This will be the page for the Eclipse label. The sub company to Criterion that will be releasing rarer and harder to find films of the past and present. Expect many titles to cult favorites. I'll update the way I do for Criterion. Officially, no comment has yet arrived from Criterion on the details of this label. Word is that an annoucement is coming very soon. (as soon as word comes, it will be posted here)
But, many films have already hit the rumor belt. To run many of them down:
Richard Gordon Box Set(?) -
THE HAUNTED STRANGLER [Grip of the Strangler] (1958)
FIRST MAN INTO SPACE (1959)
THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE (1959)
CORRIDORS OF BLOOD (1962)
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Gojira
Equinox
GOKE: BODYSNATCHER FROM HELL
Erotica films(?)
Jigoku
The Face of Another
Andy Warhol films
Massacre at Central High
lesser known Alejandro Jodorowsky films
These are the real films that have been rumored. Many have been recommended and I imagine many will be surprises. I didn't identify the filmmakers of these films. If you know the film, you know the filmmaker. If you're like me for most of these titles, you really don't know.
It's just an interesting move for Criterion to take. This thread will try to keep track of everything.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet
Andrei Jodorowsky
when tarkofsky and alejandro made sweet love...
My Bad.
This is awesome. I can't wait for those Warhol films.
Thats interesting because some of those were possible criterions
I'd be really excited for Gojira, I was obsessed with him as a kid.
What exactly is the domain of this label? Criterion is the flagship brand and, Home Vision has the not-so-classic films. Eclipse is the more esoteric stuff, lesser known, possibly avant garde, films?
Criterion (or Janus) owns Eclipse. Home Vision is now a dead label thanks to Image buying out the whole thing. Their final releases will be in November. But, here's the exact details on Eclipse:
The Criterion Collection/Janus Films
210 E. 52nd St.
New York, NY 10022
US
Domain Name: ECLIPSEDVD.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Darden, Tammi tammi@criterionco.com
The Criterion Collection/Janus Films
210 East 52nd Street
5th Floor
New York, NY 10022
US
212 756-8822 fax: 212-756-8850
Record expires on 08-Dec-2005.
Record created on 08-Dec-2004.
Bulk whois optout: N
Database last updated on 31-Jul-2005 02:28:46 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS83.WORLDNIC.COM 216.168.228.44
NS84.WORLDNIC.COM 216.168.225.224
Quote from: RaviWhat exactly is the domain of this label? Criterion is the flagship brand and, Home Vision has the not-so-classic films. Eclipse is the more esoteric stuff, lesser known, possibly avant garde, films?
Eclipse will make blind buys with Criterion safer.
Rumor has it that Eclipse will make its long anticipated debut this September. That is all.
Good news considering this was expected to be dropped, but bad news in that it looks like Eclipse will be nothing more than an HVE replacement for second tier films on standard dvds.
A post on the Criterion forum explains it all,
"There is a one page article in the new issue of Cahiers du Cinema, the article ends on what Eclipse is going to be: A cheaper line with no supplements apart from the trailer, 12 titles per year starting with early Bergman, Les croix de Bois (Raymond Bernard - 1931), some Gremillion, some Le Chanois. The article is based on an discussion with Fumiko Tagaki.
That's all it says."
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Early Bergman: Eclipse Series 1
5-Disc set includes: Torment, Crisis, Port Of Call, Thirst, and To Joy.
If not already known, Eclipse will be a series to highlight the lesser known films Criterion does not have the time to revamp and release. Instead of just focusing on genre favorites, it will highlight the lesser known works of major directors, including Louis Malle (his documentaries), Yasurjo Ozu (likely his silents) and Jean Renoir. All these filmmakers have been confirmed to be upcoming in the release schedule of Eclipse. These titles, though, will feature prints not brought up to Criterion standards. They will just be the best known prints only.
This early Ingmar Bergman set is due in March and listed for the price of $69.95. Each month will focus on a different director.
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Wow. Spectacular job of Criterion differentiating Eclipse titles from their own.
I'm excited about this. These early Bergman titles are pretty much the only ones I've never seen, and while they're apparently pretty clumsy, I'm looking forward to seeing him develop on screen....
Word has come that Series 2 will indeed be the Louis Malle documentaries. These films were acquired by Criterion about a year ago and went around the country being screened in supposebly good prints. Considering Criterion's busy schedule, they now are being released by Eclipse. The release should come in April. No word yet on the specs.
But, a blog has been created to give good details to the release:
January 13, 2007
Seen 'em Malle
Jon and I have been wanting to get other voices into the mix, and while we have been promised odes on expense reports and projectionists and the ones that got away, it only made sense to turn to Criterion editor Michael Koresky, that iron man of prose, to hammer out the first guest blog of 2007. Here's what he's been up to:
I just got back from an around-the-world trip to Minnesota, India, and Paris, and I did it all in about seven days. I'm not proud to admit that all of that traveling was actually done from the shabby couch in my Brooklyn apartment, while staring at a 27-inch TV screen. The "vacation in your living room!" approach may be a cliché at this point, but it's also a rather fitting introduction to a body of work that did indeed transport me: Louis Malle's documentaries, which we'll be releasing as the second Eclipse series this Spring, and which have been somewhat under the radar over the past forty-odd years, certainly in comparison to his fiction films. So there was a great sense of discovery for me, as well as there will undoubtedly be for many—both for these underseen films, and for the places they capture.
And having consumed almost the entirety of Malle's documentaries (which range from 1962 to 1987) in such a short period of time, I can't help but notice the unity of spirit between them, of just plopping down a camera and seeing what will come of it (Malle often said he began each documentary without a set agenda). The films he shot in India are gorgeous, huge, maddening, and exhilarating, and the French docs from the early seventies, which survey the lives of everyday working-class people waylaid on street-corners or caught in mid-weld in an auto factory, are fascinating signs of the times—yet is it too obvious that I'm most drawn to Malle's foray into the American Midwest, God's Country, which meanders eloquently around the people in the farming community of Glencoe, Minnesota?
I don't know how Malle was able to get such unadorned, generous clarity from these hospitable strangers, but his camera's searching gaze absolutely dashes any stereotypes one may have about the narrow-mindedness of the heartland, even teasing out the liberal attitudes in many of these people. My favorite moment in the movie comes when Malle interviews a young office worker in her late twenties (whom he later dubbed the Madame Bovary of Glencoe when editing the film), who invited him back to her small apartment. An initial standoffishness gives way to an outpouring of honesty, and she begins to treat the camera as though a confessional booth, remarking upon the dashed dreams and compromises that come with living a provincial life. She doesn't find herself attracted to the men of Glencoe, who all drip with a machismo she finds off-putting, and at age twenty-six, already acknowledges herself as something of an old maid. It's a good thing Malle didn't try to set her up with Glencoe's "most eligible bachelor": a sometime actor/ full-time cow-inseminator, often seen elbow-deep in bovine anus.
God's Country was shot in 1979, and then in 1985 Malle went back and filmed his coda, which depicted the effects of the Reagan-era recession on the town's economy. It's now been twenty years since the film was first shown, and I can't help but wonder if Malle would have revisited the town again, perhaps every decade or so (like Michael Apted's Up films or Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise and Sunset), if he hadn't died in 1995. There's such an intimacy to the film that I would like to find out what all those Glencovians have been up to: Did farming equipment become too expensive to keep up with? Have many of the town's workers been replaced by machines? How do they feel about Bush II? Do they have iPods? And maybe some Glencoe locals will buy a copy of the film Malle made for them and us in this DVD set we're putting out...just that possibility is enough to bring me joy.
posted by Peter Becker at 2:20 AM
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Originally posted in the Criterion, but truly meant for this thread, Variety gives a perspective on the launch of Eclipse. The non-news is that Criterion may re-release films originally released by Eclipse (years likely will separate both releases though), but the real news is the name of directors who will be spotlighted in future months. The names include some I am unfamilar with, but also includes Kenji Mizoguchi and Ozu. All the names of future directors will be marked in bold:
DVD firm Criterion issuing budget line
Source: Hollywood Reporter
The Criterion Collection, known as the Cadillac of DVD suppliers because of its elaborate packages, will launch an entry-level line of boxed sets in March.
The Eclipse line, according to its mission statement, will feature "lost, forgotten or overshadowed films, in simple, affordable editions." Each set will contain three to five films, sans bonus features, made from the best available masters, but not getting a full Criterion restoration. Retail pricing, on average, will be less than $15 a disc. Regular Criterion Collection DVDs start at about $30.
"The goal is to make these films available, to make sure that Criterion's own work style doesn't contribute to the continuing unavailability of these films," Criterion Collection president Peter Becker said. "Once our producers and restoration crew get started on a Criterion edition, the project takes on a life of its own. Months later, with a little luck, we'll have something really special to show for it, but at that rate we can't make a dent in the number of important unreleased films that we'd like people to be able to see."
The Eclipse line launches March 27 with the five-disc set "Early Bergman," which includes a quintet of psychological character studies from the career of legendary Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman a decade before "The Seventh Seal" and "Wild Strawberries" earned him a reputation as one of the greatest directors ever. Among them: "Torment," a 1944 coming-of-age drama that was Bergman's first produced screenplay, and 1949's "Thirst," a complex film about the human condition told in flashbacks. Also included in "Early Bergman" are "Crisis" (1946), "Port of Call" (1948) and "To Joy" (1949).
The second Eclipse release, scheduled for April, will be "The Documentaries of Louis Malle." The six-disc set includes seven of the celebrated French films he shot at the same time he was helming such landmark films as "Elevator to the Gallows" and "My Dinner With Andre." Among them: "Phantom India" (1969), which Malle once called the most personal film of his career; "Calcutta" (1969), a chaotic portrait of the equally chaotic city that consists of footage shot during the making of "Phantom India"; and "Vive le tour" (1963), an almost staccato-like look at the Tour de France. Other documentaries included in the package are "Humain, trop human" (1972), "Place de la Republique" (1972), "God's Country" (1985) and "And the Pursuit of Happiness" (1987).
Future releases in the Eclipse line include rarely seen films from Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Yasujiro Ozu and Raymond Bernard.
More Naruse is good, since he has never been available here in the states. I have heard a lot of good things about When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, so i'm interested in checking out more of his films.
I think it will be Late Ozu in June?
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STREET DATE: 6/12
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Out soon: Bergman begins
A five-disc set of little-seen films from the great director's early career starts a new line from the Criterion Collection.
Source: Los Angeles Times
SEMINAL Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman had been making movies for more than a decade before he was introduced to American audiences with his 1956 masterwork, "The Seventh Seal." But until now, his early, influential works have rarely had exposure in the United States.
The five-disc set "Early Bergman," set for release Tuesday, is the first offering from Eclipse, a new DVD line of the Criterion Collection, the digital arm of the foreign and art house distribution company Janus Films. Janus first brought Bergman to our shores in the latter part of the 1950s.
Though none of the films in "Early Bergman" would rank as a masterpiece, they are assuredly directed, well acted and provocative and foreshadow the psychological themes — including morality, faith and loneliness — of his later classics such as "Wild Strawberries," "The Virgin Spring," "Through a Glass Darkly," "Face to Face" and "Fanny and Alexander."
Each month, Eclipse will present three to five films focusing on a particular director or theme — scheduled for next month are the documentaries of Louis Malle.
"The idea for Eclipse emerged from the sense that we had that there were a lot of films you didn't get to see if you didn't really have a good cinematheque in your town," says Peter Becker, president of Criterion. "In the common marketplace ... you were only likely to see those classics that had been in the fixed canon."
Those are just the type of classics Criterion has been releasing on DVD.
"We were starting to get aware, after nine years into the DVD marketplace, there were a lot of great films that weren't getting seen because they didn't have that reputation, they weren't as well known, but that were in different ways really important and in some cases equally great," Becker said.
At a time when Hollywood films were firmly under the vise of the Production Code, the films emerging from Sweden were decades ahead in terms of content. Bergman frankly tackles mature and taboo Hollywood subjects such as suicide and abortion.
Bergman's first screenplay to be made into a film was 1944's "Torment," directed by Alf Sjoberg. The dark story is set in a claustrophobic boys' boarding school — modeled on the one Bergman attended — where seniors, especially a young man named Widgren, are terrorized by a sadistic Latin teacher. Widgren's life takes a turn for the worse when he begins to have an affair with a young woman who unbeknown to him is embroiled in a sadomasochistic relationship with the Latin teacher.
Two years later, he made his directorial debut with the melodrama "Crisis," based on Leck Fischer's 1944 play "The Maternal Heart." The plot line is pretty pokey — the 18-year-old foster daughter of a dying piano teacher decides to leave small-town life and move to the big city when the decadent mother who abandoned her as a baby returns for her.
In his autobiographical "Images: My Life in Film," Bergman even admits that Fischer's play was "grandiose drivel." Still, it's compelling fare and features a scene-stealing performance by Stig Olin, who would become an early member of the Bergman repertory company, as the troubled lover of the mother who seduces the daughter. (Olin is the father of actress Lena Olin.)
"Port of Call," from 1948, revolves around a sensitive young woman put into a reform school by her brutal mother, who falls in love with a young sailor now working on the docks.
Nine-Christine Jonsson is heartbreaking as the troubled young Berit, who seeks solace from her hideous existence through promiscuous behavior with men. Bengt Eklund plays the sailor-turned-stevedore who falls for Berit.
"Thirst," from 1949, is an arresting psychological drama — sort of a precursor of "Scenes From a Marriage." Told in the present and in flashback, the movie revolves around a marital squabble on a train between a man and his former ballet dancer wife.
Stig Olin headlines 1950's "To Joy" as an orchestra violinist whose unsuccessful attempts to become a successful solo artist puts a strain on his marriage to the patient, loving Marta (Maj-Britt Nilsson). Bergman described the film as an "impossible melodrama" in which Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is "shamelessly exploited. I do understand the techniques used in both melodrama and soap opera quite well."
Swedish director Victor Sjstrom, who would later star in "Wild Strawberries," plays the warmly wise orchestra conductor.
Some interesting news have quietly come across to what the future of Eclipse will look like as it retains to releases.
From a post at Criterion forum:
"I noticed a brief little piece in the new issue of Filmmaker Magazine that mentioned that "while Eclipse is currently focusing on individual Directors," upcoming releases would include boxes dedicated to Samurai films and the French New Wave. If I get a chance I'll retype the thing, but that little tidbit was the only bit of news."
Considering the French New Wave only lasted four years, many believe only a small slot of films exist that qualify. The truth is that numerous films were considered to be part of the French New Wave. Criterion still has to release recognizable films by well known French directors during the period, but if they begin to do that with this, they could then get at some lesser known more experimental French New Wave films. I'd be very interested to see those.
A box set of some interest to me....
Sam Fuller early films will be Series 5 for Eclipse. The titles are:
I Shot Jesse James
The Baron of Arizona
The Steel Helmet
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Number 6:
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Includes Blood Wedding, Carmen, and El amor brujo.
I'm loving Eclipse so far. I don't know this trilogy but Eclipse is covering the bases it seems on the foreign market. I expect to purchase the Ozu box set and I'm interested to check out the Raymond Bernard box set. I'll study up on these titles as well.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on July 18, 2007, 12:45:47 AM
I'm loving Eclipse so far.
They're affordable and and terrific introductions to the filmmakers. They're by far the most exciting thing to happen to my dvd collection this year.
Why are they fucking with me. They haven't even updated with the release of the Samuel Fuller box.
Quote from: Losing the Horse: on September 04, 2007, 12:02:05 PM
Why are they fucking with me. They haven't even updated with the release of the Samuel Fuller box.
It's become obvious that Eclipse isn't every month.
I wish they'd update with the next release is all. And why didn't they update it for Fuller for so long?
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Perhaps best known for his action-packed samurai classics, Akira Kurosawa began his career by delving into the state of his nation immediately following World War II, with visual poetry and direct emotion. Amid Japan's economic collapse, moral waywardness, and American occupation, Kurosawa managed to find humor and redemption existing alongside despair and anxiety. In these five films, which range from the whimsically Capraesque to the icily Dostoyevskian, from political epics to courtroom potboilers, Kurosawa established both the artistic range and social acuity that would inform his entire career.
I Live in Fear
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Both the final film in which Kurosawa would so directly wrestle with the demons of the second world war and his most literal representation of living in an atomic age, Akira Kurosawa's galvanizing I Live in Fear presents Toshiro Mifune as an elderly, stubborn businessman so fearful of a nuclear attack that he vows to move his reluctant family to South America. With this mournful film, the director depicts a society emerging from the shadows but still terrorized by memories of the past and anxieties of the future.
The Idiot
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After finishing what would become his international phenomenon Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa immediately turned to one of the most daring—and problem-plagued—productions of his career. The Idiot, adapted faithfully from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's nineteenth-century masterpiece about a wayward, pure soul's reintegration into society, yet updated to capture Japan's postwar aimlessness, was a victim of studio interference and, finally, public indifference. Today, Kurosawa's onetime "folly" looks ever more fascinating, a stylish, otherworldly evocation of one man's wintry mindscape.
No Regrets for Our Youth
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In Akira Kurosawa's first film after the end of World War II, Japanese film star (and eventual Ozu regular) Setsuko Hara gives an astonishing performance as Yukie, Kurosawa's only female protagonist and one of his strongest heroes. Transforming herself from genteel bourgeois daughter to independent social activist, Yukie journeys across a decade of tumultuous Japanese history.
One Wonderful Sunday
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Akira Kurosawa examined the harsh economic truths of postwar Japan with this affectionate tribute to young love. Trying to make their meager thirty-five yen last during a Sunday trip into a war-ravaged Tokyo, Yuzo and Masako look for work and lodging, as well as affordable entertainments to pass the time. Reminiscent of Frank Capra's social realist comedies as well as contemporaneous Italian neorealist films, One Wonderful Sunday touchingly offers a bit of hope amidst misery.
Scandal
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A handsome, suave Toshiro Mifune lights up the screen as painter Ichiro, whose circumstantial meeting with a famous singer (Yoshiko Yamaguchi) is construed by the tabloid press as a torrid affair. When Ichiro files a lawsuit against the incriminating gossip magazine, he hires the ethically dubious lawyer Hiruta (Kurosawa stalwart Takashi Shimura)—who's playing both sides. A portrait of moral decline during Japan's postwar reparations, Scandal is also a compelling courtroom drama and a tale of human redemption.[/quote]
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YES!
That's an amazing box set. My poverty has forced me to skip a lot of Criterion releases, but I might save pennies to get that one.
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I'm curious.
i'm definitely buy curious.
as healthy as it is for a any human being's sense of humbleness, sometimes the fact that every day that passes it becomes clearer that I'm light years away from seeing and enjoying all the films that i want to becomes too much to bear. it just never ends.
I think Scorsese once talked about film scholarship and how it is logistically impossible, especially as the years go on, to see anywhere close to all the movies that have been released. It's sad to know that one's life will be narrowed or limited in its scope.
Quote from: Gamblour. on December 18, 2007, 12:25:09 PM
It's sad to know that one's life will be narrowed or limited in its scope.
I find it to be a great relief. Now that I know my most ridiculous attempt to see every film is futile I can try to enjoy and appreciate the ones I like even more. People pride themselves too much on the number of films they have seen.
Well, I have no idea how many movies I've seen. But I enjoy seeing new films and knowing that some will be neglected, I dunno, makes me feel like I'm perpetually missing out.
I've got some wicked cravings for today's Lubitsch Musicals release. I wish V-Day was more oriented towards giving the gift of Lubistch Musicals release to me instead of spending an outrageous sum on dinner and romantic gestures.
Silent Ozu soon. Yes!
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Box Set Includes:
The Ascent
Larisa Shepitko, 1976
Shepitko's emotionally overwhelming final film won the Golden Bear at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival and has been hailed around the world as the finest Soviet film of its decade. Set during the darkest days of World War II, The Ascent follows the path of two peasant soldiers, cut off from their troop, who trudge through the snowy backwoods of Belarus evading the Nazis and seeking refuge among villagers. Their harrowing trek leads them on a journey of betrayal, heroism, and ultimate transcendence.
Wings
Larisa Shepitko, 1966
For her first feature after graduating from the State Institute for Cinematography (VGIK), Larisa Shepitko trained her lens on the fascinating, beloved Russian character actress Maya Bulgakova, giving a marvelous performance as a once heroic Russian bomber pilot now living in quiet, disappointingly ordinary life as a school principal. Subtly portraying one woman's desperation with elegant, spare camerawork and casual, fluid storytelling, Shepitko, with Wings, announced herself as an important new voice in Soviet cinema.
My secret wish: an Eclipse kung-fu box set.
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Aki Kaurismaki (9/23) and then Kenji Mizoguchi (10/21)? Incredible.
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P.S. Did anyone ever get the William Klein box? I never pulled the trigger but I still might.
Quote from: w/o horse on October 16, 2008, 09:28:47 PM
P.S. Did anyone ever get the William Klein box? I never pulled the trigger but I still might.
If you're thinking about it, do it. It's absolutely gorgeous. I hadn't seen any of Klein's work prior to purchasing it and it was one of the rare Criterion/Eclipse experiences where I felt like I was truly being enlightened. A real treat.
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Quote from: edison on December 15, 2008, 08:47:35 PM
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Blank!
The good folks over at Criterion have announced the next installment of their Eclipse series of DVDs: Eclipse 17: Nikkatsu Noir (SRP $69.95) on 8/25. The 5-disc set will include the classics I Am Waiting (1957), Rusty Knife (1958), Take Aim at the Police Van (1960), Cruel Gun Story (1964) and A Colt is My Passport (1967).