Silent Film on DVD and BD

[Ashirg]

On June 6, 2006, Kino is releasing three of the great "classics" of Swedish silent cinema

Hmm, I posted this back in March.

Speaking of more news, Milestone set a date for region 1 DVD of Electric Edwardians - The Films of Mitchell and Kenyon - July 11.

[skuhn8]

Watched Raoul Walsh's [b82]Thief of Bagdad [/b82]last night. Absolutely wonderful film. Time flew by on that one. But I have a question. I have the Eureka (R2) edition of this film. The picture starts to really come apart during the Mongol's discovery of the golden apple scene--as if a sand storm hit the set. Is this the same case with the R1 edition? Otherwise the film appears in beautiful condition as far as this edition goes.

[stroszeck]

Would love to see Sjostrom's PHANTOM CHARIOT finally make it to dvd as well -- that one is exceptionally poetic and haunting.

[HerrSchreck]

Watched Raoul Walsh's Thief of Bagdad last night. Absolutely wonderful film. Time flew by on that one. But I have a question. I have the Eureka (R2) edition of this film. The picture starts to really come apart during the Mongol's discovery of the golden apple scene--as if a sand storm hit the set. Is this the same case with the R1 edition? Otherwise the film appears in beautiful condition as far as this edition goes.

Anything made from the "best" (or otherwise-best) elements is going to have that disintegration in the nitrate towards the end. The nitrate negative was halted in it's slide into crud, which hit only that one specific part. Welles actually talks about this specific decomposition in his intro to the film on the 2004 R1 from Kino.

[HerrSchreck]

Watched Raoul Walsh's Thief of Bagdad last night. Absolutely wonderful film. Time flew by on that one. But I have a question. I have the Eureka (R2) edition of this film. The picture starts to really come apart during the Mongol's discovery of the golden apple scene--as if a sand storm hit the set. Is this the same case with the R1 edition? Otherwise the film appears in beautiful condition as far as this edition goes.

Anything made from the "best" (or otherwise-best) elements is going to have that disintegration in the nitrate towards the end. The nitrate negative was halted in it's slide into crud, which hit only that one specific part. Welles actually talks about this specific decomposition in his intro to the film on the 2004 R1 from Kino.

Nice. From From MOC Main Page

March 28, 2006
[MORE SILENT TREASURES]

Thanks to a new grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the excellent National Film Preservation Foundation will release a 3-disc DVD set presenting social issue films from the silent era in the fall of 2007. According to the NFPF's press release, the content will range from "the one-minute Kansas Saloon Smashers (1901) to The Godless Girl (1928), Cecil B. De Mille's feature-length exposé of juvenile reformatories, and include features, documentaries, serial episodes, public service announcements, newsreel segments, and cartoons addressing social issues from different political and ideological perspectives." - D.C.

[Kay Hoog]

Anyone got/seen this dvd - bit more pricey than the Danish Film Institute but Vertov!!
Still I'd like some feedback as to the quality of the print before I shell out as they have a number of other silent goodies - including Blind Husbands due for release Oct 2006

Here's blurb
Entuziazm (Simfonija Donbassa)

Edition Filmmuseum 01

Dziga Vertov's Entuziazm is considered a masterpiece of early sound film and of Soviet avant-garde cinema. Dealing with the Five Year Plan of the late 1920s, it was praised by artists like Charlie Chaplin and the avant-garde filmmakers of the 1960s. This 2-disc edition presents the film in two versions: the print preserved in the former Soviet Union's Gosfilmofond as well as Peter Kubelka's fascinating restoration which by re-syncing the image and sound as Kubelka explains in Restoring Entuziazm allows the viewer to experience what Vertov considered the new language of sound cinema.

Usually ships within 48 hours
Price: 29,95 EUR (incl. 16% VAT, excl. shipping)

This edition presents the film, for the first time on DVD, in two versions: the print preserved in the former Soviet Union's Gosfilmofond as well as Peter Kubelka's fascinating restoration which - by re-syncing image and sound - allows the viewer to experience what Vertov considered the new language of sound cinema. In Restoring Entuziazm, Peter Kubelka - filmmaker and co-founder of the Austrian Film Museum - demonstrates the principles of his restoration work and discusses Vertov's concepts of cinema. The Extras section presents rare items from the Vienna Vertov Collection, also previously unavailable on video and DVD.

[htdm]

Anyone got/seen this dvd

You'll find a discussion of it here.

[Ashirg]

After releasing a silent film with Bela Lugosi in June (Deerslayer), Alpha is going to release a silent film with Boris Karloff in July (Tarzan and the Golden Lion).

[htdm]

Just received this email from Milestone with the full specs for Beyond the Rocks and Electric Edwardians:

BEYOND THE ROCKS
Deluxe bonus features: Introduction by Martin Scorsese. Full feature film: The Delicious Little Devil (1919. with Ruldoph Valentino and Mae Murray. 54 minutes. Score by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra). Extensive stills gallery from Gloria Swanson's personal collection. 85 minute autobiographical wire recording of Gloria Swanson from 1955 - never before heard! Interviews, articles and videos detailing the restoration process. Orchestral score by Henny Vrienten. Alternative 5.1 orchestral score by Vrienten with sound effects. UPC: 784148010243 / ISBN 1-933920-01-7 / Mile00102 / Zone 0/ $29.95 S.R.P./ Prebook: June 7, 2006 / Street: July 11, 2006


ELECTRIC EDWARDIANS
Deluxe bonus features: Optional voiceover commentary by Dr. Vanessa Toulmin, National Fairground Archive, University of Shefffield. Video interview with Dr. Toulmin. 'Pictures of crowd splendor' by Tom Gunning, University of Chicago. Short video feature on the restoration. Diving Lucy and additional shorts by Mitchell & Kenyon. Press kit. UPC: 784148010144 / ISBN 1-933920-00-9 / MILE00101/$29.95 S.R.P./ Prebook: June 7, 2006 / Street: July 11, 2006

[filmnoir1]

Has anyone seen any information about Kino's new releases of Dr. Mabuse, Asphalt, and Warning Shadows? I am curious to know what special features, if any that these discs due out in July will have on them.

[FilmFanSea]

Has anyone seen any information about Kino's new releases of Dr. Mabuse, Asphalt, and Warning Shadows? I am curious to know what special features, if any that these discs due out in July will have on them.

From the listing at The Laser's Edge, the only listed extra is “The Story Behind Dr. Mabuse” (52 min., in German w/ English subtitles)

If this is accurate, it's a shame that the David Kalat commentary from the current edition couldn't be updated somehow, though by the description below it may have been technically impossible:

This is the definitive version of Lang's Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, restored in 2000 by Germany's F. W. Murnau Foundation. Previously unavailable in the U.S., this Murnau/Kino version runs approximately 40 minutes longer than the 229-minute cut currently available to U.S. custumers, and it brings more than 25 minutes of additional footage as well a significant re-arrangement of the film's structure.

A truly legendary silent film, Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (aka Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler) had a major impact on the development of the crime thriller, building upon the work of the pioneering French film serialist Louis Feuillade (Les Vampires, Judex) and firmly establishing it as a significant film genre. This epic two-part tale was originally released simultaneously as two separate films, respectively subtitled The Great Gambler and Inferno, and that format is reproduced here. The plot revolves around the pursuit of arch fiend Dr. Mabuse, a gambler, psychoanalyst, hypnotist, master of disguises and all-around criminal mastermind. Mabuse was the prototype for the sort of evil genius super-villains that would later become commonplace in movies, whether it be in the James Bond pictures or in comic book adaptations like Superman and Batman. Appropriately, the film is dominated by the presence of Rudolf Klein-Rogge as Mabuse. A top German actor of the silent era, he is best known today for his performance as the mad scientist Rotwang in Lang's Metropolis.

Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler contains many of the elements that were expected from the crime genre at the time, including characters who slip in and out of disguise, mind control, gambling clubs, automobiles with rotating license plates, exotic women, brutal henchmen and unexpected plot twists. Lang's directorial ability to handle such pulp material in a masterful fashion, while also using it as a way to examine the decadence of Germany in the 1920s, reaffirms his status as one of the true greats of the silent era.

[Kay Hoog]

Just saw an amazing restored print of "A Cottage on Dartmoor". Whilst the soundtrack remains missing - the film was an eye opener. Filmed in an expressionistic style, this film bears comparison with the best of Continental European art-house film making of the 20s

Review here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020793/

The best thing is that I received an email from the BFI stating that this is in the pipeline - hopefully for release on dvd next year =D>

so my little silent chums I hope the excitement is not too much!

[HerrSchreck]

This stuff sounds hilarious-- has anybody seen or heard anything about this stuff?

Most of us are aware of the short comedies that helped fill out theatre programs during the 1920s, but few have seen the travelogues and novelty films that augmented the bills of fare.

From the years 1920 through 1924, a chimpanzee named Snooky starred in a series of short comedies produced by C.L. Chester. Often poking fun at the hackneyed plotlines of other comedies and occasionally at their own, the Snooky comedies featured the surprisingly entertaining chimp in a series of human situations. Snooky often was cast as rescuer, pulling together his resources to keep children from harm. And, as only could happen in a silent film, Snooky interacts with those around him, speaking through intertitles.

Not much else is known about the Chester Comedies series of Snooky films. A handful of titles are known, and there may still exist some information about the films' production in contemporary trade journals and fan magazines. Perhaps this release will spur some investigation into this and other novelty films series. - Carl Bennett

Has anyone seen any information about Kino's new releases of Dr. Mabuse, Asphalt, and Warning Shadows? I am curious to know what special features, if any that these discs due out in July will have on them.

Look over on the Kino thread. I posted amazon.com links for all three, which will provide you what youre looking for.

Moving to this thread looking to salvage the MoC ASPHALT thread, I'm interested on what most folks' take is on the TARTUFFE/WAXWORKS/JEANNE NEY/JOAN OF ARC situation? In other words, where the only remaining prints (or at least those woth looking at) of a key silent film was preserved by a foreign country, and therefore has the intertitles from the teens or the twenties from the country not the source-country of the filmmaker/film.

Would you rather see the original, antique, era-intertitles preserved & presented on the disc, or would you rather see them, like MoC TARTUFFE & CC JOAN, have the original intertitles removed & replaced with electronic screens of the censor cards from source country?

I myself find this, just like Kino's fucking with original source-country intertitles, tampering with a priceless artifact. Over on Denti's GOLEM thread I posed an example of finding an ancient African vase or scroll, with their own dialect's translation/rendition of, say, EXODUS from the Pentateuch.. and since EXODUS was originally a Hebrew-language work, scratching off the African because it is not the truest representation of the source material. Which to me of course is an unforgivable jerking around with a priceless antique for the ages-- I can always get a copy of original EXODUS or the original script of JOAN in French; removing the vintage intertitles, aside from breaking the spell of antiquity as well as vandalizing the representation of the antique artifact, deprives the scholar of the bonus ability to study issues of translation, style of intertitle art (which could be quite complex & painterly.. see MAN WHO LAUGHS or EROTIKON), etc. Of course the preference is the original intertitles from the country of origin, which MoC-- outside of TARTUFFE-- has been pretty good about.

I was very pissed at CC for removing the Danish intertitles from THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (I believe it was a Danish print that was discovered in the Norweigan nutward closet). Those French "approximations probably very close to the original" should have been an option (though that would have required a dual-layer presentation no doubt). Especially since Dreyer himself was a Dane I would have imagined the Danish print's intertitles to be rather coherent & poetic, as it was his first language. The fact that this [ife]most [/ife]miraculous of prints' original intertitles are a private pleasure of the producers annoys me to no end. They should've run telecine on the thing from start to finish, MTI'd the sucker, created subs, and given that to us on disc.

I'd be very interested to hear other opinions on this rare but crucial (as it represents how a sole existing print is going to be handled by disc producers) scenario.

[Tommaso]

Okay, moving over from "Asphalt" as well, where Schreck wrote:

And I'm still not clear on your take on this. SOmetimes you sound like you want the original vintage translations, then sometimes no. It may be a language thing. Regardless of what the language is, removing vintage frames for digital screens is a desecration to me. Silent film was a truly international medium unlike talkies, and vintage translated editions fascinate me too. If that's what we're left with, then give me that. Don't vandalize museum pieces.

Well, sometimes I think I'm myself not clear about this. Of course the language thing is important (I'm more intent on having German intertitles on a German film than having Danish titles on a Danish one, for example), which is only a personal preference because of a personal background. I'm not quite sure, however, whether I really believe in the idea of films being 'museum pieces'. If it is only important to preserve an artefact, why would you allow restorations that use several source prints? The result would definitely not be original in that narrow sense.

Perhaps it all comes down to whether we want an illusion of 'originality', regardless of whether we know it's not original. Watching a German silent entails so many things having to do with 'mood' or 'style' or 'history' ('Germanishness', if you like) that I seem to prefer it when the dvd gives me an illusion of these things by using German titles regardless whether they are on the original print or are re-constructed. Take another example: I really cannot imagine watching an Eisenstein film without Russian intertitles, because the lettering itself suggests to me the content of the film (or my romanticized notion of the Sovjet revolution). So I guess for me it's very much a question of the particular movie. "Jeanne d'Arc" is such an archetypal French theme that I really prefer the titles in French although they are not original. With other films I care less (like with the English titles on Dreyer's "Leaves from Satan's book").

As I said in the "Asphalt" thread before: I'm much less picky if the title cards are not original languagewise when they are at least from an original export print (the artifact from the past thing is there, at least). I just don't like modern replacements of original language titles from the original print, and especially not if the replacements are English instead of German

[HerrSchreck]

Also posted on the Flicker Alley thread..

Speaking of the difficulty of sustaining a company maintaining high quality while selling a catalog emphasizing silent films (see the Asphalt thread, the Silent Film thread, and the ongoing Kino discussion as well), our friends at Flicker Alley are apparentl in trouble... enough trouble where the R1 release of the PHANTOM restoration is being threatened. I don't want to divulge too much of a private discussion but these dudes need support.

Guys... buy up the DVDs you may have wanted but held back on for this or that reason. No reason to skip JUDEX, that's for sure.

[Ashirg]

All Day Entertainment is planning to release a 3-disc set American Slapstick on November 21st. I posted the specs in the Boutique Labels forum...

[lubitsch]

Jacques Feyder 3 silent movies DVD edition!!!
http://www.image-entertainment.com/deta ... ctID=54838

[HerrSchreck]

Yeah Brian (FilmFanSea) had announced those in tandem w Image (Home Vision/HVe actually)'s initial telegraphing of the release about a month ago. It's absolutely sublime news.

Lincoln Center is showing a British silent advertised in Kino's new email, A COTTAGE ON DARTMOOR. Details:

Golden Silents: A Cottage on Dartmoor

Wednesday August 23: 7:30
with live musical accompaniment

Admission: $12 for FSLC members; $15 for general public

"This year's (Pordenone Silent Film) festival… boasted what was, to my ears and eyes, one of the most felicitous marriages between film and musician I have yet witnessed: Stephen Horne's work with Anthony Asquith's masterpiece, A Cottage on Dartmoor.” – Jay Weissberg, Variety

Celebrated British director Anthony Asquith (The Browning Version, The Importance of Being Earnest ) directed A Cottage on Dartmoor (U.K., 1929; 87m) on the cusp of the British transition from silent to sound film. Filmed in the best of the silent tradition, this chilling movie tells the story of a prisoner who escapes from the infamous Dartmoor Prison in order to confront his past.

Cottage will be accompanied by accomplished British pianist Stephen Horne with his original score.

Restored print courtesy of the British Film Institute's National Film and Television Archive.

The silent film program at the Walter Reade Theater is made possible through the generosity of the Ira M. Resnick Foundation.

Has anyone seen this film? I'm interested but won't be able to see it that day.

[tryavna]

Has anyone seen this film? I'm interested but won't be able to see it that day.

I have not seen this or any of Asquith's silent films; however, if you haven't checked already, there are some smarter-than-usual reviews on IMDb for this film. (I find that the British IMDb users tend to write the best reviews over there.) Apparently, Asquith was quite a flamboyant and experimental director in the silent days, so I too would like to see this and compare it to his later, more famous work.

[Cinetwist]

If it's any bonus, Michael Powell said that it was one of his favourite films. He also said that it's a perfect film for people who need convincing that Asquith is a fantastic director, or who have only experienced his later and better known films. A recommendation from Mr Powell is as good as any.

[vogler]

Lincoln Center is showing a British silent advertised in Kino's new email, A COTTAGE ON DARTMOOR.

Has anyone seen this film? I'm interested but won't be able to see it that day.

Do all that you possibly can to see this film. I think it is one of the very greatest British silents. All of Asquith's silents are well worth seeing.
The story is probably the least interesting aspect of the film being the usual melodrama but the style is very interesting. There is some stunning cinematography on the moors and some quite poetic imagery at times. It is perhaps a bit derivative of European and Russian silents particularly in terms of the lighting and some montage/rapid cutting that reminded me greatly of Eisenstein and Pudovkin but nevertheless it is still a very well made film. From what I have seen Asquith was definitely one of the most artistic directors working in Britain at the time. This film and Hitchcock's The Lodger are my favourites of all the British silents that I have seen.

I believe that the BFI are going to be releasing this on dvd at some time in the not too distant future.

The story is probably the least interesting aspect of the film being the usual melodrama

I thought the story and its resolution were fairly unusual. We have an deluded protagonist and a "villain" who isn't remotely villainous. The film DOES resemble other late silents in having a fairly thin plot that serves to a great extent as an excuse for visual extravagance (think "Sunrise").

Yes, I agree that the plot is farly unusual - by 'the usual melodrama' I meant that melodrama was usual for most of the British (and indeed most international) silents of the time. Not that that is a bad thing - there are many silents where the plot could be described as melodrama that I absolutely love, paticularly from Sweden and France. In this case the plot doesn't entirely grip me but it is certainly made up for with the stunning cinematography and editing. To be honest I probably haven't paid enough attention to the plot as I should because I have been too busy marvelling at the lighting of a shot or a certain montage technique etc.

I would have to rewatch the film to find out exactly what the final shot was but if I remember correctly it was one of the scenes I was referring to as having poetic imagery. Again I think I may have been focussing more on the visual beauty of the scene and not paying enough attention to it's context within the plot. I found that the scene resonated deeply with me but I am not entirely sure why - as with some poetry that I will feel deeply but not be able to explain exactly why.

So now I must rewatch this film paying more attention to the characters and the plot. It is probably a habit of mine watching certain silent films and not paying enough attention to the plot. I am usually totally in awe of the visual aspects of the film. This era of film making is like a goldmine of visual techniques and a total inspiration.

[Tommaso]

As promised in the German filmmuseum thread (where it actually got in but did not really belong), I would like to report back now on the new German dvd of Dovzhenko's masterpiece. Well: the credits on the dvd say it's still the 1971 version, and I have not seen the Shepard edition for a comparison, so a little bit of help (and guesswork) is still required. It does run 77 mins PAL. here as opposed to 70 mins NTSC, and the cover says that this a reconstructed original version containing four scenes deleted by Stalin's censors. I have no idea whether the same is true for the Shepard resto, but there is a marvellous sequence after Vassil's death where his fiancée is shown in a sort of psychic agony and fully nude, intercut with the proceedings of the village pope, and I assume that this might be one of those scenes that the censors might have found offensive. Perhaps someone can confirm whether or not it is in the Image disc. Otherwise the difference in running time might just be due to frame rate. This new edition clearly runs at correct speed, I should say.

Now to the image itself: the print is not in good shape, as expected. If Criterion routinely removes thousands of instances of debris, dirt etc., here they would have had to remove literally several millions. So: no attempt at cleaning up the image apparently has been made, but if you find (for example) Tourneur's "Blue Bird" acceptable printwise, you can surely also live with this one. After having said this, the dvd quality itself is really very good (despite it being a DVD-5): no artefacts, no edge enhancement, no contrast boosting that I was aware of. Contrast and sharpness vary, but for the most part the image is surprisingly clear and detailed. The new music by Alexander Popov, composed in 1997, is also very nicely in tune with the changes of mood and speed and fits the film perfectly in my view. The only real minus of the dvd is that there are NO extras whatsoever apart from some trailers for other silent movie dvds in the same series (and the first glimpse provided here at the forthcoming "Man with a movie camera" looks quite promising: no stupid translations of writings in the images anymore, apparently). Dovzhenko's film is presented here with Russian intertitles and optional German titles only (which are white and totally unobtrusive). So, if you can read German or know the film well anyway, this is probably the version to buy for the moment. But we should not give up dreaming of someone finally doing some REAL restoration to that print (which would be a hell of work, surely).
And finally: the film itself is so marvellous of course that one really should not be distracted by the flawed source materials from buying it and watching it over and over again.....

[HerrSchreck]

Isn't it amazing that Gosfilmofond continuously produces-- out of the cultural clear blue sky-- these miraculous pristine prints of previously lost films or films that only existed in either 16mm, or heavily edited or heavily deteriorated editions... German films, French films, US films etc.. yet cannot whip out a merely decent print of one of their alltime timeless masterpieces which consistently ranks in the various Top Ten Best Films of All Time lists for the past four decades or so...?

[Tommaso]

Absolutely true, Schreck. I imagine that they do not have any better materials at all, and to restore them to make the print halfway decent would certainly require a Metropolis-style effort. Perhaps someone responsible also still feels uneasy about the films curious combination of bolshevism and pantheism, and would rather not give it too much attention. Even the new music by Popov was not recorded and dubbed in Russia, but is an effort by German TV station ZDF.
Different question: being infatuated with "Earth" at the moment, I thought about checking out some more Dovzhenko. Apparently there's a dvd of "Arsenal" out there. Can anyone comment on the film and the dvd quality? Better than "Earth"?

[HerrSchreck]

Far better than EARTH, as far as print quality. As for style, far more complex, mysterious, intriguing, even more exaggerated caricaturing of the human face (to the point of cartooning!).

Buy the disc-- it's an Image disc from Shepards collection. Indespensable. Nice commentary on there too, which explains a lot of otherwise unkowable obscure historical, mythological, and other references in this most complex and obscure--sometimes very difficult, but ever-intriguingly-- of films. Endlessly watchable, very complex visual poetry. Daniel Demyutsky, wow what a cinematographer-- underrated combo, but every bit as powerful as Freund & Murnau at times.