Indications of Incoming Indicator Entertainments

[AidanKing]

Thank you very much for that information. I thought that might be the case. Hopefully, Arrow might be interested in releasing some more films from the Tavianis at some point, although I suspect not as it has been quite a long time since the previous excellent set.

[MichaelB]

They've basically done the big three - the others are much less commercially appealing, and a fair chunk of their output has never been released in the UK. Something like Allonsanfan would make a marvellous Blu-ray if properly restored (it was an easy choice when Sight & Sound asked me to contribute to their Lost and Found column nine years ago - i.e. just before Caesar Must Die unexpectedly put them under the spotlight again), and it would be perfect for Arrow Academy as it ticks quite a few boxes - not least the fact that it showcases both Marcello Mastroianni and Ennio Morricone on blistering form.

But the stuff before that is strictly box-set territory with a lot of cultural contextualisation needed. Basically, the treatment given to Krzysztof Kieślowski a year ago, but with the major drawback that the Tavianis' early political films are completely unknown in the UK and will never realistically rise above ultra-niche appeal - The Subversives (1967), for instance, is about political disillusionment in the wake of Italian Communist Party co-founder Palmiro Togliatti's death, and I seriously doubt that the Tavianis envisaged it ever getting an audience outside Italy.

The post-Babylon films tend to be much of a muchness - the Tavianis are congenitally incapable of making a bad film, but aside from parts of The Lark Farm (which almost certainly would have got UK distribution if Italian cinema was still as fashionable in the UK in the mid-2000s as it was in the 1980s), none of them resonated with me to the extent that the big three did.

[AidanKing]

Thanks for reminding me of that 'Allonsanfan' article! Outside of the big three in the Arrow set, I have only seen 'Good Morning, Babylon' and 'Fiorile'. As you say, they are clearly not as good, but I do like the way 'Babylon' manages to successfully bring together actors from different countries, usually speaking their own languages, and yet still works effectively as a coherent piece. I also remember an interview with the Tavianis where they were asked if they saw themselves as artisans like the Italian masons and they wittily replied that, no, they saw themselves as more like Griffith.

Arrow released 'Fiorile' on DVD a while ago, and I enjoyed things like the anachronistic use of music (in the ball scene, I think), which I suppose has some similarities with Tarantino making use of Morricone's music, although any connections probably end there.

I missed 'Night Sun', unfortunately. It appears to have a terrific supporting cast (Nastassja Kinski, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Rudiger Vogler) and I do like Julian Sands too, although I understand his acting sparks divisive reactions among viewers.

[Calvin]

Considering Arrow discounted their Taviani box set down to £7.50 in one sale before it sold out, I think it's unlikely that they'll be dipping into that well again.

I do remember there being mention of Indicator having plans for an English-language film by a European director and I don't think one that meets that criteria has been announced since; I remember thinking it might be either Lars Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (via Film4) or Wim Wenders' Hammett (via Studio Canal).

[MichaelB]

I'm as proud of the Taviani box as I am of anything that I worked on, but I was never expecting it to race up the sales charts.

It didn't help that Arrow was changing their PR company at the time and it fell through the cracks, getting virtually no reviews aside from one in Sight & Sound that I personally engineered - which led to the absurd situation of the Cohen Taviani box polling much higher in the Beev's 2016 poll even though the Arrow edition included literally everything that was in the Cohen box, plus four hours' more extras, plus a 100-page book showcasing the six Pirandello stories that fuelled Kaos, at least half of them in world premiere translations. (Handily, Pirandello is in the public domain, so I only had to pay for a translator.)

But them's the breaks.

[AidanKing]

Well, the Taviani box from Arrow is undoubtedly one of the best items in my DVD and BluRay collection, both in terms of the films themselves and the contextualising extras, so it's a shame if its relatively slow sales, in what is not really expected to be a fast-selling market, have scuppered the chances of any more of the brothers' films getting a similar release.

Having to some extent derailed the discussion by mentioning films not really within Indicator's remit, I did notice that Ken Loach's 'Land and Freedom' doesn't appear to have a BluRay release. However, I suspect that it would already be on Indicator's radar if the rights holders are ones the company sometimes works with.

[Calvin]

Land and Freedom was supposed to be coming from 'Works Film Group' back in 2017 but never materialised along with the other titles they announced (A Prairie Home Companion, Shortbus). So as far as I can tell it's totally OOP.

The Wind That Shakes The Barley is the Loach film that I'd most like to see get an upgrade. It was a Fox title through their relationship with Pathe, but the ever-reliable Wikipedia seems to answer the question I had over what would happen to those titles in light of the Disney buy-out - namely that the rights reverted to Pathe in 2020. So in theory it, along with the likes of Ratcatcher and Hunger, could now be available for licensing...

[Ribs]

A Kino title I’ve avoided buying even as it’s been in multiple sales entirely because it seemed like exactly the type of thing Indicator would do is Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment, which inexplicably was like one of the first movies I prioritized watching when I really fell into real movies and I haven’t seen it since. As an underseen British SC title starring one of Britain’s great actors in a rare and early leading role, I figure it seems more likely than most, though I expect if something hasn’t popped up by the next time it’s in a sale I’ll bite the bullet.

[rapta]

Thought announcements would be next Thursday as per last month but the May slate has just suddenly been announced as Columbia Noir #3 and Someone to Watch Over Me and the newsletter clue is Putney Swope! What a month!

[What A Disgrace]

They're going to magic up some spectacular garbage extras and convince me to sell my Vinegar Syndrome disc before I even watch it.

[Calvin]

It wasn't very long ago that I imported the Vinegar Syndrome release but I'm excited to see what Indicator can put together for Putney Swope...fingers crossed that they can put a release together similar to the Downey Sr. Eclipse set.

[Cash Flagg]

Reposted from Classic Horror Film Board:

from John Walsh, a trustee of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation

"I'm working with Indicator/Powerhouse on a new Harryhausen box set which will for the first time bring together all of Ray's films under one box set umbrella, never been done before. There's new extras, I found test footages, animation footages of Pegasus, Medusa, Kraken and so on, and we maybe doing, I hope we doing, the 4K of Clash of the Titans next year's 40th anniversary."

[What A Disgrace]

If Indicator now has a bona fide Warner Bros. deal beyond just the Harryhausen films, that might explain why the Columbia Noir sets are about 100 spines ahead of everyone else.

[Ribs]

WB has been willing to play ball for filmmakers or estates that push for it, see the Oliver Stone TT releases or Arrow’s Cruising - I would not expect any particular reason to think this would be an exception.The jump in spine numbers is in all likelihood just a quirk of Indicator commiting to the Columbia Noir sets in force fast after they had been licensed rather than just arbitrarily waiting around for numbers that don’t matter to catch up to them.

[rapta]

I assumed the leap in spine numbers was due to another large Sony package deal, as they reportedly sign dozens of titles at a time in good faith (plus probably a few handfuls of Universal, StudioCanal, Screenbound, Film4 ones). Perhaps the Noir titles were some of the last ones they signed off on, but the first they fast-tracked for release? I agree that I wouldn't expect a Warner Bros deal beyond anything the Harryhausen Foundation allowed.

[MichaelB]

If I remember rightly, the release dates of the Columbia Noir boxes were significantly brought forward because they presented far fewer Covid-19-related challenges with regard to production - although copious, the extras generally consisted of off-the-shelf archive material or self-recorded commentaries. It's filming people (especially elderly people, as is often the case) under lockdown conditions that's been the big logistical headache over the last year, so this was a nifty way of alleviating this.

Spine numbers have generally gone haywire over the past year compared with the far more sequential 2016-19, but this is pretty much entirely due to the pandemic playing havoc with planned release schedules.