Jean Epstein

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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: Jean Epstein

#76 Post by zedz » Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:38 pm

JimmyTango wrote:Image

COFFRET DVD JEAN EPSTEIN, LE CINÉMA EN TÊTE

Co-published with Potemkin Movies
First 14 films of Jean Epstein, mostly unreleased on DVD.

The complete set will include three thematic boxes:

• The Albatros Productions (1924-1925): Le Lion des Mogols, Le Double amour et Les Aventures de Robert Macaire
• Productions Jean Epstein (1926-1928): Mauprat, La Glace à trois faces, La Chute de la maison Usher et Six et demi, onze
• The Breton movies (1929-1948): Mor-Vran, Les Berceaux, L’Or des mers, Chanson d’Ar-Mor, Le Tempestaire (droits Béatrice Costantini/Films du Trident) et Les Feux de la mer (droits Les Documents cinématographiques) et Finis Terrae (droits Gaumont).

Many of the films have been restored in HD and the silent films will be accompanied by unpublished original compositions signed by Aufgang, Karol Beffa, Neil Brand, Stephen Horne, Joakim, Krikor, Mathieu Regnault, Gabriel Thibaudeau (played by Octet France).

Supplements: the new documentary Jean Epstein, young oceans of cinema James June Schneider (co-produced by the French Cinematheque in 2011), presentations, unpublished interviews and an illustrated booklet.

Credit: http://www.cinematheque.fr" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Amazing! Stand by for a massive re-evaluation of Epstein and French cinema of the 20s / 30s in general.

The inclusion of Finis Terrae is news, isn't it?

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FerdinandGriffon
Joined: Wed Nov 26, 2008 11:16 am

Re: Jean Epstein

#77 Post by FerdinandGriffon » Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:45 pm

zedz wrote:The inclusion of Finis Terrae is news, isn't it?
And welcome news, at that! I think it's his masterpiece (among masterpieces).

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Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Jean Epstein

#78 Post by Drucker » Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:49 pm

Will this set have English subtitles? Has that been revealed yet?

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swo17
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Re: Jean Epstein

#79 Post by swo17 » Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:53 pm

zedz wrote:Amazing! Stand by for a massive re-evaluation of Epstein and French cinema of the 20s / 30s in general.
Though on the downside, you're no longer special for having seen Mor'Vran.

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 12:30 pm
Location: Brandywine River

Re: Jean Epstein

#80 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:54 pm

FerdinandGriffon wrote:
zedz wrote:The inclusion of Finis Terrae is news, isn't it?
And welcome news, at that! I think it's his masterpiece (among masterpieces).
It was always on the cards but the Gaumont release might have put it into doubt until they declined a HD release. Shame that Truffaz and Tiersen seem to have fallen off the composers list. Also at the risk of looking the proverbial gift horse in the mouth La belle Nivernaise would have been a welcome addition

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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: Jean Epstein

#81 Post by zedz » Tue Feb 25, 2014 6:08 pm

swo17 wrote:
zedz wrote:Amazing! Stand by for a massive re-evaluation of Epstein and French cinema of the 20s / 30s in general.
Though on the downside, you're no longer special for having seen Mor'Vran.
i'm still special

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JimmyTango
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 12:51 am

Re: Jean Epstein

#82 Post by JimmyTango » Tue Feb 25, 2014 9:22 pm

Restoration comparison...

Image
Image

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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: Jean Epstein

#83 Post by zedz » Tue Feb 25, 2014 11:58 pm

Can we just order this thing already?

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rockysds
Joined: Wed May 19, 2010 11:25 am
Location: Denmark

Re: Jean Epstein

#84 Post by rockysds » Wed Feb 26, 2014 6:07 am


kekid
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:55 pm

Re: Jean Epstein

#85 Post by kekid » Fri Feb 28, 2014 11:04 pm

Drucker wrote:Will this set have English subtitles? Has that been revealed yet?
And the answer is .....?

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swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
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Re: Jean Epstein

#86 Post by swo17 » Fri Feb 28, 2014 11:12 pm

Peut-être

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Knappen
Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2006 2:14 am
Location: Oslo/Paris

Re: Jean Epstein

#87 Post by Knappen » Sun Mar 02, 2014 4:55 pm

Doesn't make sense to compare a pirated VHS scan you found on the web with the coming DVD...

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JimmyTango
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 12:51 am

Re: Jean Epstein

#88 Post by JimmyTango » Mon Mar 03, 2014 5:34 am

The scan is from a VHS copy of ''L'or des mers'' from Cinemateque Francaise while the comparison is from... http://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/musee-col ... stein.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The DVD copy at the library probably isn't far off in quality.

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rockysds
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Location: Denmark

Re: Jean Epstein

#89 Post by rockysds » Mon Mar 03, 2014 9:42 pm

Potemkine wrote:Sous titres : Anglais

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Tommaso
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am

Re: Jean Epstein

#90 Post by Tommaso » Tue Mar 04, 2014 6:37 am

Great. But what is this?

"Format TV : 16/9 compatible 4/3"

Sounds as if they treated it like an HD transfer as you'd find it on a blu, without properly converting it to standard dvd. In other words: massive loss of resolution due to having to encode the black bars on the sides, too (and massive pictureboxing on a 4:3 screen). Hope I'm wrong.

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martin
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Re: Jean Epstein

#91 Post by martin » Tue Mar 04, 2014 10:10 am

French DVDs very often have that description: "16/9 compatible 4/3". I think it's just a piece of redundant information: Encoded 16/9, but will work on 4/3 too (which is obvious, but somehow the French need to explicitly state that).

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Tommaso
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am

Re: Jean Epstein

#92 Post by Tommaso » Tue Mar 04, 2014 10:23 am

Ah, okay. But I hope it's meant the other way round: encoded 4/3, but of course compatible to 16/9 screens. It it's encoded to 16/9, the result will be what I described above.

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martin
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Re: Jean Epstein

#93 Post by martin » Wed Mar 05, 2014 12:52 pm

Even the French Blu-ray of Visconti's Leopard says "16/9 compatible 4/3", which supports the theory of a 16:9 release (because blu-rays are always 16:9 per default). And you're right, of course, that this means windowboxing. But I'm not concerned regarding the Epstein box. I can't imagine they would windowbox a DVD release like that.

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JimmyTango
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 12:51 am

Re: Jean Epstein

#94 Post by JimmyTango » Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:32 pm

The Cinematek "Henri Storck" dual format box set is window boxed on the DVDs only. However the Eptein set is DVD only so I would like to think that this isn't the case.

http://www.cinematek.be/index.php?node= ... category=5" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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feckless boy
Joined: Wed Jan 03, 2007 4:38 pm
Location: Stockholm

Re: Jean Epstein

#95 Post by feckless boy » Thu Mar 06, 2014 7:49 am

Tommaso wrote:Great. But what is this?

"Format TV : 16/9 compatible 4/3"

Sounds as if they treated it like an HD transfer as you'd find it on a blu, without properly converting it to standard dvd. In other words: massive loss of resolution due to having to encode the black bars on the sides, too (and massive pictureboxing on a 4:3 screen). Hope I'm wrong.
Well, blu-rays aren't really anamorphic in the same sense as DVDs can be. That is the image is fixed to 16/9 and all aspect ratios narrower than 1.77:1 (most commonly 1.66:, 1.33:1 and 1.19:1) are presented within that frame with fixed black borders to the left and right.
I think MichaelB asked the question here somewhere: Are blu-rays of films in academy ratio viewable on old 4/3 tvs? My guess would be, maybe depending on the player. In the settings of most blu-ray players you can choose between 16/9 and 4/3 depending on your screen. But that is blu-ray players.
For a DVD producer to encode an academy ratio film onto a 16/9 DVD with fixed black borders to the left and right, and expect that to work flawlessly for all customers - quite a leap of faith. Hopefully this is just a typo.
Maybe technical expert David M can weigh in and sort it all out...

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EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: Jean Epstein

#96 Post by EddieLarkin » Thu Mar 06, 2014 8:15 am

It doesn't work for any of their customers. Whilst only those with 4:3 sets would suffer the bordering on all four sides of the image, those with 16:9 sets would still suffer the huge waste of image resolution reserved for the black bars. The Artificial Eye DVDs of their Mizoguchi Collection are like this.

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Tommaso
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am

Re: Jean Epstein

#97 Post by Tommaso » Thu Mar 06, 2014 12:38 pm

The same happened with the initial pressing of the German dvd edition of the restored "Metropolis", which was only called back and corrected after massive protests from customers. But still they didn't learn from it completely: the German dvd of Murnau's "Tabu" has the main film in the correct 1.19 ratio within a 4:3 frame, but the extra materials (outtakes etc, as on the MoC disc) are within a 16:9 frame even though of course these are 4:3 materials, too. So there are precedents for such practice indeed.

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JimmyTango
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 12:51 am

Re: Jean Epstein

#98 Post by JimmyTango » Thu Mar 06, 2014 10:28 pm

Can anyone verify that the Epstein box is encoded 4/3, but compatible to 16/9 screens? I contacted Potemkine but didn't receive a reply.

artfilmfan
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:11 pm

Re: Jean Epstein

#99 Post by artfilmfan » Sat Mar 08, 2014 11:53 pm

Whatever "16/9 compatible 4/3" is, I hope it's not like what I've experienced with the French 2-DVD set of Une Partie de Campagne (although on the box it says "Format 4/3"). With an Oppo Blu-ray player, Une Partie de Campagne is displayed horizontally stretched to fill up the wide screen of the 16:9 TV. I've tried different settings on the player and the TV many times but could not get the movie to display as 4:3 (except one time and I don't remember how I got there and I can't get there again).

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Roger Ryan
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Re: Jean Epstein

#100 Post by Roger Ryan » Mon Mar 10, 2014 8:00 am

I mentioned this before, but have found that some widescreen televisions have trouble showing non-anamorphic 4:3 DVDs in the proper ratio unless the output resolution on the player is reduced to 480p. At that resolution (which is all the resolution DVDs have anyway), the 4:3 image will be presented properly.

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