Second Sight Films (UK)

[Drucker]

It's also listed as out of stock on Rarewaves. I went ahead and grabbed it from Amazon just to be safe (needed to grab Get Carter as well).

[headacheboy]

It is currently in stock at Diabolik in the US.

[therewillbeblus]

I recently received the Dawn of the Dead set and very much enjoying it, especially the Travis Crawford commentary (though I would disagree and much prefer the Cannes cut over the theatrical one, which Crawford pretty much dismisses outside of a couple of moments)

I revisited this a few months ago via the Cannes cut, and for the first time I actually liked the film- and not just a little! I'm thinking of gearing up the theatrical cut again to see if I've changed my thoughts on the film as a whole, though I suspect I will still prefer the longer one. The opening scenes take extra time to establish rapport between the characters, and the extended mall shenanigans gel without detracting from the comprehensive rhythm- quite the opposite. I've always felt excluded from the celebration of this fan-favorite. Its forward momentum of action sans characterization in the Argento cut (and potentially theatrical, we'll find out) read as sterile and limp, but those extra twelve minutes or so breathe life into the film's world and I finally feel welcome to a party. The film's ambitions to balance pulsating reptilian violence and a childlike exploration of possibilities in a playground of post-apocalyptic capitalist indulgence (both satirically and sincerely within our irreparable state as-is) demand the kind of expansive reach of the Cannes cut. Eclipsing the playfulness would shortchange opportunities necessary to capitalize on the ethos of conceptual inclusivity. Plus, it's just more fun this way. I do get that the omission of a Goblin score isn't ideal though.

Are there other changes I'm not aware of, or strong feelings for one of the other cuts over the Cannes?

[colinr0380]

I would have to go back and compare with the other cuts but despite the middle length theatrical cut being emphasised as Romero's preferred one I have always thought the Cannes cut works the best because it allows more time for the characters as you say, and also just longueurs to enjoy existing in that environment more. I may be biased since that was the way I was introduced to the film in the BBC's premiere of the film in their early 1997 Forbidden season (which was the Cannes cut but (as with Tetsuo II, also aired in the same season) despite being in a 'Forbidden' season still trimmed a lot of the violence) and the first VHS release of the film later that same year (which despite confusingly being called the "Director's Cut" was the Cannes one, and despite being less edited than the BBC screening still had a number of censorship edits), but when I got my hands on the Anchor Bay boxset in the early 2000s which contained all three cuts (Argento, Theatrical and Cannes), the Cannes one was always the one I went to, just because it plays better in that extended form.

Interestingly the commentary with the producer talks about the issues the film had in the UK which may have influenced the 'Cannes cut' being the one which has primacy here (the BBC have shown the film a number of times since 1997 and all have been of the Cannes version), because the UK was originally going to be part of the Argento-controlled 'rest of the world' market for the film but when the BBFC saw his stripped down, almost contextless edit of the film focusing almost purely on the action and gore without all the annoying English language talking scenes that would have had to have been dubbed anyway in the rest of the world markets (that is the aspect that I think makes the Argento cut of Dawn of the Dead valuable, which is that it is easy to see its stripped down to the point of almost incoherence yet with moments of revelling in hyperbolic gore influence that this particular version of the film presumably had on the wave of Italian zombie horrors that came in its wake), they wanted an enormous amounts of censorship edits. So the UK rights got returned to the US producer and they released the theatrical version and eventually the Cannes version, which let the British censors see more context for the violence, and spaced out the horror more, which made them more lenient towards the film. So without those longueurs the UK may never have seen Dawn of the Dead in any form for much longer than it did!

I just think that the elements of environment and space standing in for society (and the eventual almost inevitable tragedy of that space being invaded and/or collapsing from within) is the strongest aspect of Romero's zombie films. The delusion of self-sustaining sufficiency against the massing hordes of the outside world is a really seductive one, and all of the films in this series play into that seductive element as well as critique it for being somewhat hollow at the same time. The final overwhelming of the tenuously barricaded environment is both a cathartic collapse into all-out anarchy (with its almost orgasmic climaxes of ultraviolent gore sequences as events reach their peak) and tinged with melancholic tragedy for all that was built up and worked for being lost to the mindless, unappreciative masses who do not actually care about the environment, just are driven by the acquisitive urge to know that they have to have it all the same.

The longueurs of the longer cuts of the film (and especially the Cannes cut) let the audience themselves feel an ownership through familiarity with the environment as filtered through the detailed work ethos that the characters do to clear it out and shore its defences up (which is very similar to the boarding up of the farmhouse in Night of the Living Dead to me). We see the three main male characters all seduced by the building they have laid claim to and the work we have seen them put into it. One dies in the process of working on the site; the second from being unable to give up all he has worked for when unworthy-types come to claim it; the third almost succumbs to the melancholy of seeing all that he built be lost, until he is able to pull himself out of that funk at the last minute to survive on to (albeit likely fruitlessly) rebuild from scratch all over again in an uncertain future location. But isn't that the tragic Sisyphean essence of the human condition in some ways?

That is the aspect that many zombie films which followed in the wake of Romero seem to have missed out on entirely, focusing more on the zombies themselves and the more prosaic potential for gory eviscerations rather than the meaning behind that action expressed. But in some ways I am glad that they do, since that lets the Romero films tower above everything else to a certain extent. Night and Dawn for me are the more romantic films of Romero's series and I think that entirely revolves around the environments being something which the (arguably naive) characters feel as if they can lay claim to and build something out of. The opening of Dawn in the beseiged apartment building (and the besieged and haemorrhaging in other ways TV studio) is perhaps a key early premonition of the direction the rest of the series would go to, as we see the residents getting herded around like cattle and caught between the zombies on one side and the trigger happy SWAT forces on the other. The homes that should be places of comfort and shelter harbour the worst horrors and betrayals from either dead loved ones or the front door getting kicked down and a shotgun blast blowing your head off! Similarly the TV studio is about verbal violence as the characters tear each other apart with their unassailable logic and positions on a topic until the only option that remains is to flee the rhetorical carnage!

When we get to the much more cynical Day of the Dead we see characters in a bunker environment that has been created for them (like the mall) but which they have little to no control over. Due both to the environment being dank and oppressive (which makes the small scene inside the made somewhat more homely trailer the stand out moment for comfort of the film, which I think is telling for being like the home within a mall in Dawn but on a far smaller and tenuous scale. And as with Dawn it is a fortification within a fortress done more to provide a moment of respite from other living people than from the greater threat) and because of the overly controlling authority figures insistent on perpetuating the horror and making the last refuge of humanity into as much of a nightmare as the wider world originally was! (And if you ever read the originally planned version of Day of the Dead that was available as a pdf on the Anchor Bay disc, that pushes the idea even further into an isolated island with a luxury shelter for the privileged inside it which allows for orgiastic parties to take place as the world collapses before the inevitable cathartically gory zombie invasion takes place) Similarly Land of the Dead is really all about that insulated apartment building and its gated community for the wealthy being able to include or exclude at will, which is the extra horror overlaying the anarchy taking place in the streets outside.

To get back to Dawn, this may be why in a strange way it feels comforting too in its longueurs in that, for as long as it lasts, there does feel like there is a place to exist in and actions that can be taken to continue one's existence. Even if there is an inevitability to the collapse coming whether from internal factors such as dissatisfaction with the superficiality of the consumer goods and services and wishing to move on (as embodied by Fran) or others wanting to claim what you have for themselves, but only succeeding in bringing everything down to their level before similarly moving on to their next goal.

[therewillbeblus]

Excellent writeup, colin, as always! Couldn't agree more on why the elongated mall scenes work so well on visceral and thematic levels. I also could've sworn the Goblin score is pronounced in the Cannes cut, but all sources say I'm wrong... did they by chance reinstate it during the restoration for the SS disc?

[colinr0380]

They are there too in the Cannes cut (most notably in the truck sequence) but from my vague memories of the couple of times I watched the Argento cut I think a lot of the familiar (nay, beloved!) library music cues get stripped out and the Goblin cues played more often instead. Or maybe it just seemed more often because the down time moments are edited down in that version so the Goblin cues come up faster? Either way my impression of the Argento cut, especially in music terms, was that it is a bit like the "Love Conquers All" cut of Brazil, where some of the music cues get copied and pasted from their intended moments to happening a couple more times elsewhere too!

[therewillbeblus]

So then is the Cannes cut retaining the Goblin music in the theatrical, just with more downtime in between? I was under the impression that the Goblin score is either absent or largely muted from the Cannes cut, yet they're listed in the credits and I could've sworn the cues are there when I last watched. Guess I'll have to watch it twice this week to compare..?

[colinr0380]

I refreshed my memory on this yesterday evening and the use of music is very different in the Argento cut, which uses the same couple of Goblin tracks in constant (and honestly, quite irritating) rotation. The Argento cut has stripped away all of the library music cues from the film for wall to wall Goblin. In particular that means no "'Cause I'm A Man" during the trigger happy coalition of rednecks and soldiers in the country; no muzak in the mall, even in the 'mall montage scene'; no Spanish guitar in Fran and Stephen's romantic dinner; and no Gonk at the end.

A lot of the music is used in a rather smothering standard backing score manner as well, which only emphasises how complex and nuanced the use of music is in Romero's own cuts of the film. Whilst Romero edits the music to imagery (perhaps most obviously in the 'punctuation' moment of the zombie who gets through the glass doors of the store in the mall getting two shots to the head in time with the music), instead the Argento cut just starts the same track up from the beginning with every moment of action and lets it play out as a kind of contextless sonic wallpaper to the scene in order to add a bit of extra noise to the events. This kind of makes the comparison between the Argento cut and the other versions of the film into a fascinating case study for how music is used either for emphasis of specific action or just smothered over everything.

The most telling part comes at the beginning when both the TV studio and the besieged tenement building (which have more ambient cues that occur at specific moments in the Theatrical and Cannes cuts) have the same couple of Goblin cues playing under them. That both mutes the way that the quarreling of the TV studio and the screams and shouts (and gunshots) in the siege are acting as their own kind of musical score and do not need actual backing music so much, and also points up the way that the funky 'exciting' Goblin score is actually highly inappropriate for those despairingly grim and dark early scenes of collapsing society. Having the music slathered on also removes those moments where Romero was able to punch up a scene sonically by using a specific cue in conjunction with the action: I'm thinking of Peter firing that shot in the zombie filled basement transitioning to the sound of the helicopter; or the tennis balls rolling off the roof and hitting the zombie-filled parking lot below.

And perhaps most damningly when the Goblin music cues are appropriate (as in the joyous truck scene of everyone working for the same goal), the music cues have been so beaten into the ground by that point that they have no more impact when they start up again, combined with the way that the truck scene itself is truncated down anyway to remove the successful first run. Or that moment of the group first seeing the mall for the first time, which Romero uses the Goblin score magnificently to emphasise the awe and excitement of, here just passes by as just another image, no more or less exciting than anything else on display.

Beyond the score we also get a few beefed up lines in the early section of the film that sort of emphasise the general dire situation without any particular satirical intent. So we get more of the interviewee explaining the situation more clearly in the TV studio scene at the beginning (which Romero is cutting down into invective throwing incoherence from both sides, obscuring with jeers from the spectators and occasionally drowning out with the rising ambient score coming up in time with appearance of the titles); the first meeting between Roger and Peter in the basement of the tenement is a little warier with an extra couple of lines about Peter's shooting of the insane cop on Roger's squad just before getting more emphasis, and the priest who appears just afterwards gets a little bit more time; and there is a slightly longer opening to the scene just after Fran is attacked by the Hare Krishna zombie where Stephen talks more obviously about how 'easy' it is to take the mall and shows how seduced he is being by the idea until Peter pulls him up short on it, which then continues with Peter enquiring about Fran and Stephen revealing that she is pregnant that appears in the Romero edits of the film.

I would argue that the Argento cut is no way for any sensible viewer to experience the film the first time (or any time really!), despite a couple of unique Goblin cues that occur during the biker siege at the end, where the action is being slatheringly underscored with a kind of hair metal riff (which also gets used in place of The Gonk over the end credits), that amused me by making me think of how it was similar to how the music was used in Demons later on! But having it is valuable I think as a way of showing the "Zombi" version of Dawn of the Dead which is the one that presumably would go on to influence the direction of the Italian horror wave, as well as for the general interest in seeing what moments Argento cut out which are generally the polar extremes of the too complexly satirical and the most comic moments. So in the Argento cut we lose things like the boat dock scene when our absconding group run into a similarly AWOL gang of cops; the satire of the countryside shooting gallery scene is really muted simply by having 'Cause I'm A Man removed; without the muzak tracks in the mall much of that satire is muted to the point of being absent. Without moments of beauty like the Desert du Glace track during the discussion of zombies whilst looking at them abstractly, we lose some of the most eerily beautiful moments of the film too. And, probably to retain the 'serious action' approach that the Argento cut is taking to the material, we also lose the fun moments like the helicopter decapitation moment or the bikers having the pie fight with the zombies! The Argento cut is smoothing out all of the peaks and valleys (and purposeful idiosyncracies and clashing contrasts) into something more streamlined with a single, overwhelming sonic voice as well, which kind of ruins everything that makes Dawn of the Dead such a classic of its genre!

So there are some interesting (and unique) moments of footage in there (Fran's encounter with the Hare Krishna zombie is edited back and forth between her plight and the guys getting to her more intensely too), and I am grateful to have it for its historical importance and completeness, but I am still going to be treating this as similar to, albeit slightly more authorised than, Brazil's "Love Conquers All" version of that film.

[Orlac]

The first time I saw Dawn, it was the Feb 2000 BBC2 screening. It was the Cannes version, but despite that getting a practically uncensored DVD a couple of months before, the screening was very heavily cut of nearly all gore, presumbly in line with the 1979 BBFC cuts.

Similary Channel 4 screening the HK edit of Game of Death in 2001, but despite that whole version being non-BBFC certified, they removed the Bruce Lee vs. Dan Inosanto nunchaku fight. And as the print from Media Asia was already missing the Bruce Lee vs. Ji Han Jae fight, that left the film with only one bona-fide Bruce Lee scene!

[colinr0380]

The most infamous thing that the BBC screening removed in its 1997 premiere and a couple of screenings after (though it was removed by the BBFC from the initial 1997 video release too and did surprisingly turn up in its most recent BBC1 screening a couple of years ago. So I don't want to be too harsh on the BBC for cutting the moment, or at least not as harsh as I am about their really damaging edits to Tetsuo II in that same 1997 season which has been the only television screening of the Tsukamoto film to date) was the moment of Peter shooting the zombie children. Which I think was beyond the pale at the time because of memories of Dunblane being rather recent.

(That moment actually stays in the Argento cut despite the helicopter decapitation moment being removed, maybe because that one plays relatively seriously and the other is a comic visual gag! Though really at base they are both visual gags)

[therewillbeblus]

I revisited the Cannes cut again last night and didn't detect much, if any Goblin music. While there are decent cues outside of Goblin's score that you outline well when corresponding to specific scenes, colin, at a certain point, the humdrum scoring become too pronounced and yield a lackluster vibe ill-fitting with the action we're being enthralled by onscreen. It's a weird contrast. I'm going to revisit the theatrical cut soon to see if the Goblin inserts enhance some of these moments, but I find it frustrating that nobody attempted to re-score some Goblin into the Cannes cut, since those extra mall scenes are so incredibly necessary to strike a rhythm for the film to ride for its bloated length, and yet the 'action' scenes demand better aesthetically-supported tension.

I'm not sure if it's even in (or fleshed out enough in) the other cuts, but my favorite moment of the film might be the giddy shopping spree wedged between the pathos of treating Roger in bed post-bite the first time and the long shot from the doorway of his barren room as they hold him down screaming feeding him morphine. It's such a long, drawn-out scene that milks the possibilities of their setting, and shows a group of people playfully optimizing their existential positioning individually and collectively. They're having so much fun, accepting and frolicking in the context as a space of personal liberation within the limitations of their predicament, rather than dwell in it as an imprisonment. I think this scene needs to be as long as it is (it seems to go on forever) in order for the abrupt cut to Roger's agony to work as harshly as it does. In contrast to being intimately 'with' the characters during their sprawling mall adventures, the camera swooning around, up close and personal, cutting left and right (as if mimicking the subjective pov of being a kid in a candy store or at the arcade or a clothing shopping spree), the cut sobers us back to the dire circumstances at hand by fixing our vantage point in the distanced corner of the room, in place, impotent to move from witnessing Roger's screaming body wail.

That trick of freeing us only to trap us back warrants a long wind-up, and I feel like the other earlier scenes engage with the film's tones in a similar fashion, with this one serving as the sharp crescendo of that gradually-brewing back and forth of caustic discordance until the bandaid violently rips off.

[colinr0380]

The shopping spree scene is in there even in the Argento version, but it is given some standard music rather than the "Mall Montage" library cues that really emphasise the playful (or attempt at shopping your troubles away) nature of it all, so as with the countryside militia scene (which gets some generic country music twanging) it all plays much more muted in that cut of the film.

[Finch]

BBFC have given Martin an 18 rating so the Second Sight announcement can't be far off now and they did say the theatrical version is meant to be out before year's end now that the Director's Cut is unavailable for the time being.

[Finch]

From their social media:

THE HITCHER update! Very excited to have our initial grading session with director Robert Harmon next week. We will spend several months on the 4K restoration which is scheduled for completion by end of February. A big thanks to Robert for all the support he's giving us with the release!

[Finch]

Second Sight are going to offer replacement discs for the sync issue on Monster's 5.1 track.

[Finch]

From their Twitter re Martin:

In final authoring stages, pre-Christmas release date will be announced soon!

[Finch]

Standard Editions for The VVitch UHD and BD, and the Censor BD in late October, and A Banquet in a LE BD



Special Features

Deformity of the Flesh: an Interview with Ruth Paxton
Improvised Exorcism: an interview with Jessica Alexander
Producing a Feast: an interview with Leonora Darby
Dark Edges: An interview with David Liddell
Glasgow Film Festival Q&A with Ruth Paxton, Jessica Alexander & Sienna Guillory
Family Disorder: The Making of A Banquet

Limited Edition Contents

Rigid slipcase with new artwork by Jen Davies
Soft cover book with new essays by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Jennie Kermode & Anya Stanley
6 collectors' art cards

Certificate: 15
Region: Region B

[Drucker]

Wouldn’t go out of your way to panic buy - they update the titles of their releases on their site when titles go truly OOP. They probably hit the end of the current stock and don’t want to leave orders up for people that might have to wait weeks for more to be ready.

Well I picked up both the new Mummy and Frankenstein releases. The former was fine. I watched it a few days ago and recall relatively little about it, except the flashback scene which I enjoyed a great deal. And the film definitely looked better in 1.37.

Frankenstein, on the other hand, is really quite fantastic. The film recalls Island Of Lost Souls very positively. The monster was especially gruesome and there are some incredibly well-timed moments where its tragedy is punctuated well. Cushing also has a very effective progression into a degree of madness and evil that comes off very effectively as well. I really enjoyed it and will make a point of watching it next Halloween again.

[Finch]

The Hitcher 4k should be out in Q1 2023. As per Second Sight's Facebook account:

THE HITCHER update! Very excited to have our initial grading session with director Robert Harmon next week. We will spend several months on the 4K restoration which is scheduled for completion by end of February. A big thanks to Robert for all the support he's giving us with the release!

[therewillbeblus]

Does Second Sight have a standard practice as far as their OOP 4Ks go? I feel like Drive's standard edition sold out pretty quickly but has been/still is available on Rarewaves et al, but The Witch's long-awaited standard 4K edition sold out immediately and it's listed as sold out there and elsewhere. Any chance this comes 'back' like Drive (which, I suppose, never really left)?

[ryannichols7]

I swear that Berlin Alexanderplatz was out of print before and came back. and now I see that Heimat is and I didn't get to get a copy, agh...so if anyone in the UK happens to see a copy of that, World on a Wire, or Color of Pomegranates for a reasonable price and would be willing to ship me one...they're not popular enough to get numerous eBay listings

[Finch]

Second Sight social media:

MARTIN: Limited Edition 4K UHD / Blu-ray and 4K UHD and Blu-ray standard editions will be released February 27, pre-order coming next week...

[TMDaines]

I swear that Berlin Alexanderplatz was out of print before and came back. and now I see that Heimat is and I didn't get to get a copy, agh...so if anyone in the UK happens to see a copy of that, World on a Wire, or Color of Pomegranates for a reasonable price and would be willing to ship me one...they're not popular enough to get numerous eBay listings

Heimat is available direct from Second Sight for £50.

[Calvin]

Sean Baker's Tangerine is next to get the Second Sight treatment. It'll have "hours of new interviews, a feature-length making-of, 60-page book plus art cards. Pre-order coming this week!"

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Sean Baker posted on social media that he’s doing film-out transfers of all his films and that’s what the new restoration of Take Out is based on. I was skeptical, but was lucky to see Tangerine on 35mm which was a surreal experience and the new restoration of Take Out really is the perfect argument for restoring miniDV (29.97/480i) works to 35mm or HD. Baker in the Criterion edition says it’s something he wanted to do among it’s initial release but couldn’t afford to do. I wonder if the new edition of Tangerine will be based off of something similar? Red Rocket sort of sparked something in me and really elevated Baker to be one of my personal favorite American directors working today and look forward to this.