578 The Complete Jean Vigo

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I find it a bit puzzling that the whole artwork is in French. It looks like a French box released in Japan by mistake.

It's pretty common for Japanese releases of "arthouse" titles to have exclusively foreign-language cover art. You can see a lot of titles in the "people who bought this also bought..." section (including Pickpocket, L'argent, Close-up, Amarcord, Paterson, and a Parajanov box) that are the same way, and it doesn't seem to be a recent trend since I have some Japanese laserdiscs that do it too. In the case of my LDs there's a removable band (called an obi in Japan) that gives the Japanese title and some basic info, and the back cover is in Japanese. My guess is these Blus are mostly the same way.

[FrauBlucher]

With Janus touring the Vigo 4k restorations with added footage, we can suspect a rerelease much like the Monterey Pop Festival

Btw... I saw the trailer for L’Atalante yesterday at the Film Forum. It looks amazing.

[whaleallright]

have all the home-video releases before this been based on the early-1990s restoration of L'Atalante done by Lobster Films? I remember that one being released with great fanfare.

I have to admit that I'm sometimes a little chagrined, or at least befuddled, when a new restoration trumpets its definitive-ness when an earlier restoration made a similar boast (see also The Leopard, etc.). I know that the discovery of new prints, improvements in digital restoration software, etc. mean that these boasts aren't usually or always empty, but I still get that same feeling as when some album is remastered for the 4,000th time with each new remaster promising that finally you'll be able to hear the album as it was always intended to sound....

[hearthesilence]

Is there an objective take anywhere on whether this is truly closer to what Vigo intended than what was previously released?

[whaleallright]

I don't think I knew Bernard Eischenschitz was behind this new resto. that puts any doubts to rest, as I think he's one of our best writers and scholars of cinema, in any language. he's not just passionate, he's precise ,and he does his homework.

[Mr Sausage]

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[therewillbeblus]

I remember seeing this in my early 20s and being very disturbed by the similarities with Lindsay Anderson’s If... before looking it up and discovering its influence was intentional. It’s still difficult for me to separate the Vigo from the much darker 60s film, but I find this one to be more effective at demonstrating how apparently fixed systems and their authority/rules are actually only provided that rigid value through mass consent. The kids’ realizations of the relativist definitions are made through the self-actualization of discovering their own agency, and most importantly that its limits exist in direct proportion to these socially constructed institutional constraints. It’s a great film about anarchy in the face of oppression but an even greater film about the empowerment we can realise as a result of recontextualizing our ideological apparatuses through skepticism, and general critical thinking, to birth personal development of morals from within as we divorce ourselves from artificial influence.

I can’t think of many discussion questions other than: Does anybody else read it this way, and since that’s lazy, I genuinely think that doing a comparison on the themes and effectiveness against the Anderson film is an interesting one, since the later film obviously takes this to a completely different realm that seems to indicate a different intention entirely..

[DeprongMori]

According to this press release, Janus Films has had the 2017 Gaumont re-masterings of the Vigo films for four years now, and the original Criterion release of The Complete Jean Vigo was issued in 2011 — ten years ago now. Have there been any rumblings about a Criterion re-issue of this title?

In 2019, a Blu-ray release by Artificial Eye was announced as L’Atalante & The Films of Jean Vigo, but apparently it never materialized or went OOP nearly immediately. The other releases of the 2017 restorations apparently lack English subtitles. Haven’t really heard anything since.

[dwk]

Criterion has newer masters for a number of titles they have already released on Blu, but only have a few Blu double dips. Furthermore, with the exception of Monterey Pop, all of these have been in the big director box sets.

I wouldn't expect a new release of this set.

[Calvin]

In 2019, a Blu-ray release by Artificial Eye was announced as L’Atalante & The Films of Jean Vigo, but apparently it never materialized or went OOP nearly immediately. The other releases of the 2017 restorations apparently lack English subtitles. Haven’t really heard anything since.

The Gaumont release is English-friendly for the features and a few of the extras as well.

[DeprongMori]

In 2019, a Blu-ray release by Artificial Eye was announced as L’Atalante & The Films of Jean Vigo, but apparently it never materialized or went OOP nearly immediately. The other releases of the 2017 restorations apparently lack English subtitles. Haven’t really heard anything since.

The Gaumont release is English-friendly for the features and a few of the extras as well.

Thanks for the info on the Gaumont. Unfortunately it looks a bit out of my price range, going for over $100.

[Brent Reid]

The French 2-BD/2-DVD set regularly goes for around €45 these days; here's an in-depth review.

Cineteca di Bologna's 2-BD/3-DVD set, Tutto Jean Vigo, is a steal at around €30 but I can't establish its English-friendliness, though their releases are usually completely bilingual. Oddly, the BDs only have Dolby Digital audio. Here's the Il Cinema Ritrovato 2017 poster and pressbook.

[silentvalerio]

Hello to Everyone. I have a copy of the italian box set of Tutto Jean Vigo of the Cineteca di Bologna and not only I confirm what Brent Reid said, that it does not have the possibility of the English language, but it has unfortunately only Italian subtitles hardcoded on the image without any way to delete them. All films are restorations of 2017.

I list below - hardcoded too - the video extra content of this version, all in 1080i:

L'Atalante - Tournage d'hiver (2017) and Les Voyages de L'Atalante (2001) by Bernard Eisenschitz; Bernardo Bertolucci and Otar Iosseliani on L'Atalante

Zèro de conduite - Jeunes diables au collège (Jean Vigo, 1933)

À propos de Nice - The first edit of the short

La Natation par Jean Taris, Champion de France Vintage newsreels (1935-36); La Dernière course de Jean Taris

[hearthesilence]

Disappointed this hasn't been upgraded yet by Criterion - finally pulled the trigger on the Gaumont set. Comes out to a little over $66 USD from Amazon.fr after shipping and taxes - shipping charge was hefty (almost $18 USD) so I decided to pick up another four (cheaper) Gaumont titles as the additional shipping cost was fairly small.

[vanshady]

I got the Gaumont set and can confirm that 1. L'Atalante is the new 4k restoration 2. all films have english subtitles 3. some extras have english subtitles, some shorter ones don't like the "News (1934-1936)" for Taris

[Stefan Andersson]

Interesting fact:
"Michel Simon's French /in L´Atalante/, is actually Swiss French! In the film, he said for the number 90, "nonante". This differs from the standard French "quatre-vingt-dix".
Source:
https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... hd.388292/

[MichaelB]

Since Simon was Swiss, surely that's no different from me continuing to speak British English even on the ultra-rare occasions that I cross the Atlantic?

[Stefan Andersson]

Since Simon was Swiss, surely that's no different from me continuing to speak British English even on the ultra-rare occasions that I cross the Atlantic?

Agreed, no difference at all!