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viciousliar wrote:

Annie Mall wrote:One last thing: Face to Face is nowhere to be found in the world on DVD. Not even in Sweden. The whole TV series comprised itself of 4 episodes with a total running time of 200 minutes. I've said this before and I'll say it again: this masterwork and my personal favorite Bergman is my holy grail on DVD. The day that a release date is disclosed, I think I will either burst or collapse. Looking forward to it, though.

I've never seen it, unfortunately, but I think I read somewhere that the US theatrical release actually played better than the TV series, since the condensing brought Ullman's performance into sharper focus, and the editing enhanced it, too. Has anyone seen both versions, and thus able to comment?

I saw the TV version years ago at the Museum of TV & Radio in New York and found it more disturbing than the theatrical version. CC really needs to do with "Face to Face" as they did with "Fanny" and "Marriage"!

Winner of the 1961 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring is a harrowing tale of faith, revenge, and savagery in medieval Sweden. Starring Bergman stalwart and screen icon Max von Sydow, the film is both beautiful and cruel in its depiction of a world teetering between the sacred and the profane and one father's longing to avenge the murder of a child.

Up now!

Extras: New, restored high-definition digital transfer; audio commentary by Ingmar Bergman scholar Birgitta Steene; new video interviews with actresses Gunnel Linblom and Birgitta Petersson; new essay by film historian and Bergman scholar Peter Cowie; new and improved English subtitle translation; more!


It's so early there might be quite a bit 'more'...

According to the new Facets IndieSource, Criterion's DVD of "The Virgin Spring" will feature a new video introduction by Ang Lee, on top of the previously announced extras.

-BJ

If that is true, it's a bit odd. However, it's always nice to have a director make the introduction to someone else's work. Guess Scorsese or Wes Craven weren't available, hey?

Buttery Jeb wrote:According to the new Facets IndieSource, Criterion's DVD of "The Virgin Spring" will feature a new video introduction by Ang Lee, on top of the previously announced extras.

-BJ

Ang Lee introducing a Bergman movie? #-o That's odd.

A) Was this always at $39.99? I don't see why it warrants that price. It has a full-length commentary, but haven't several newer releases remained at the lower price tier despite having a commentary? What else has this disc got to make for the higher price?

B) Is this up for pre-order anywhere? I was surprised to find the February releases not up yet, but January's too?

denti alligator wrote:A) Was this always at $39.99? I don't see why it warrants that price. It has a full-length commentary, but haven't several newer releases remained at the lower price tier despite having a commentary? What else has this disc got to make for the higher price?

B) Is this up for pre-order anywhere? I was surprised to find the February releases not up yet, but January's too?

It's at dvdempire.com

kieslowski_67 wrote:

Buttery Jeb wrote:According to the new Facets IndieSource, Criterion's DVD of "The Virgin Spring" will feature a new video introduction by Ang Lee, on top of the previously announced extras.

-BJ

Ang Lee introducing a Bergman movie? #-o That's odd.

hmm...has Criterion ever had a video introduction by a director who wasn't also represented in the collection (whether present or, in the case of someone like Bogdanovich, someone who Criterion had done a laserdisc of)?

richast2 wrote:

kieslowski_67 wrote:

Buttery Jeb wrote:According to the new Facets IndieSource, Criterion's DVD of "The Virgin Spring" will feature a new video introduction by Ang Lee, on top of the previously announced extras.

-BJ

Ang Lee introducing a Bergman movie? #-o That's odd.

hmm...has Criterion ever had a video introduction by a director who wasn't also represented in the collection (whether present or, in the case of someone like Bogdanovich, someone who Criterion had done a laserdisc of)?

Didn't Romero do one recently for something? Or was is just an interview?

tales of hoffman : its his favorite film.

richast2 wrote:hmm...has Criterion ever had a video introduction by a director who wasn't also represented in the collection (whether present or, in the case of someone like Bogdanovich, someone who Criterion had done a laserdisc of)?

Sidney Lumet on Ran - there was what seems to be an early laserdisc of 12 Angry Men out from Criterion (spine #27) but nothing else.

How about Todd Haynes who has done an introduction on Ali: Fear Eats The Soul and interviewed Gus Van Sant on My Own Private Idaho, or Neil LaBute on Naked?

DVD Planet has Virgin Spring for $23.97 (40% off instead of their customary 35%).

uh. What's the story on this? When's it being released? What are the "more" extras promised. Perhaps they will make it worth the 40 SRP.

Strange it's up as a New Release as of today at criterion.com...

According to the review up on VideoBusiness.com, "The Vigin Spring" does have the Ang Lee introduction, as well as a recording of a 40-minute long Q&A with Bergman at the American Film Institute from 1975, on top of the confirmed extras.

-BJ

Buttery Jeb wrote:According to the review up on VideoBusiness.com, "The Vigin Spring" does have the Ang Lee introduction, as well as a recording of a 40-minute long Q&A with Bergman at the American Film Institute from 1975, on top of the confirmed extras.

Here is the full page, review as follows:

The Virgin Spring
By Ed Grant 1/2/2006

Criterion/Image, B&W, NR, 89 min. plus supplements, monoaural, fullscreen, Swedish with English subtitles, Street: Jan. 24, $39.95; First Run: L, Nov. 1960, NA

"A day can start out beautifully and end in misery," philosophizes one mournful gent in The Virgin Spring, a chilling and highly influential period piece from master filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. The film's gorgeous visuals, courtesy of Bergman stalwart Sven Nykvist, and measured, fairy tale-like tone won it the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar in 1960, despite its brutal and controversial subject matter. Bergman scholar Birgitta Steene mentions in her audio commentary that the film was essentially sold to the mainstream American audience on the strength of its pivotal rape sequence, which, as could be expected from Bergman, is not exploitative and still retains its primal power today. The rape-and-revenge scenario that Bergman took from a medieval Swedish ballad was in fact resold to American audiences as pure exploitation in 1972—a fact not mentioned by Steene—when Wes Craven transformed Virgin Spring into his gruesome Last House on the Left. Filmmaker Ang Lee provides an on-screen introduction to the film, attesting to the impact its extremely quiet "confidence" had on him as a teenage viewer. In an interview supplement, the two lead actresses, Gunnel Lindblom and Birgitta Pettersson, discuss the traumatic impact of the rape scene. Lindblom recalls meeting Woody Allen, who had retained a strong memory of her delivering a nervous speech at the film's New York premiere. The disc's most enlightening extra is a 40-minute audio Q&A session Bergman conducted at the American Film Institute in October 1975. The old master provides serious answers to each question but also gets several laughs. When asked if he discusses the "message" in his films with his cast, Bergman quickly replies, "No—good heavens, no!"

DVDBeaver posted a review for The Virgin Spring. http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReview ... review.htm
I found some of the comments ridiculous. The best that they can surmise about the inclusion of a dub track on this release and Forbidden Games is to make a "suitable presentation for children." The inclusion of dub tracks is hardly a new development or trend for Criterion. It is well-known that many of Bergman's films were accompanied by dub tracks in the US. They most likely include the track for comparison.

thethirdman wrote:DVDBeaver posted a review for The Virgin Spring. http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReview ... review.htm
I found some of the comments ridiculous. The best that they can surmise about the inclusion of a dub track on this release and Forbidden Games is to make a "suitable presentation for children." The inclusion of dub tracks is hardly a new development or trend for Criterion. It is well-known that many of Bergman's films were accompanied by dub tracks in the US. They most likely include the track for comparison.

I was a bit bewildered by Gary's anti-dub stance, too. I'm pretty sure I'll never listen to the track, but it does have limited historical significance, and nobody's forcing you to listen to it. Unless this feature bumped some brilliant extra, I can't see the problem.

Why is this image blocked like that from all sides? I am sure this was not the case with the other Bergman films (ie Winter Light, The Silence, Looking Through a Glass Darkly) where they were virtually full screen. Let me know if I am wrong.

marty wrote:Why is this image blocked like that from all sides? I am sure this was not the case with the other Bergman films (ie Winter Light, The Silence, Looking Through a Glass Darkly) where they were virtually full screen. Let me know if I am wrong.

I can only assume that this is an attempt to counter overscan. Is this going to be the new Criterion standard? Have they actually been listening to the complaints about cropping?

For such an esteemed high-quality DVD distributor, Criterion have been doing an awful lot of cropping recently.

This is NOT the way to solve overscan problems, because it only pisses those of us off who don't have overscan and who then have to sacrifice vertical resolution. Arrgh.

marty wrote:For such an esteemed high-quality DVD distributor, Criterion have been doing an awful lot of cropping recently.

Not according to DVDBeavers 'Shoot The Piano Player' review. It looks like they may have rectified this issue.

This new trick of countering overscan (on both this and Forbidden Games) is not all that new. They did the same thing on the M re-release.

denti alligator wrote:This is NOT the way to solve overscan problems, because it only pisses those of us off who don't have overscan and who then have to sacrifice vertical resolution. Arrgh.

How does overscanning sacrifice vertical resolution? It's still the same pixels per screen inch, no?