Criterion News and Discussion

[Ravi]

DVDBeaver comparison of new Seven Samurai and old discs

[edison]

http://store.prostores.com/servlet/criterionco/StoreFront

This is the 50 film box set they alluded to in a past newsletter.

[Chest Rockwell]

If that wasn't like half the money I made over the summer then I'd be all over that.

[edison]

"Here is an open-ended film, with no plot we can see, no end that we can see, and action we can't follow," frets a sound man in William Greaves's one-of-a-kind fiction/documentary hybrid Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One. Director Greaves presides over his beleaguered film crew in New York's Central Park in 1968, leaving them to try to glean what kind of movie they're making from what they're seeing: a strange, bickering couple enacting a break-up scenario over and over, a documentary crew filming a crew filming the crew, locals wandering casually into the frame. Multilayered and wildly entertaining, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One defies easy description yet remains one of the most tightly focused movies ever made about making movies. Criterion presents this long-unreleased gem in a special two-disc edition, along with its sequel, made thirty-five years later, which revisits the same "characters" and further blurs the line between reality and fiction.


Re-Release with new documentary The Beales of Grey Gardens

[Pubrick]

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm

i had never heard of that film. i feel like such a fool.

[Gold Trumpet]

I mentioned it some pages ago as coming. As far as December goes, I'm grateful for the titles. I won't have to kill my bank account.

[A Matter Of Chance]

I was looking at the 50 Years of Janus Films series that will soon be a-coming to the Brattle Theatre and for lots of the films it said things like 'brand new transfer' or 'newly restored.' Some of these were 'The Rules of the Game' and 'The Seventh Seal.' Does that mean even more Criterion Rereleases are in the works?

[Gold Trumpet]

I was looking at the 50 Years of Janus Films series that will soon be a-coming to the Brattle Theatre and for lots of the films it said things like 'brand new transfer' or 'newly restored.' Some of these were 'The Rules of the Game' and 'The Seventh Seal.' Does that mean even more Criterion Rereleases are in the works?

Not necessarily. The Janus book implies so many films not even released by Criterion that its obvious Criterion won't be running to catch up with all the titles anytime soon. I think that also means they won't be trying to reissue every film that got a brand new transfer. There is reason to re-issue the spotty version of The Seventh Seal that they released, but the Rules of the Game still stands up. Plus there is little dialogue in either film getting a re release anyways. Usually the rumor circuits pick up the titles before they become likely.

[edison]

How 'Seven Samurai' was saved
By Todd Leopold
CNN

(CNN) -- The process of restoring a classic film -- indeed a film considered one of the greatest in movie history -- conjures up the old joke about how to feed a hungry lion.

The answer: very carefully.

Such was the challenge to the folks at the Criterion Collection when they embarked on a project to reissue Akira Kurosawa's 1954 work "Seven Samurai." The film had been the second the company had ever released on DVD, in 1998, in an edition that duplicated a version the company had put out in the now-defunct laserdisc format.

But technology had greatly improved in the ensuing decade, and when the opportunity came to clean up a release that Criterion executive producer Kim Hendrickson describes as "substandard" by the company's lights, they dove in.

"It was a huge opportunity to tackle a great film," she said.

Not that it was easy.

"Samurai" is one of Kurosawa's masterpieces, a 207-minute epic of 16th-century Japan. Villagers, terrorized by bandits, asks an old samurai if he'll defend their town. He finds six other samurai -- as well as an apprentice -- and the group does battle with the bandits.

The simple plot doesn't do justice to the movie, which includes an energetic and almost feral performance by Toshiro Mifune and concludes with a messy, gloriously shot and edited confrontation in the rain.

"Complicated tracking shots compete with equally elaborate and fast-paced editing to create a film whose constant prevailing tempo is that of war punctuated by ever shorter intervals of peace," wrote film historian David Cook in "A History of Narrative Film," describing "Samurai" as "a stunning achievement."

The film inspired "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), along with a number of other American (and spaghetti) Westerns.

"This is a special film," said Lee Kline, the technical director on the "Samurai" reissue, which came out at the beginning of September.

But special or not, it had been more than a half-century since "Samurai" was made, and the original negative -- the source material for printing the finished product on celluloid -- was missing.

To begin the process, Criterion located an early negative and an early positive and determined the positive was the closest to the original. So the company made a new negative, using "Wetgate processing," a chemical system that fills in flaws in the original material.

That was just for starters. The technical team had to cope with the fact that the positive had shrunk, meaning that light could get in around the edges of the frame; that scenes contained black frames or missing frames, making transitions jarring; even that the original mono soundtrack had to be restored. (Click here for before-and-after versions of frame details.)

Some issues were dealt with through technology; others took painstaking research, as with a search to find existing versions of the film's shots without the black frames.

In some cases, the Criterion crew had to ask itself what the filmmaker intended. (Kurosawa died in 1998.) One scene shows a very obvious hair at the top of the frame, a hair that probably existed in Kurosawa's camera -- and has been seen in the film since its release.

"They opted not to reshoot, and we had to honor that," Kline said. The crew is constantly asking itself, he said, "When we fix something, are we doing something we shouldn't do?"

The result -- which took two years and thousands of hours -- has earned raves from cinephiles. "This is my vote for release of the year," wrote reviewer Pat Wahlquist on HomeTheaterForum.comexternal link.

Kline said he is pleased as well, though he always wishes he had more time.

"For the most part, you wish you had a few more weeks," he said. "People are used to pristine. But if we did that, we'd never get it out."

[I Don't Believe in Beatles]

How 'Seven Samurai' was saved
By Todd Leopold
CNN

(CNN) -- The process of restoring a classic film -- indeed a film considered one of the greatest in movie history -- conjures up the old joke about how to feed a hungry lion.

The answer: very carefully.

Such was the challenge to the folks at the Criterion Collection when they embarked on a project to reissue Akira Kurosawa's 1954 work "Seven Samurai." The film had been the second the company had ever released on DVD, in 1998, in an edition that duplicated a version the company had put out in the now-defunct laserdisc format.

But technology had greatly improved in the ensuing decade, and when the opportunity came to clean up a release that Criterion executive producer Kim Hendrickson describes as "substandard" by the company's lights, they dove in.

"It was a huge opportunity to tackle a great film," she said.

Not that it was easy.

"Samurai" is one of Kurosawa's masterpieces, a 207-minute epic of 16th-century Japan. Villagers, terrorized by bandits, asks an old samurai if he'll defend their town. He finds six other samurai -- as well as an apprentice -- and the group does battle with the bandits.

The simple plot doesn't do justice to the movie, which includes an energetic and almost feral performance by Toshiro Mifune and concludes with a messy, gloriously shot and edited confrontation in the rain.

"Complicated tracking shots compete with equally elaborate and fast-paced editing to create a film whose constant prevailing tempo is that of war punctuated by ever shorter intervals of peace," wrote film historian David Cook in "A History of Narrative Film," describing "Samurai" as "a stunning achievement."

The film inspired "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), along with a number of other American (and spaghetti) Westerns.

"This is a special film," said Lee Kline, the technical director on the "Samurai" reissue, which came out at the beginning of September.

But special or not, it had been more than a half-century since "Samurai" was made, and the original negative -- the source material for printing the finished product on celluloid -- was missing.

To begin the process, Criterion located an early negative and an early positive and determined the positive was the closest to the original. So the company made a new negative, using "Wetgate processing," a chemical system that fills in flaws in the original material.

That was just for starters. The technical team had to cope with the fact that the positive had shrunk, meaning that light could get in around the edges of the frame; that scenes contained black frames or missing frames, making transitions jarring; even that the original mono soundtrack had to be restored. (Click here for before-and-after versions of frame details.)

Some issues were dealt with through technology; others took painstaking research, as with a search to find existing versions of the film's shots without the black frames.

In some cases, the Criterion crew had to ask itself what the filmmaker intended. (Kurosawa died in 1998.) One scene shows a very obvious hair at the top of the frame, a hair that probably existed in Kurosawa's camera -- and has been seen in the film since its release.

"They opted not to reshoot, and we had to honor that," Kline said. The crew is constantly asking itself, he said, "When we fix something, are we doing something we shouldn't do?"

The result -- which took two years and thousands of hours -- has earned raves from cinephiles. "This is my vote for release of the year," wrote reviewer Pat Wahlquist on HomeTheaterForum.comexternal link.

Kline said he is pleased as well, though he always wishes he had more time.

"For the most part, you wish you had a few more weeks," he said. "People are used to pristine. But if we did that, we'd never get it out."

http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=72.msg232879#msg232879

[edison]

From www.fangoria.com

Fango just got the scoop that Criterion will release a trio of genre movies from veteran producer Richard Gordon and one by his brother Alex in either a pair of double-features or a four-disc set in January. Two of the films, 1958's THE HAUNTED STRANGLER and 1962's CORRIDORS OF BLOOD, star Boris Karloff; the other duo—1959's FIRST MAN INTO SPACE and Alex's THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE—are more sci-fi-oriented but still contain monstrous elements. All the discs will feature restored transfers, and the supplements are as follows:

• Audio commentary on STRANGLER by Richard and Alex Gordon and horror historian/Fango scribe Tom Weaver
• Audio commentary on CORRIDORS by Richard, actress Yvonne Romain and Weaver
• Audio commentary on FIRST MAN by Richard and Weaver
• Audio commentary on ATOMIC by Alex and Weaver
• Making-of featurettes on all four films
• Featurette on CORRIDORS' censored footage
• Liner notes/Fango article by John Croydon with STRANGLER and CORRIDORS
• Trailers, radio spots, etc.

[Gold Trumpet]

Yea, this was coming. The news has been out for a while. Everyone has given a collective "so what" responce. I don't think anyone cares and it seems like no one thinks this is Criterion-worthy, especially considering Eclipse is in near future. But, that's the greater question. With Eclipse coming, why have Criterion release it? Speculation is that Eclipse may be a bust. It was supposed to debut last year and again this October, so the rumors said. Nada so far. Barely a hint from Criterion at all. Who knows sports fans, a beloved second line could be hitting the bench before it even suited up.

[analogzombie]

Yea, this was coming. The news has been out for a while. Everyone has given a collective "so what" responce. I don't think anyone cares and it seems like no one thinks this is Criterion-worthy, especially considering Eclipse is in near future. But, that's the greater question. With Eclipse coming, why have Criterion release it? Speculation is that Eclipse may be a bust. It was supposed to debut last year and again this October, so the rumors said. Nada so far. Barely a hint from Criterion at all. Who knows sports fans, a beloved second line could be hitting the bench before it even suited up.

I thought it was all but official that Eclipse is defunct in the wake of the Image Entertainment buyout, and the reason Criterion has released Equinox, Jigoku, and now these films is precisely for that reason.

[Gold Trumpet]

It's almost defunct. Sources still say the label is only on the backburner, but yea, it doesn't look very good.

[analogzombie]

I say Criterion should just keep putting out the odd cult piece every month or so. Add to the release calender instead of spreading their efforts across two labels. Either way we get the films, in new transfers, with lots of criterion quality extras. what's the need for a sub-label except to dillute the brand.