Walerian Borowczyk on DVD

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Lino · #1 Post by **Lino** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 4:11 am

I thought it'd be nice to open a thread about the current english friendly DVDs of this unusual director. Here is something very handy from the Mobius forum:

1960 - LES ASTRONAUTES (animated short)
- extra on La BÃªte (Gaumont-Columbia TriStar, France, PAL) - no spoken dialogue
- extra on Goto, l'isola dell'amore (Columbia TriStar, Italy, PAL) - no spoken dialogue

1963 - RENAISSANCE (animated short)
- extra on La BÃªte (Gaumont-Columbia TriStar, France, PAL) - no spoken dialogue

1964 - LES JEUX DES ANGES (animated short)
- extra on La BÃªte (Gaumont-Columbia TriStar, France, PAL) - no spoken dialogue

1966 - ROSALIE (live-action short)
- extra on La BÃªte (Gaumont-Columbia TriStar, France, PAL) - presumably unsubtitled French

1968 - GOTO, L'ILE D'AMOUR/GOTO, ISLE OF LOVE
- Cult Epics, US, NTSC (French with English subtitles)
- Gaumont-Columbia TriStar, France, PAL (French, no subtitles)
- Goto, l'isola dell'amore, Columbia TriStar, Italy, PAL (Italian or French with Italian subtitles)

1973 - UNE COLLECTION PARTICULIERE (live-action short)
- extra on La BÃªte (Gaumont-Columbia TriStar, France, PAL)
- extra on Racconti immorali (Columbia TriStar, Italy, PAL)

1974 - CONTES IMMORAUX/IMMORAL TALES
- Anchor Bay, US, NTSC (French with English subtitles)
- Nouveaux Pictures, UK, PAL (French with English subtitles)
- Gaumont-Columbia TriStar, France, PAL (French, no subtitles)
- Racconti immorali, Columbia TriStar, Italy, PAL (Italian or French with Italian subtitles)

1975 - LA BETE/THE BEAST
- Cult Epics, US, NTSC (English or French with English subtitles)
- Nouveaux Pictures, UK, PAL (French with English subtitles)
- Gaumont-Columbia TriStar, France, PAL (French, no subtitles)
- La bestia, Columbia TriStar, Italy, PAL (Italian or French with Italian subtitles)

1977 - INTERNO D'UN CONVENTO/BEHIND CONVENT WALLS
- Nouveaux Pictures, UK, PAL (dubbed into English)

1977 - L'AMOUR MONSTRE DE TOUS LES TEMPS (short)
- extra on La bestia, Columbia TriStar, Italy, PAL (French with Italian subtitles)

1980 - LULU
- LCJ Editions, France, PAL (French, no subtitles)

1983 - ARS AMANDI/THE ART OF LOVE
- Millennium Storm, Italy, PAL (Italian, no subtitles)

1984 - SCHERZO INFERNAL (short)
- extra on La BÃªte (Gaumont-Columbia TriStar, France, PAL)
- extra on Goto, l'isola dell'amore (Columbia TriStar, Italy, PAL)

1985 - EMMANUELLE 5
- New Concorde, US, NTSC (English, no subtitles)
- Uca Catalogue, UK, PAL (English, no subtitles)
- Legocart, Italy, PAL (Italian, no subtitles)

1988 - CEREMONIE D'AMOUR/LOVE RITES
- Cult Epics, US, NTSC (French with English subtitles)
- Pagan, UK, PAL (French with English subtitles)
- Regina della notte, Legocart, Italy, PAL (Italian, no subtitles)

Meanwhile, new label Severin Film is going to release Immoral Women and Collections Privees.

Scharphedin2 · #2 Post by **Scharphedin2** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 5:43 am

Great with a thread on this really strange director.

The UK label Nouveaux Pictures has a DVD out of The Story of Sin (1975), which is not on your list. Nouveaux's releases (especially the Borowczyk titles) are unfortunately not fantastic looking.

Lemmy Caution · #3 Post by **Lemmy Caution** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:12 am

I quite enjoyed GOTO, ISLE OF LOVE.
I could dig up my copy and check who put it out and glance at the quality if anyone is interested.
A strange film, but definitely recommended.

#4 Post by **zedz** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 8:51 pm

Les Astronautes also appears on the Cult Epics Goto.

lord patchogue · #5 Post by **lord patchogue** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:43 pm

6 of his magnificient shorts could be found on DVD of arte video's La BÃªte as bonus or on ubuweb as free downloads.

Lino · #6 Post by **Lino** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 6:12 am

lord patchogue wrote:6 of his magnificient shorts could be found on DVD of arte video's La BÃªte as bonus or on ubuweb as free downloads.

Thank you for that great link! I always wondered what those shorts were like and now they're there for everyone to see!

Lino · #7 Post by **Lino** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 2:21 pm

Severin Films is going to release Borowczyk's Immoral Women and Private Collections January, 30 2007. Shame they're not including any of his shorts on the DVDs. I did email them about it but they didn't pay much attention to it.

MichaelB · #8 Post by **MichaelB** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 3:55 pm

I thought that looked a bit familiar!

In actual fact, I compiled that list when researching an obituary of Borowczyk (published in Sight & Sound earlier this year) and uploaded it to the GreenCine site - which is presumably where the Mobius forum got it from.

We had quite an interesting discussion there too.

Lino · #9 Post by **Lino** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 2:30 pm

Watch the original theatrical trailers for the omnibus movie Private Collections here and the one for Borowczyk's Immoral Women here.

Again, don't forget: Severin Films are releasing both of them on January, 30 2007.

Lino · #10 Post by **Lino** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 12:05 pm

DVDManiacs already has a review for Severin Film's DVD edition of Immoral Women.

Barmy · #11 Post by **Barmy** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:24 pm

If only they would turn to early Tinto Brass...

But maybe that's not porny enough for them.

Lino · #12 Post by **Lino** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 11:33 am

DVDTalk reviews Immoral Women.

Lino · #13 Post by **Lino** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:32 am

DVDTalk reviews Private Collections.

Lino · #14 Post by **Lino** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 7:59 am

One more review for Immoral Women and another for Private Collections.

MichaelB · #15 Post by **MichaelB** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 5:48 pm

From Severin's website:

One day following its heralded release, a prominent US retailer has unceremoniously returned all copies of IMMORAL WOMEN due to what has been reported as its 'offensive' packaging. Despite the fact that the cover art replicates imagery used on its 1979 theatrical posters, morally sensitive folk at the chain found the suggestive shots of bunny-lust to be too much for their customers. We are currently investigating how this will affect the immediate release of IMMORAL WOMEN and may be forced to consider a toned-down cover for future pressings. We'll keep you posted.

=D>

Lino · #16 Post by **Lino** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 1:34 pm

Now we're talking business: DVDBeaver is now offering reviews for Private Collections and Immoral Women.

vogler · #17 Post by **vogler** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 5:58 pm

Has anyone else had problems with the dvd of The Beast in the Cult Epics Walerian Borowczyk Collection? At around 10 minutes into the film the subtitles go completely out of synch. They are out by a number of seconds so that a line of text appears and disappears before the person has even begun speaking it. It was impossible to watch the film like this so I skipped ahead to see if it was like that all the way through. I was surprised to find that later in the film there were no subtitles being displayed at all. After 25 minutes or something like that the French dialogue is not subtitled. My French is just about good enough to watch without subtitles but I tend to miss quite a lot. I'd certainly rather the subtitles did work.

EDIT: I just found the following in a review at cineaste.com.
The disc of The Beast has severe timing problems with its English subtitles, which disappear altogether for the most of the film and reappear out of sync in the final ten minutes. This forces the English speaker to resort to the English-dubbed soundtrack, not altogether a disaster, but a mode that reinforces the film's few weaknesses. Its qualities survive, but how are we to take a character seriously when a voice actor does not?

Also a poster at the Anchor Bay U.K. forum wrote this:
I bought the Cult Epics box-set and sat down to view the infamous La BÃªte (aka The Beast):
I selected the original soundtrack from the menu and opted for English subtitles. However, after about 25 minutes into the film, the subtitles began to go out-of-synch with the dialogue and then they just suddenly disappeared altogether.

WOW - what an incredible fuck up! I think Cult Epics may have taken the crown from Facets.

MichaelB · #18 Post by **MichaelB** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 12:01 pm

MichaelB wrote:From Severin's website:

One day following its heralded release, a prominent US retailer has unceremoniously returned all copies of IMMORAL WOMEN due to what has been reported as its 'offensive' packaging. Despite the fact that the cover art replicates imagery used on its 1979 theatrical posters, morally sensitive folk at the chain found the suggestive shots of bunny-lust to be too much for their customers. We are currently investigating how this will affect the immediate release of IMMORAL WOMEN and may be forced to consider a toned-down cover for future pressings.

My copy turned up last week (complete with original cover), and the following morning my two-year-old daughter brought it to me (I'd obviously left it on top of the telly) going "Betsy! Betsy!"

Betsy is the name of her childminder's pet rabbit, and my wife later confirmed that the one on the box is a dead ringer.

She wasn't best pleased when I failed to put the DVD on for her, but I managed to distract her.

Lemmy Caution · #19 Post by **Lemmy Caution** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 1:32 pm

I just picked up The Story of Sin [Dzieje grzechu (1975)] from Nouveaux Pictures.

A period melodrama, something like a Polish Madame Bovary from what I gather. Made between Immoral Tales and The Beast.

Looks promising.

Felix · #20 Post by **Felix** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 4:44 pm

vogler wrote: WOW - what an incredible fuck up! I think Cult Epics may have taken the crown from Facets.

They are well up on my shit list. I mailed them twice about the two dud copies I have of Arrabal's Viva La Muerte, one a single disc, the other from the box set, and I never got even an acknowledgment.

Their disc of Tinto Brass's The Key (probably not a big issue for CF regulars, though I confess to finding it as engaging as Ichikawa's version and I am not a big Brass fan) is marred by background hiss throughout, as loud as the rain in the scenes where it is raining.

Caveat Emptor...

Toxicologist · #21 Post by **Toxicologist** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 8:28 pm

Felix wrote:They are well up on my shit list. I mailed them twice about the two dud copies I have of Arrabal's Viva La Muerte, one a single disc, the other from the box set, and I never got even an acknowledgment.

Out of curiosity, what problem have you had exactly with the Viva La Muerte disc as to be honest i've got the boxset but not had chance to look at that particular film.

Thanks.

vogler · #22 Post by **vogler** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 9:08 am

Felix wrote:They are well up on my shit list. I mailed them twice about the two dud copies I have of Arrabal's Viva La Muerte, one a single disc, the other from the box set, and I never got even an acknowledgment.

I was lucky with Viva la muerte - both my single disc and the one in the box set worked just fine. However I can certainly relate to your bad Cult Epics experiences. I'm still waiting for a reply about this but I don't think it's going to happen. Ignoring emails from customers about defective discs is disgusting and with this attitude they really don't deserve to be in business. Definitely at the top of the shit list.

It also appears that the 3 disc set of The Beast is affected by the subtitle problem and I would imagine that the newest single disc is as well.

Here is a link to a thread at film-talk.com with details of this problem.

I was just watching the 3-disc limited edition of The Beast today, and I noticed something strange.... about 10 minutes into the film, the subtitles start going out of synch with the spoken dialogue... mostly coming in way too soon, appearing before the character has even begun to speak the line.... and then later on in the film, the subtitles stop appearing altogether! Thus meaning you have to either watch the rest of the film in French without knowing what they're saying, or switch over to the baddly-dubbed English language track.

It doesn't appear to be all of the discs that are faulty but many people have experienced this problem, and it seems that nobody has got a reply from Cult Epics. Buying Cult Epics dvds is a bit of a gamble and one which I won't be taking again.

Toxicologist wrote:Out of curiosity, what problem have you had exactly with the Viva La Muerte disc as to be honest i've got the boxset but not had chance to look at that particular film.

Felix explained his problems with the Viva la muerte discs here in the Arrabal thread.

Lino · #23 Post by **Lino** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 11:23 am

Sorry to open this small parenthesis, but does someone know if some more Boro is coming out in the near future? There are still plenty of good stuff that still hasn't surfaced on DVD anywhere in the world, not to mention that we seriously need an upgraded version of Immoral Tales. I cannot watch that disc anymore - fixed subs and sub-par transfer. Our eyes have been spoiled too much to ever go back.

vogler · #24 Post by **vogler** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 11:49 am

Lino wrote:There are still plenty of good stuff that still hasn't surfaced on DVD anywhere in the world.

Blanche and Docteur Jekyll et les femmes would be at the top of my list. I have a dodgy VHS rip of Blanche and I think it's a fantastic film. Jekyll I haven't seen but I've heard good things about it.

In an interview at dvdmaniacs.net, David Gregory, co-founder of Severin films, indicated that more Borowczyk is on the way.

Later we'll have the second Black Em box, more Fulci (if sales on Perversion Story are ok), more Borowczyk etc.

No indication as to what film(s) it will be, but I'll be happy with any.

MichaelB · #25 Post by **MichaelB** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:20 pm

I've just updated my Borowczyk DVD survey here - any additions/corrections gratefully received.