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I actually sympathize with people at Criterion. Their hands must be tied and could not resolve this issue in a way that won't offend the director and the licensor. It is very unlikely that when they initially approached Wong for the project they would have foreseen the extent to which he would go to alter his films. All my resentment is directed toward my compatriot Wong Kar-Wai. This atrocity is on the same level of Tian Zhuangzhuang approving the 48 fps 'restoration' of The Horse Thief.

wattsup32 wrote:Given all of the issues, is there a compelling reason not to hold out for the 4K set to see what it has in store for us (assuming you have region-free capability)? Is that set expected to include at least all fo the films in the CC set?

The Criterion set isn't limited so I don't see any reason to rush to pre-order. I'll be surprised if Novamedia don't announce details about their set before Criterion's is released. I think the real question mark is whether or not they'll include English subtitles; they usually do, but I wouldn't be surprised if Criterion gets in the way seeing as they helped fund the restorations.

To play devil’s advocate as unpleasant as this is for those that love the earliest versions what Wong is doing is not unusual historically even if it is unusual in film. Literature, music, plays, and even the fine arts have always had artists continuously tinkering with their works removing old versions in favor of some new thing. There’s nothing aberrant or shocking, quality aside, about Wong’s actions.

So, to use a tired phrase, if a bunch of people jump off a bridge, it's logical- or shouldn't surprise us- for another to follow suit. And the people that person's jump affects don't matter cause the others already did it. Your point negates the entire perspective of art belonging to the public, which is the position and ethos I believe many people here are coming from, so it's not really engaging in the conversation at hand. Nobody is saying this hasn't happened before, in fact I'm pretty sure it was explicitly brought up in earlier pages of the thread.

Plus, horizontally stretching Fallen Angels is aberrant. It looks grindingly terrible. And it's profoundly unnatural to show a movie with that level of visual distortion.

Wong Kar-Why is everyone so mad?

knives wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:28 am To play devil’s advocate as unpleasant as this is for those that love the earliest versions what Wong is doing is not unusual historically even if it is unusual in film. Literature, music, plays, and even the fine arts have always had artists continuously tinkering with their works removing old versions in favor of some new thing. There’s nothing aberrant or shocking, quality aside, about Wong’s actions.

Right, so your point is that if I'm also mad there's no complete variorum edition of Marianne Moore's poems, I can feel justified in being mad about this too. Got it.

Calvin wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:19 am

wattsup32 wrote:Given all of the issues, is there a compelling reason not to hold out for the 4K set to see what it has in store for us (assuming you have region-free capability)? Is that set expected to include at least all fo the films in the CC set?

The Criterion set isn't limited so I don't see any reason to rush to pre-order. I'll be surprised if Novamedia don't announce details about their set before Criterion's is released. I think the real question mark is whether or not they'll include English subtitles; they usually do, but I wouldn't be surprised if Criterion gets in the way seeing as they helped fund the restorations.

How are Novamedia's English subtitles generally? As we all know not all translations are created equal.

senseabove wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:06 am

knives wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:28 am To play devil’s advocate as unpleasant as this is for those that love the earliest versions what Wong is doing is not unusual historically even if it is unusual in film. Literature, music, plays, and even the fine arts have always had artists continuously tinkering with their works removing old versions in favor of some new thing. There’s nothing aberrant or shocking, quality aside, about Wong’s actions.

Right, so your point is that if I'm also mad there's no complete variorum edition of Marianne Moore's poems, I can feel justified in being mad about this too. Got it.

Tangentially related, but: have you gotten Heather White’s new edited volume of Moore’s work? I took a class with her at Alabama a year or so before the publication and it was clearly a tremendous undertaking for her.

soundchaser wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 6:02 am Tangentially related, but: have you gotten Heather White’s new edited volume of Moore’s work? I took a class with her at Alabama a year or so before the publication and it was clearly a tremendous undertaking for her.

I have indeed! I about shat myself when I stumbled across a shiny new "Collected" Moore on the shelf at the bookstore a few months ago, thinking it was a variorum edition and knowing anecdotally just how much work that would mean, and then realizing momentarily that it couldn't be such a slim volume and "Collected" was likely a judicious word choice. But White's intro and detailed, fascinating Editor's Note about the development of Moore's editing and curation and White's judgements about how to handle them make it very clear just what her justifiably narrower focus does mean and why a true, complete variorum edition of Moore's work would be impossibly massive. (Would that Criterion were able to be so explicit and judicious in their decisions!) So while not the complete variorum I joked about, White's volume is nevertheless a monumental work, and my being cheeky about knives' comment was definitely not meant to diminish White's work for those who do know it exists.

To steer this back on topic a little, your mention of White's edition prompted me to reread her comments on Moore's penchant for revision and the deleterious effects such efforts can have on an artist's legacy (and truly, for anyone curious about how complex these issues can be and an example of how I wish Criterion were able to treat the situation, read the Editor's Notes to this book). The end of White's introduction to the volume and the first few paragraphs of her Editor's Notes, in order below, seem particularly relevant:

The reader who values Moore's late achievements, including the way she refashioned her earlier work, can find them here. The reader in search of the poet Moore was before she changed her mind about many important things will find her here as well. That poet whom Eliot, Stevens, Williams, and Bishop loved has been substantially, increasingly lost with each passing decade since 1951, when Moore herself began her long erasure. An accurate assessment not only of Moore's work, but of the Modernist culture she helped create, requires that we come to terms with the poet she was in the beginning. It is not too late to bring her back.

Anyone who would like a quick introduction to the ways Marianne Moore edited her own work can infer it from the complaints of her most devoted readers. In 1935 T.S. Eliot edited and wrote the introduction to her Selected Poems, describing his work in this way:

The original suggestion was that I should make a selection, from both previously published and more recent poems. But Miss Moore exercised her own rights of proscription first, so drastically, that I have been concerned to preserve rather than abate.

In a review of Moore's Complete Poems, which she edited herself in 1967, the poet Anthony Hecht lamented,

while she has occasionally added beautifully to a familiar and well-known poem, more often than not she has cut and trimmed in radical and merciless ways.

Hugh Kenner, reflecting on Moore's lifelong willingness to sacrifice her work when it no longer met her ever-shifting standards, neatly summed the situation up in 1975:

[Miss Moore's] conscience was her admirers' despair.

Moore's implacable answer to all such expressions of despair is the terse phrase that has been the epigraph to her Collected Poems since it was first published in 1967: "Omissions are not accidents." In its broadest terms, this edition argues that although Moore's omissions were not accidents, they were nevertheless mistakes. I think that Moore, in the later decades of her life, did her readers a lasting, and compounding, disservice by altering and suppressing the writing she published as a younger poet. As the first generations of Moore readers have disappeared, so has the Moore they collectively sustained in memory. This edition exists in the service of the Moore her peers witnessed, and as a counter-testimony to the Moore she herself invented to take her place.

Bolded that last bit since it's the most succinct argument for why I think an artist re-editing and suppressing the original versions of their work is inexcusable, however widely it may be practiced. It's no great leap to rewrite the end to White's intro for our situation here: "An accurate assessment not only of [Wong]'s work, but of the [whichever word you want to use to encapsulate Wong's impact] [he] helped create, requires that we come to terms with the [filmmaker he] was in the beginning." And we now can only hope that Wong's legacy and home media both outlast him so that it will one day not be too late to bring that filmmaker back to all of us not lucky enough to see fleeting presentations of original 35mm prints.

And to adapt another sentence from White's intro, one that opens a paragraph leading to a discussion of the auteurist-ic faith of editorial practices in "final intent" in the mid-to-late-20th century and implicitly compares it to the archival, historicist tendencies (usually) prevalent now: "This state of affairs has only one virtue: it is what [Wong] wanted."

soundchaser wrote:Life pro-tip: don't try to convince anyone in the r/criterion subreddit that the label is less than godlike and doesn't deserve a share of the fault here.

I regularly stumble on r/criterion when searching specific Criterion info and yup, this is fanboy heaven. I don't know if they're representative of the general audience though, but it's amazing to see people sometimes so much in denial of Criterion's occasionnal debatable choices (or, in this case, tieds hands) or structural issues (UHD, compression). I'm not surprised they're currently raving about the WKW set, so I'm curious what excuses they can find to it (except Criterion having their hands tied). Even people at blu-ray.com aren't too happy about it (though it wouldn't be blu-ray.com if many rants weren't about the packaging).

Exterminans wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 5:16 am

Calvin wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:19 am

wattsup32 wrote:Given all of the issues, is there a compelling reason not to hold out for the 4K set to see what it has in store for us (assuming you have region-free capability)? Is that set expected to include at least all fo the films in the CC set?

The Criterion set isn't limited so I don't see any reason to rush to pre-order. I'll be surprised if Novamedia don't announce details about their set before Criterion's is released. I think the real question mark is whether or not they'll include English subtitles; they usually do, but I wouldn't be surprised if Criterion gets in the way seeing as they helped fund the restorations.

How are Novamedia's English subtitles generally? As we all know not all translations are created equal.

I have their releases of Edward Yang's Taipei Story and Shunji Iwai's April Story and Love Letter, and I never had any issues with the English subtitles.

Novamedia's releases of Ashes of Time Redux and the Wong-produced The Eagle Shooting Heroes are now available to pre-order. I don't think there's any reason to get their Ashes of Time over the Artificial Eye version though?

TheKieslowskiHaze wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:35 pmUgh. I hate when I hear the "We didn't have these tools available at the time, BUT NOW WE DO!" type thing.

Although when cinematographer Phil Meheux asked if he could finally correct a technical problem on The Long Good Friday that had been annoying him for literally decades, we were happy to indulge him just this once. Mainly because:

(a) it obviously was an unintended technical problem (for logistical reasons, Meheux could only have just one take of the famous speech on the boat with Tower Bridge in the background, and the sun went behind a cloud mid-shot, messing up the exposure);
(b) he tried to fix it in post, but the tools available to him in 1980 weren't a patch on what was available to him in 2014;
(c) it was just that one shot, and in fact with the rest of the film he was very keen indeed to get it to look as close as possible to what was screened at the premiere, including the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 (there'd been a longstanding controversy about whether it should be 1.66:1 or even 1.33:1, but Meheux explained that it looks surprisingly good open-matte because he was acutely aware throughout production that it might go straight to television, and so ensured that his compositions would work in 1.33:1 as well);
(d) as the man who not only lit the shot but also operated the camera, his authority was unimpeachable.

But it seems to me that this is a substantially different case from revamping the entire film.

It seems especially like trolling on Wong's part to allow the inclusion of an alternate cut of Days of Being Wild, but not to allow into the set the theatrical version of Fallen Angels––after substantially altering literally every shot in that film.

Wong Kar-Wai is on the Filmmaker Council of Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation, so he does take the preservation/restoration of other filmmakers' works quite seriously.

therewillbeblus wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:42 am So, to use a tired phrase, if a bunch of people jump off a bridge, it's logical- or shouldn't surprise us- for another to follow suit. And the people that person's jump affects don't matter cause the others already did it. Your point negates the entire perspective of art belonging to the public, which is the position and ethos I believe many people here are coming from, so it's not really engaging in the conversation at hand. Nobody is saying this hasn't happened before, in fact I'm pretty sure it was explicitly brought up in earlier pages of the thread.

Yes, I was introducing an argument against that idea.

senseabove wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:06 am

knives wrote: To play devil’s advocate as unpleasant as this is for those that love the earliest versions what Wong is doing is not unusual historically even if it is unusual in film. Literature, music, plays, and even the fine arts have always had artists continuously tinkering with their works removing old versions in favor of some new thing. There’s nothing aberrant or shocking, quality aside, about Wong’s actions.

Right, so your point is that if I'm also mad there's no complete variorum edition of Marianne Moore's poems, I can feel justified in being mad about this too. Got it.

Yes.

Well first of all you didn’t introduce it when it’s been stated in this thread already, but why do you feel that it’s “an argument against that idea”? You’re not saying anything within the framework of why people are upset, but coming at it with a totally different idea- not an opposing perspective within the arguments being put forth; so it’s not a challenge to the ethos of art belonging to all, because it doesn’t acknowledge that. It’s like if a group of people are upset about a company discontinuing an effective product for a cheaper alternative, and everyone outspokenly says they don’t care about money but about effectiveness, and then someone chimes in late in the convo to say, “hey, but it’s cheaper.” Sure both reasons are broadly about the product but the latter is not an argument against the frustrated parties because it doesn’t account for anything resembling their positions’ language.

senseabove, that is a truly brilliant post, and I’m thrilled you were able to turn my little tangent into a worthwhile exploration of the issue at hand. White’s argument re: “the Moore they collectively sustained in memory” makes a far stronger case for this set’s sins being just that than it should — how sad this whole state of affairs is!

tenia wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 8:26 am

soundchaser wrote:Life pro-tip: don't try to convince anyone in the r/criterion subreddit that the label is less than godlike and doesn't deserve a share of the fault here.

I regularly stumble on r/criterion when searching specific Criterion info and yup, this is fanboy heaven. I don't know if they're representative of the general audience though, but it's amazing to see people sometimes so much in denial of Criterion's occasionnal debatable choices (or, in this case, tieds hands) or structural issues (UHD, compression). I'm not surprised they're currently raving about the WKW set, so I'm curious what excuses they can find to it (except Criterion having their hands tied). Even people at blu-ray.com aren't too happy about it (though it wouldn't be blu-ray.com if many rants weren't about the packaging).

Largely: Criterion’s not to blame if Wong wants to present the films this way, and “Change isn’t always a bag [sic.] thing.” (Both of which seem little consolation in the face of what’s happening here.)

...

My favorite Reddit fanboy defense was, to paraphrase, “as long as he doesn’t change the story there’s nothing to complain about and you’re just being pretentious”

barbarella satyricon wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:31 pm

Calvin wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 9:15 am Novamedia's releases of Ashes of Time Redux and the Wong-produced The Eagle Shooting Heroes are now available to pre-order. I don't think there's any reason to get their Ashes of Time over the Artificial Eye version though?

Calvin wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:19 am The Criterion set isn't limited so I don't see any reason to rush to pre-order. I'll be surprised if Novamedia don't announce details about their set before Criterion's is released. I think the real question mark is whether or not they'll include English subtitles; they usually do, but I wouldn't be surprised if Criterion gets in the way seeing as they helped fund the restorations.

I didn’t know these two titles were up for preorder, so I looked at the links you provided and also looked up the titles on the websites of the larger books/music/movies purveyors in Korea. Unfortunately the specs on those sites list Korean subtitles only for both releases.

I’m inclined to think that that’s the more up-to-date and accurate info, and also the more than likely situation for any future Wong or Wong-related releases from Nova or any other company outside of English-speaking territories. Would like to be proven wrong, but that’s just my two cents’ worth of detective work in this particular matter.

Ashes of Time and The Eagle Shooting Heroes most definitely have English subtitles, as advertised by Nova themselves.

...

barbarella satyricon wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 4:00 pm
I checked the Korean-language version of their site just now, just to be sure, and it looks like the listings for those titles, on the Korean site, list only Korean subtitles. The linked pages are in Korean, but the specs are in English.

Ashes of Time, The Eagle Shooting Heroes

It might be a matter of different language-versions of a website being updated (or not updated) at different times, and it would be nice to be wrong, but it does seem like some gauntlet has been thrown down in the realms of worldwide Wong Kar-Wai licensing and distribution. That’s how the situation looks from my end.

Nova have told me in the past that their .co.kr website isn't updated as regularly as their .com, but it's a worrying discrepency to be sure. I'll ask Nova and update with their answer if I get one.

...

senseabove wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:31 pm My favorite Reddit fanboy defense was, to paraphrase, “as long as he doesn’t change the story there’s nothing to complain about and you’re just being pretentious”

That is why I don't go to film subreddits. The people in music discussions can be just as ridiculous.