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It is. May Sixteen Candles fund many more.

It's a testament to this month that they've somehow found a way to upstage Orson Welles. The second WCF box will tempt me into making a Day 1 purchase and not waiting for a sale. Hopefully this ushers Memories of Underdevelopment and The Color of Pomegranate standalones, but perhaps I shouldn't be hoping after how much they just gave me.

felipe wrote:Is Limite the first Brazilian film released by Criterion?

Black Orpheus
Terry Gilliam's Brazil

Was CODE UNKNOWN a Haneke one-off? I expected that we'd get a steady drip of titles after that release, but that was over a year ago, and to my knowledge there haven't been any more hints of anything forthcoming.

Same. I'm hoping for a decently priced Artificial Eye set at this point.

Can we expect some of these boxed WCF titles to get individual releases somewhere down the line like they did with Easy Rider and the two Demy films?

I would doubt it. These aren't the huge sellers those films have the potential to be. The fact that there are scant extra features and it's still dual format point to the sales expectations of the set.

andyli wrote:

captveg wrote:Has Criterion ever upscaled bonus feature films on any of the BD releases that have them? I certainly can't think of any instance of that happening. Often they are in rough shape in regards to film elements, but they've always been HD masters.

It has happened many times before. Passionless Moments on Sweetie, Toute la mémoire du monde on Last Year at Marienbad, The Traveler on Close-Up, and the list goes on and on... Although I'd bet I Was Born, But... will feature a decent HD (albeit old) transfer since BFI has put it out on blu-ray already.

This was done most egregiously on the Jacques Tati set which featured poor SD upscales of the alternate cuts of Mr. Hulot's Holiday and Mon Oncle when better HD versions existed (presumably, rights issues prevented the higher-quality version from appearing).

Drucker wrote:I would doubt it. These aren't the huge sellers those films have the potential to be. The fact that there are scant extra features and it's still dual format point to the sales expectations of the set.

Some of these films' reputations might grow exponentially though as a result of being in the collection.

Close The Door, Raymond wrote:

felipe wrote:Is Limite the first Brazilian film released by Criterion?

Black Orpheus
Terry Gilliam's Brazil

I would consider Limite as the first Brazillian film in the collection(unless I'm missing one). Black Orpheus was a co-production by a French filmmaker, and Gilliam's Brazil has nothing to do with Brazil (I assume that was a joke)

Black Orpheus is indeed listed as a French production, and won the Foreign Film Oscar as a French representative.
And yes, Gilliam's Brazil is a joke... (a good one might I add)

I'm surprised Taipei Story didn't get a full release considering what a sensation their ABSD release seemed to be. It has me thinking that the decision to put some films in the boxes and others in spines comes down to resources for extras, as well as sales predictions. They put a ton into ABSD and maybe didn't have much left for Taipei Story, which leads me to assume they'll do the inverse for Insiang/Manila in the Claws of Light. While Canoa is just as obscure as any of the WCF titles, it's extras lean on other filmmakers from the same country to fill them out. Obviously it's even harder to get more than one person to comment on films from midcentury Turkey and Kazakhstan than Mexico

If I had to guess, I'd say the other films to get solo releases are Manila, The Color of Pomegranate (easily the most major film left in the group) and Memories of Underdevelopment (due to the ease of access to Cuban historical/cultural content).

Canoa also wasn't boxsetted because i isn't a WCF title. That was all those Mexican directors' doing.

For me, ABSD and Black Girl are films I knew about outside of the context of the WCP. I think it makes sense that they get standalone while others get boxed up.

The only titles in the WCP 2 box I didn't know about outside that context are Revenge and Law of the Border. I'm a little surprised Black Girl got the separate treatment. It's a landmark film of course, but seems about on par with several of the titles that have been left in the boxes.

I slightly disagree. Whether it is accurate to say so or not it is the film most widely accepted as the first post-colonial African film and is talked about in deep reverence as that. Housemaid is the only film from the boxes that seems anywhere near that.

knives wrote:Canoa also wasn't boxsetted because i isn't a WCF title. That was all those Mexican directors' doing.

Of course, I just meant that if Criterion thinks that can sell then others probably could too if they could put a release together

knives wrote:I slightly disagree. Whether it is accurate to say so or not it is the film most widely accepted as the first post-colonial African film and is talked about in deep reverence as that. Housemaid is the only film from the boxes that seems anywhere near that.

Black Girl kicked off an entire continental filmmaking tradition, which is not something that can be said about many films, still less about films in the Criterion Collection. The Housemaid - and most of the other WCF films released so far - is an important national classic, but doesn't have anything like the same broad historic importance. Criterion's track record with African cinema is so poor that relegating such a major film to a box set would have added insult to injury, a bit like saying "yes, we've got the Breathless of African cinema, but we don't think it's worth releasing in its own right."

That's exactly what I was saying.

OK, I knew Black Girl was considered a seminal film but I guess I didn't fully appreciate the impact it's had. Also, my impression was that Limite and Insiang at least are huge deals as far as the cinematic heritage of their respective countries goes.

More like a sembènel film

They also have the rights to five other Ousmane Sembène films, if that impacts your arguments any. He only directed 8 other feature films, so I wonder which three are being left out.

They likely have the New Yorker titles which include Camp at Thiaroye, Ceddo, Faat Kine, Mandabi, Xala, and Moolaade which of course is higher than your five, but helps to knock off the rest assuming the shorts are being treated separately. If I had to take a guess I'd assume Camp is our third one, but it might be any.

swo17 wrote:Also, my impression was that Limite and Insiang at least are huge deals as far as the cinematic heritage of their respective countries goes.

I happen to be very good friends with quite a few Brazilians. None of them knew what Limite was. Nor did they know anything about the director. While it may be important it's not well known. At least among the thirty plus Brazilians who I know.

Point taken, though I wasn't thinking of national popularity so much as what people in the know would cite as the most important films from a particular country.

swo17 wrote:Point taken, though I wasn't thinking of national popularity so much as what people in the know would cite as the most important films from a particular country.

You might actually be surprised to know they actually know very little about their film heritage. Most of the film they consume is actually ours. I actually offered to ship a copy of the set to one friend because Brazil doesn't have version of the film available.

Limite being released at all is a HUGE deal. I want to stress that. HUGE.