MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

[Artois]

Don't really know how it works re: finding out who holds licenses before making stupid requests, but would it be possible for MoC to release some Rivette? (currently enjoying the NFT Rivette season...)

Would love to see L'amour Fou, or how about a 3-disc box with both versions of Out 1 and some extras, perhaps a selected commentary for Spectre.

[FilmFanSea]

Don't really know how it works re: finding out who holds licenses before making stupid requests, but would it be possible for MoC to release some Rivette? (currently enjoying the NFT Rivette season...)

Would love to see L'amour Fou, or how about a 3-disc box with both versions of Out 1 and some extras, perhaps a selected commentary for Spectre.

By my calculations, Out 1: Noli me tangere (~13 hours) would require at least 5 DVD-9 discs, and Out 1: Spectre (~4.5 hours) another 2 discs; add another disc for "some extras" and you're looking at an 8-disc box set (surely the holy grail for Rivette fans). I'd also be curious to see how a company would set a retail price for such a box set of little-seen* films--obscure even by art-film standards--unlikely to sell even a thousand copies I'd reckon (depending on the price-point).

That said, the early films of Jacques Rivette--Paris nous appartient (1960) to Céline et Julie vont en bateau (1974)-- are, to the best of my knowledge, unavailable on DVD with English subtitles (the latter is likely to appear later this year, from both the bfi and New Yorker), and there are a handful I'm dying to see.

* Accounts vary, but some sources state that the 13.5-hour Out 1 has only be screened between one and three times. Total. Ever. The weeklong NFT screening is extraordinary (it is billed as "[t]he first screening in 34 years of Rivette's mammoth masterpiece").

[Michael Kerpan]

The long version of Out1 was shown in Berlin (around 1995) and Vienna (2002).

I would love to see more Rivette available -- whether early films or later ones unavailable in subbed form.

[otis]

Out 1: Noli me tangere has been shown on Italian TV at least three times in the last seven years, so it's not quite as little seen as people think.

[Michael Kerpan]

Out 1: Noli me tangere has been shown on Italian TV at least three times in the last seven years, so it's not quite as little seen as people think.

Know anyone who taped it?

;~}

[otis]

I did, but I'm afraid I've since taped over it. Much as I could watch Jean-Pierre Leaud and Juliette Berto in anything, I found the hours of rehearsal improv incredibly boring and pointless. It's a bit like Chelsea Girls - sounds fascinating in theory, but when you come out of the cinema you can't help thinking that you'll never ever get back those lost hours...

[FilmFanSea]

Out 1: Noli me tangere has been shown on Italian TV at least three times in the last seven years, so it's not quite as little seen as people think.

So much for the bfi's hyperbole.

[evillights]

I did, but I'm afraid I've since taped over it. Much as I could watch Jean-Pierre Leaud and Juliette Berto in anything, I found the hours of rehearsal improv incredibly boring and pointless. It's a bit like Chelsea Girls - sounds fascinating in theory, but when you come out of the cinema you can't help thinking that you'll never ever get back those lost hours...

I beg to differ. I find what Rivette does with the actors in the film -- and what he lets the actors do with the actors -- tremendously interesting. I also wouldn't characterize these scenes as "pointless"; not only do they present a practically unmediated (which is to say, "invisibly mediated") look at the 'working through' of acting, they also show us how method (which is not to say 'Method') is located IN TIME, in a way that no other film has done, outside of Frederick Wiseman possibly. Why is this important? Because for Rivette, and for my own view of cinema and the world, performance -- not just the cerebral steps that go into creating a role or the inventing of a character's psychology -- runs parallel with psychoanalysis (sans any particular doctrine). Furthermore, Rivette is one of the few filmmakers who understands that there exists a relationship between 'process', or the epiphany of realizing a creation, and -physical, bodily movement-. (You could almost call the rehearsal scenes of 'Out 1' "pre-emptive exorcisms".) On top of that, the way he frames the actors -- 'Out 1' being a prime example, but also 'La Belle noiseuse' -- is as meaningful from one shot to the next (and within a shot) as in the movies of Johns Ford and Cassavetes -- or possibly also Mizoguchi and 'Genroku chûshingura' ("The 47 Rônin").

Anyway, I don't think we get anything again that gets so much to the root of what "working-through via acting" means until Ferrara's 'Snake Eyes' ("Dangerous Game") in 1993.

And let's not forget that another reason the length of this film is what it is, and the rehearsal scenes are as long as they are, is to basically "hypnotize" the viewer and break down the barriers between him or her and the actual film world. It's really very much like being opened-up or readied for "suggestion" (in the sense used in hypnosis). 'Out 1' opens up a can of worms and they explode every which way... If you found it all boring though, what can I say. Maybe see it again.

[Guest]

You might find them here and here.

[rollotomassi]

Let's be careful not to make arbitrary requests, as Criterion, Second Run and MoC all have their own niches...

I'd say more German silents...how about Murnau's The Burning Soil, long thought lost but in need of restoration (might need to wait for the Murnau Foundation to do the restoration), Von Perlach's The Chronicles of the Grey House, Dupont's Variety, or early talkies like Drei Von der Tankstelle and Congress Dances.

On the Japanese front Naruse seems to be on the horizon, and with the BFI also expected to release some in early 2007, why not go for even rarer titles...Yoshimura's The Ball at the Anjo House, for example, or one of the other two remaining Yamanaka films.

How about such rare silent masterpieces as the 1926 version of The Last Days of Pompeii, seen in Edinburgh two years ago but generally unavailable, or Marcel l'Herbier's L'Argent?

Better still, why not some early Chinese cinema...The Goddess and The Peach Girl are available in the US from the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, but how about Sun Yu's Little Toys (on VCD in China with English subs) and The Highway, Fei Mu's Spring in a Small Town, Junli's Crows and Sparrows (once available on NTSC VHS), Muzhi's Street Angel or Wancang's Love and Duty. This is one area NO-ONE seems to want to touch, and there's so much out there...

[HerrSchreck]

ah... a gourmand! righteous solid list..

[Scharphedin2]

I am brand new here, so I hope that everyone will bear with me, if I err on the side of humility and send MoC a few roses. Personally, I would second any of the suggestions above, but the best suggestion I can think of is that MoC continue on the path that has been established in the past year, regardless of what films this will lead to in the future. It is difficult to describe the excitement I felt at seeing the thumbnails of the covers for "The Savage Innocents," "Naked Island," "Twenty-Four Eyes" and "Kwaidan (the complete edition) go up on the site over the past year. These were films that I had longed to see for many years, but somehow never thought would make to DVD in such lavish editions.

That off my heart, I hasten to join in the spirit of the thread... Luchino Visconti's "Senso" is one film that I have likewise wanted to see ever since I first read about it in Shipman's "The Story of Cinema" as a pre-teenager. How about it...

[htdm]

Better still, how about Sun Yu's Little Toys and The Highway, Fei Mu's Spring in a Small Town, Junli's Crows and Sparrows, Muzhi's Street Angel or Wancang's Love and Duty. This is one area NO-ONE seems to want to touch, and there's so much out there...

This is an excellent suggestion (especially Small Toys). And the China Film Archive has already shown that they are willing to release some of these titles for distribution on DVD in the states (i.e. Goddess & Peach Girl). I would also like to see CFA's copy of Princess Iron Fan, the first full-length Asian animated feature. A poor version appeared as an extra on the mainland China release of the 2-disc DVD of Uproar in Heaven last year.

[mezcla]

-Tomás Gutiérrez Alea Memories of underdevelopment (Memorias del subdesarrollo)
-any other spanish language film that you deem worthy. Mexican Buñuel?

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

I am encouraged that Brownlow's Hollywood series seems at last to be making an imminent appearance and was wondering whether anyone is able to mine the motherlode of TV output like Ken Loach's Days of Hope mini-series from 1975 or David Rudkin's Artemis 81 for example.

As well as these there are the other great Wednesday Play/Play for Today series that featured writing by the likes of Mercer/Hare/Edgar etc.

Is this purely a rights issue with the broadcast networks or is it deemed "irrelevant" to todays market???

[Tommaso]

I think a good policy would be not to produce 'doubles', i.e. films that have been available in R2 format already in other countries. I know that subtitling etc. is an issue for many people, but still: I cannot see any reason releasing e.g. "Metropolis" again when the same edition had been already available from Transit films for quite a while and anyone in need to see could have easily ordered it directly from Germany. Same goes for "Sunrise". The DVD world has become pretty much international thanks to the internet, and I would love to see great films brought out that are not already available elsewhere in the world. "Asphalt" was one of these (many thanks, MoC, for this one, just great).

So much said, yes: MORE silents, either German or not. Murnau's "Schloss Vogelöd" and "Phantom" for example, or Arnold Fanck's 1927 comedy "Der große Sprung" (which has been restored by the Murnau foundation already), or Hanns Schwarz' glorious "The wonderful lie of Nina Petrowna" (with a fabulous Brigitte Helm). On the Japanese front, Kinugisa's "A page of madness" would be much desired. And - contradicting my statement above - : finally a decent version of Eisenstein's "Potemkin"...

[HerrSchreck]

So much said, yes: MORE silents, either German or not. Murnau's "Schloss Vogelöd" and "Phantom" for example, : finally a decent version of Eisenstein's "Potemkin"...

I have the NYFilmAnnex (complete, despite a lot of what you read about this being a 'fragmentary' film in it's present state) vhs of Schloss Vogelod and you're not missing all that much. It's one of those stage-bound suspense-in-a-big-old-house dealies that has the surprise explanation at the end. Not anywhere near as inventive & imaginative as Leni's CAT & THE CANARY, for example.

Phantom has had a beautiful Berrauita restoration from the nitrate negs and Jeff Massino tells me mid-June DVD, from Flicker Alley. Poetmkin, of course we're waiting for the CC silents box for Eisenstein.

[Tommaso]

I have the NYFilmAnnex (complete, despite a lot of what you read about this being a 'fragmentary' film in it's present state) vhs of Schloss Vogelod and you're not missing all that much. It's one of those stage-bound suspense-in-a-big-old-house dealies that has the surprise explanation at the end. Not anywhere near as inventive & imaginative as Leni's CAT & THE CANARY, for example.

Ah well, I haven't been able to see Vögelod, and you're probably quite right according to what I heard. But in a way it's just a kind of 'classical completeness' thing. With a director as important as Murnau one feels the need to watch everything that is available, just in order to round out the picture. I am surprised that you like "Cat and the Canary" that much. It left me pretty cold when I watched it recently. It has a nice sense of humour, of course, but then it's also totally derivative (perhaps intentionally so) and at least for me could not keep suspense up for the whole of its duration.

Phantom has had a beautiful Berrauita restoration from the nitrate negs and Jeff Massino tells me mid-June DVD, from Flicker Alley.

Great news! I'll be on the lookout for this, though I haven't read any announcements about it as yet.

Poetmkin, of course we're waiting for the CC silents box for Eisenstein.

Yes, but we're all waiting for it for ages now, and I have my doubts that it will eventually be coming, just like their long-announced "Vampyr". As to "Potemkin", it would be interesting to have it additionally in a good restoration together with multiple soundtracks (I'd like to see it with the recent Pet Shop Boys soundtrack, for example).

[HerrSchreck]

With a director as important as Murnau one feels the need to watch everything that is available, just in order to round out the picture.

As Murnau is probably my favorite director that's the precise reason I turned over tables & chairs grabbing this.

I am surprised that you like "Cat and the Canary" that much. It left me pretty cold when I watched it recently. It has a nice sense of humour, of course, but then it's also totally derivative (perhaps intentionally so) and at least for me could not keep suspense up for the whole of its duration.

I'd have to turn that back on you-- I'm surprised you don't see how new & fresh CAT & CANARY was at the time (and what a delight it remains for
the very same reasons) sparking, along with the more "substantive" MAN WHO LAUGHS, the whole look of Universal horror films, and thereby horror films, throughout the 30's 40's even 50's. Like I mentioned in the Expressionism thread Leni's films rarely have the heavy I-am-now-going-to-make-a-masterpiece tone of literary seriousness of his contemporaries Lang Murnau or dreyer but he was every bit their peer. As for it being derivative, that's clear that C&C's script was a stage bound piece of genre work... here's where we haul out the hackneyed phraseology and say "He transcended the genre.." C&C's general categorization as an indisputable masterpiece exists because of it's obvious visual tour-de-force of the most original & alluring photography, as relentlessly stylish having-fun-screwing- around-with-people's-faces as you'll see outside of Dovzhenko. Busting out into fiendish moving-camera zips across the room, lights fading on & slowly off mid-portraiture to screw w actor's features, the Gothic art direction & exaggerated chiaroscuro, it's a visual feast mixed with a hell of a lot of fun.

PHANTOM's been announced on Flickeralley.com http://flickeralley.com/fa_phantom_01.html

POTEMKIN & Petshop Boys eh? I heard the 2000 restoration of NAPOLEON is going to be released by CC with an extended techno jam of ABBA's "Waterloo"

[Tommaso]

I'd have to turn that back on you-- I'm surprised you don't see how new & fresh CAT & CANARY was at the time (and what a delight it remains for
the very same reasons) sparking, along with the more "substantive" MAN WHO LAUGHS, the whole look of Universal horror films, and thereby horror films, throughout the 30's 40's even 50's.

Yes, of course you're right as to historical importance and so on, and probably it's just a matter of taste. I have nothing against the Universal horror films of the thirties (and LOVE their 50s stuff!), but although I quite enjoy, say, the James Whale films, they for me never come anywhere near to the 'German originals'. It's perhaps simply because I feel like: well, I've seen all of these things before (compare 'Frankenstein' to 'Der Golem' or 'Metropolis, for example, and rather obviously). Of course, 'C&C' IS a visual feast in many ways, but so was 'Nosferatu', including the photography of faces. I would have never thought of Dovzhenko in this respect, though.

PHANTOM's been announced on Flickeralley.com http://flickeralley.com/fa_phantom_01.html

Oh, yes, thank you. I have just had a look at their website. Looks much promising. Hope they retain the German intertitles (fingers crossed...)

POTEMKIN & Petshop Boys eh? I heard the 2000 restoration of NAPOLEON is going to be released by CC with an extended techno jam of ABBA's "Waterloo"

LOOOL! But I wasn't kidding, they REALLY did it, complete with orchestra, and performed it live here in Germany with the film last summer (I missed it, sadly). It's already out on cd. And it doesn't sound that bad! After all, I remember vaguely that Eisenstein said he could imagine having a new, contemporary soundtrack for "Potemkin" every ten years or something, so why not? The Shostakovich soundtrack on the Shepard/Eureka release isn't that great, either.

[HerrSchreck]

Tommasso is there any interest or showings on tv or otherwise in Germany in the films of Lupu Pick w Mayer (SYLVESTER or SCHERBEN), and/or those of Gerhard Lamprecht like SLUMS OF BERLIN, especially those location films shot as slice of life films of the poor in depression-Germany. There are no DVD's on either of these guys.

[Tommaso]

No, sadly there's nothing of the kind around here. I have heard the names of the directors, but have never been able to see anything from them, whether on TV or in a retrospective in the cinemas. It seems that there is a far greater interest in silent movies (German or not) outside Germany, if the scarcity of films that are available on the domestic market on DVD is any indication. Until the recent arrival of the 'edition filmmuseum' and the 'arte Stummfilmedition' (who mostly do international films) there was not even a specialist kind of label like Kino or Milestone, and even classics like "The last laugh" or "Metropolis" were released first outside Germany. There's no domestic edition of "Nosferatu" or "Caligari" available even now, so I think there's absolutely no hope for anything by Pick and others in the near future. Really a shame.

[HerrSchreck]

Yea another German silent getting it's first dvd premeire outside of Germany is Robinson's WARNING SHADOWS viz Kino. Keep an eye on their site after the Swedish stuff comes out.

Some of F.A. Wagner's-- and the cinema's-- finest cinematography. Ever. Just you all wait until you see this film... acid-trip territory.

We're still trying to find out if transit films german dvd label got off the ground

[Tommaso]

We're still trying to find out if transit films german dvd label got off the ground

They're still flying pretty close to it. Only standard stuff from them so far: Metropolis, Mabuse, M, The Last Laugh, Tartuffe, Golem, Münchhausen, and one or two others. All of which had been available from Eureka or others years before. Fine packaging and extras, on all these, though.

That Robison film is probably very great, but then it's a Kino release, and I'll bet they will again have done new english intertitles and a bad PAL/NTSC transfer (gee... I was furious at their version of Fanck's "The Holy Mountain" before MoC saved the film for posterity) .... aargh... can somebody please tell them to behave...

[alfons416]

Since sweden haven't made any great movies since Bergman stoped directing in 1982, and the swedish film institute is to stupid to understand that sweden was (one of) the greatest country that was making silents back in the late 10's early 20's...

isn't it time for MoC to bless us with some movies by Sjöström, Stiller & Klercker?

it's god kino finaly makes something happend, but it would be even better if they didn't release exactly the same movies that is available in sweden on VHS. and if they made (optional) subtitles instead of new inertitles in english.

I know alot of the movies have been restored and looks stunning, i've seen some Sjöström movies att festivals and such in sweden and they are all really reall good.