BFI (British Film Institute)

[What A Disgrace]

Wow, I was completely surprised by Cottage on Dartmoor. I don't trust myself to say anything insightful about the film but, while I was expecting a fine and dynamic film, I wasn't expecting this film to be quite this dynamic. I thought the scene in the movie theatre was one of the most amazing sequences in silent cinema.

Can anyone recommend any other British silent films? Hindle Wakes, Piccadilly, the various Hitchcocks, The Life Story of David Lloyd George, and other Asquith silents are definitely on my radar now. I'm particularly interested in seeing the two Elvey films; hoping that BFI releases them both in a quick series, like the soon-coming Davies and previously released Jarmans.

[colinr0380]

I love Piccadilly, though it does have a disappointing last act that seems to be an attempt at trying to make amends for the trangressions that came earlier!

I've only seen Hitchcock's The Lodger but it is a very accomplished film and I would consider it to be up there with his best thrillers with no excuses needing to be made for it.

[ptmd]

I've only seen Hitchcock's The Lodger but it is a very accomplished film and I would consider it to be up there with his best thrillers with no excuses needing to be made for it.

The Lodger is a good film and certainly an important one, but it doesn't hold a candle to Hitchcock's other silent masterpieces The Ring (1927) and The Manxman (1929). You should be able to get both of these easily via the Lionsgate box set and they might give you a fresh perspective on Hitchcock's work and British silent cinema.

Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, none of Asquith's other silent work is available on video or DVD. Did anyone here attend the retrospective of his work at Pordenone a few years ago?

[Tommaso]

Apart from the wonderful, sexy and stylish "Piccadilly", I'd definitely recommend "Hindle Wakes". One of my most treasured silents. It's such a deeply moving, but nevertheless realistic and socially aware film with stunning visuals (that fairground sequence!). It's curious that the BFI did not release it on dvd yet, but thankfully it's available from Milestone. That disc also has the wonderful music by In The Nursery. The BFI should definitely get this out and treat us to more Elvey.
Apart from this, go for Osten's "Throw of Dice" (if that counts as a British film for the moment). Pure enchantment all around.

[drdoros]

Apart from the wonderful, sexy and stylish "Piccadilly", I'd definitely recommend "Hindle Wakes". One of my most treasured silents. It's such a deeply moving, but nevertheless realistic and socially aware film with stunning visuals (that fairground sequence!). It's curious that the BFI did not release it on dvd yet, but thankfully it's available from Milestone. That disc also has the wonderful music by In The Nursery. The BFI should definitely get this out and treat us to more Elvey.
Apart from this, go for Osten's "Throw of Dice" (if that counts as a British film for the moment). Pure enchantment all around.

Thanks for the plug for Hindle Wakes. We released it because we loved the film -- and Amy is a big fan of Emma Goldman who adored the play. But it might be true that Victor Saville's contribution might have been just as important as Elvey's. Two other films I've seen by Elvey including David Lloyd George, are not as fine.

The two other Asquith silents I've seen (Shooting Stars and Underground) are perhaps better than Cottage on Dartmoor. I especially loved Underground. Dupont's Moulin Rouge is one that I regret not seeing yet.

All in all, Britain from 1927 to 1929 has to be judged to be one of the golden ages of cinema. Sadly, most historians ignore the facts and print the legend that the British silent era was lacking.

[otis]

BFI to release Kuleshov's Engineer Pright's Project:

“Engineer Pright’s Project” (Proekt Inzhenera Praita, 1918) is the film debut of Lev Kuleshov (1899 – 1970). This work was tremendously important not only for the Russian cinema; it also became a milestone of the art of cinematography worldwide. This film introduced a specific method of film montage which later became universally known as “Soviet montage”. In spite of the fact that Kuleshov’s classical work had preceded many discoveries and inventions of Eisenstein and Vertov, his films are less known outside Russia. Among his pupils were Vsevolod Pudovkin (“Mother” - “Mat”) and Boris Barnet (“The Secret Agent s Heroic Act” – “Podvig razvedchika”). In the introduction to Kuleshov’s book “The Art of Cinema” (1928) his students wrote: “He has carried us into the open sea on his shoulders. We make films – he has made cinema”.

“Engineer Pright’s Project” is well known among film scholars, but the general public and film lovers are practically unfamiliar with this unique work. The material contains a lot of puzzles which had to be solved during the course of reconstruction carried out by N. Izvolov in 2002. The film has been a subject of numerous interpretations, commentaries and scholarly analyses. This is precisely why we have chosen “Engineer Pright’s Project” to demonstrate a new method of commenting upon film on a DVD.

The BFI (London) and absolut Medien (www.absolutmedien.de, Berlin) are releasing “Engineer Pright’s Project” in a HYPERKINO format.

[Michael Kerpan]

A discussion of “Engineer Pright’s Project” and the glories of Kulevshov in general -- by David Bordwell.

[zone_resident]

DVD Times review of Borderline

[sidehacker]

Thanks, foggy eyes. The transfer does indeed look gorgeous.

[MichaelB]

The BFI has just launched its own YouTube channel.

[Zobalob]

Great! Now I'll get no work done at all, thank you

Amazon UK has the BFI reissuing "La Belle et la Bete" on Aug. 18th, is this a different issue than the first, if so, in what ways?.

[foggy eyes]

Amazon UK has the BFI reissuing "La Belle et la Bete" on Aug. 18th, is this a different issue than the first, if so, in what ways?.

Yes. As discussed briefly a couple of pages ago, the transfer will be remastered.

[What A Disgrace]

Red Desert

Killer Sheep (gee, I wonder)

My Brother's Wedding

[zedz]

Killer Sheep (gee, I wonder)

And you thought Burnett's re-edit of My Brother's Wedding was radical! (This version is pretty much the same up until that first slaughterhouse scene, but then. . .)

[MichaelB]

Whole load of announcements on DVD Times:

La Belle et la bête
Still Life
British Transport Films vol 8
plus a special 75th birthday offer...

[zedz]

Whole load of announcements on DVD Times:

La Belle et la bête
Still Life
British Transport Films vol 8
plus a special 75th birthday offer...

Great news! That Amazon box set is a steal (currently an extra 25% off - 56 quid), even if there are a few discs I don't need in it. For those interested, the titles included are:
La Kermesse Heroique - Jacques Feyder
Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne - Robert Bresson
Partie De Campagne - Jean Renoir
The Threepenny Opera - GW Pabst
Regarde La Mer And Other Short Films - Francois Ozon
Le Cercle Rouge - Jean-Pierre Melville
Celine And Julie Go Boating - Jacques Rivette
Tristana - Luis Bunuel
Distant Voices Still Lives - Terence Davies
The Innocents - Jack Clayton

The Moviemail set is all British films, also quite tempting.

Michael, is the list of what 75 titles will be reduced to half price during September available anywhere?

[GaryC]

I think I know what I'll be buying in the next month or so - especially as I only have one each of the Amazon and Moviemail sets. (I've seen rather more of the films before, just hadn't got round to purchasing the DVDs.)

[MichaelB]

Michael, is the list of what 75 titles will be reduced to half price during September available anywhere?

Literally all I know is in the link I've already given you - sorry!

[Tommaso]

Sounds like a great offer, all around, though I have most of the titles in the amazon box one way or another. I hope that those 75 titles will not all be very old or extremely specialist ones. Fingers crossed for Svankmajer, for example....

[Hopscotch]

Fingers crossed for Svankmajer, for example....

Fingers double crossed and amen..
Also that BFI set really is a pretty good deal, even if the exchange rate is, you know, kicking you in the balls.

[Tommaso]

Also that BFI set really is a pretty good deal, even if the exchange rate is, you know, kicking you in the balls.

Living in Europe, the latter is not so much the problem for me, but I've little experience with Svankmajer yet and always found that set rather expensive (though I know how much work has gone into it from MichaelB's posts here), but probably worth the price. Still I've shied back from it until now, though it's been on my to-buy list for ages.

But that's a general 'problem' with BFI discs: unlike AE or MoC discs, there are very few opportunities to get BFI discs considerably cheaper than their normal price. Good to have this one chance in September, then. Also hoping for Painlevé and other avantgarde stuff. Or Naruse.

[MichaelB]

I've little experience with Svankmajer yet and always found that set rather expensive (though I know how much work has gone into it from MichaelB's posts here), but probably worth the price.

Well, you get 27 complete short films (28 if you count the alternative version of The Ossuary), two hour-long documentaries and other goodies and a 56-page booklet - so it's hardly a rip-off.

Put it like this, I paid a lot more than that for a set of four VHSes in the mid-1990s - and that was for just 26 films, no extras, no booklet and indeed no subtitles!

Wonder what will be on DVD disc 2/Blu-Ray extras apart from Forgacs commentary?... Could it be DEAR ANTONIONI/CARO ANTONIONI the BBC Arena docu? There's also a few of MA's outtakes on the Carlotta disc that could be included...

I hate to break it to you, but nothing will be on disc two because there won't be a disc two, and there never was going to be a disc two.

I'm not entirely sure why Amazon seems to think otherwise, but it's being investigated.

But my claim that Red Desert is a brand new HD telecine from the original negative was correct, so hopefully that hasn't put anyone off.

OK, I've just been authorised to reveal the 75 discounted titles, but I'll hide them in spoiler tags in case people want to keep guessing:

Spoiler

Adventures Of Prince Achmed, The
Baadasssss!
Bande a Part
Before The Nickelodeon
Bigger Than Life
British Transport Films Collection (Vol 1): On and Off the Rails
British Transport Films Collection (Vol 2): See Britain by Train
British Transport Films Collection (Vol 5): Off the Beaten Track
British Transport Films Collection (Vol 6): The Art of Travel
Caravaggio
Caretaker, The
Carmen Jones
Celine and Julie Go Boating
Cercle Rouge, Le
Dickens Before Sound
Distant Voices Still Lives
Doulos, Le
Draughtsmans Contract, The
Dreams That Money Can Buy
Early Cinema: Primitives And Pioneers
Early Films of Peter Greenaway - Volume 1
Edge Of The World, The
Electric Edwardians: The Films of Mitchell & Kenyon
Fallen Angel
Five
Geoffrey Jones: The Rhythm of Film
Gertrud
Hidden Fortress, The
Ikiru (Living)
Innocents, The
Jour De Fete
Journey To Italy (Viaggio In Italia)
Kermesse Heroique, La
L'Armee Des Ombres
Leon Morin, Pretre
Leopard, The
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne
Les Enfants Terribles
Les Vacances de M. Hulot
London / Robinson In Space
Lost World of Friese-Greene, The
Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon, The
Lost World of Tibet, The
Mad Love
Mahabharata, The (Brook)
Man With a Movie Camera (Alloy Orchestra / In the Nursery Edition)
Mitchell & Kenyon in Ireland
Night and the City
Night of Truth
Ordet
Ossessione
Paris Nous Appartient
Partie de Campagne
People On Sunday
Phil Mulloy: Extreme Animation
Piccadilly
Radio On
Regarde la mer (and other short films by Francois Ozon)
Regle du Jeu, La
River, The (Renoir)
RW Paul - The Collected Films
Sanjuro
Seven Samurai, The
Silent Shakespeare
South - Sir Ernest Shackleton's Glorious Epic of the Antarctic
Straight To Hell/Death & The Compass (Alex Cox double-bill)
Terra Trema, La
Threepenny Opera, The
Throne Of Blood
Tristana
Under The Skin
Visions of Light: the Art of Cinematography
Where The Sidewalk Ends
Woman of the Dunes (Director's Cut)
Yojimbo

[Tommaso]

Ah well, thanks Michael! Too bad that I have to wake up from my Svankmajer and Painlevé dreams, then. As I feared, a lot of older titles or such which are available in other and occasionally better editions. But a fair selection of important world cinema titles, and good for those who are still looking for some of the BFI silents, though. Some true BFI highlights in there as well, so no complaints. Looks like I will pick up some of these discs in any case.

[domino harvey]

Journey to Italy \:D/

[foggy eyes]

Thanks for that, Michael. I was just about to pay full whack for the Mad Love set after reading about the films recently (better late than never), so you've saved me a few quid.

I'll just add that the recently released Wenders-esque Radio On (dromoscopy, Kraftwerk and the M4) is unmissable at that price too - one of my favourite BFI discs of the year thus far.