5:41 pm

I will try to re-watch it. But right now I'm dealing the Japan Society of New York's online Flash Forward "festival" (films by Kawase, Nishikawa, Shiota, etc.).

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Re: The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)

#171 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Dec 15, 2021 6:47 pm

The only people who should feel guilty about not rewatching or posting about the film are the ones who took the time to vote for it and thus vote against other films that may have sparked fruitful discussion from a smaller, but perhaps more passionate, margin of voters. This is already one of the more-discussed Film Club threads in a while tho, so it's promising!

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Re: The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)

#172 Post by DarkImbecile » Wed Dec 15, 2021 7:11 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Wed Dec 15, 2021 6:47 pm
This is already one of the more-discussed Film Club threads in a while tho, so it's promising!
That’s an odd assertion, given that you’ve often been one of the primary participants in lively discussions about Code Unknown, Island of Lost Souls, …Petra von Kant, and Belle de Jour just this fall! A couple have fallen flat, but this is still consistently one of the more compelling corners of the forum.

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Re: The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)

#173 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Dec 15, 2021 8:00 pm

I agree, my timeline is all out of whack. I make a commitment to contribute to the film club on principle when I cast a vote and that film wins, but I moved away from watching movies for so long (basically half of summer/most of fall) that I forgot I came here to post about those ones. Must be a case of problem-focused mentality gravitating towards disappointment with duds than cognizance of the bounty of highs

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Re: The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)

#174 Post by Saturnome » Wed Dec 15, 2021 8:08 pm

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Last edited by Saturnome on Wed Dec 15, 2021 11:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)

#175 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Dec 15, 2021 11:19 pm

I guess I'll chime in. I've never adored this film like so many others, but I have grown to appreciate it over time. Sausage, great writeup, and a very personal argument against its merits that I can get behind both subjectively in terms of ethos and objectively as a narrative deflator. One reading for how the film manages to recoup from here is that Bill's 'moment of clarity' is rooted in psychosocial influence from expectations of rigid morality that pierce through his shell of individualistic retreat from ideology. Instead of recognizing the motivator as not entirely spiritual or self-driven, he takes it as a mirage of Truth that is actually a consequence of revealing his vulnerabilities, not so much to her but to himself the night before. I don't think this revelation is earned in a manner that should be taken as-is (definitive, sober truth of their connection) but is still subjectively meaningful as a charge to 'do things differently'.

Bill's path thus far has not given him a happy life, no matter how hard he tries to convince himself and others of his existential contentment, and so turning around and going the other direction seems like the only discernible, actionable avenue to take. It's a bit obnoxious how this scattered, foggy choice under the guise of a confident, directed one is reinforced by a coincidental opportunity to act in accordance with that sudden inebriation of a moral high in the courtroom, which for me is where it's altered from realistic to exaggerated, but I don't think the film jumps the shark for me in the same spot it does for you. After all, plenty of people flee and/or make 'adult' choices only to become under the influence of a combination of their emotions and external ideas and are magnetically drawn back with ignorance to that acute awareness- some of us every day. To use the common example (and the film's), I like to call it 'relapsing in relationships'. Unfortunately that ending doesn't seem to leave open the same ambiguity by creating a false, tangible reinforcement.

I loathe commentary that proposes a "better" way to end films, but I'll do it anyways: If the film continued for just a few more seconds, we cut to "Two Months Later" and watch Bill emerge from jail with his head down, half-smiling, only to look up and sigh with an unreadable expression on his face that could signify relief or mild disappointment- and then fade to black. Is he relieved because Mae has shown up and is greeting him from afar off-screen, or disappointed because she hasn't? Or is it the other way around- he's been dreaming about her presence as a fantastical answer to all his problems during jail, but in seeing her he's suddenly conscious of his individualistic drive and disappointed that her presence triggers an immediate acknowledgement of a permanent life sentence of marriage conforming against his nature (or perhaps he's relieved to not see her standing there, for the same reasons)? I'd like to see that film.

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