Grizzly Man and his recent docs all have good releases, I'd assume. Its most of his 70s-90s material that seems to be withering in obscurity for a director with the name recognition he has. That's the stuff that needs to be reissued

Well, they were idiots for not strapping on an Oppo, too. Serves 'em right.

Can you remind us where Becker says this ... and, more to the point, what's his problem?!

I don't think that there is anything behind that besides word of mouth rumor, which when taken seriously can lead to some dead wrong conclusions, like "Certified Copy is definitely not coming from Criterion!" Personally, despite what Becker may or may not think about Herzog, I think the presence of Burden of Dreams would lead to the exact opposite conclusion in regards to Janus pursuing the rights, especially since Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo would likely sell quite well.

I don't recall Becker ever making any kind of comment about Herzog and I would be interested to know the source of this information. The only time I remember Criterion commenting on Herzog was when Burden of Dreams was released and someone had sent Mulvaney an email asking why Criterion didn't release the Herzog film in conjunction with Burden of Dreams. I believe the Mulvaney response was something along the lines that they would have loved to but were not able to get the rights. They felt that Burden of Dreams was strong enough to stand on it's own.

But. . . but. . . wasn't that your dream project? The one that was going to end with all the howling and everyone hurling themselves into Mt Etna?

Criterion are not idiots. If there were any chance of securing the rights to Herzog's major films they'd be all over them. They're cornerstone world cinema classics with a massive audience and it's as unimaginable as them screwing up their noses at Persona or La dolce vita.

I'd love that.

Criterion added Hitchcock's Sabotage and Young and Innocent to itunes. Looks like MGM let the rights lapse and these two films were picked up by Janus. I wonder if they will do a British Hitchcock box?

The thing about the Herzogs is they may very well be an all-or-nothing type thing and I imagine it would hard to justify a, say, HERZOG DOCUMENTARIES Eclipse when they're all already out on quality DVD copies. And they won't want to spend the money Blu'ing everything.

I doubt that's the case, since the features and documentaries (and the Herzog / Kinski films) have always been released separately in the past, and Herzog has his own big box of documentaries for sale directly. Much better than any Eclipse set, and why would he want the competition?

MGM still has TV and non-theatrical rights, but, yes, the home video rights to the British Hitchcocks that MGM released on DVD did expire.

I saw Herzog speak at Indiana University last September and he mentioned that he'd just set up a trust for the preservation of his films, so that they'll all stay together under one curator (or something like that, I wasn't taking notes). Anyway, I wonder if that's going into effect and the rights are all being renegotiated.

Wouldn't be the first time Criterion licensed a large body of films and then dribbled them out over the course of a decade (Chaplin; Ozu).

With Criterion licensing heavily from Sony in the last couple of years, does anyone else think that they probably picked up the Sony controlled Almodovar films? I don't see Sony releasing these films on blu themselves and I doubt Twilight Time would be interested. I think it would be fairly easy for Criterion to license these titles and suspect they probably did.

I"ve been hoping for this ever since the Almodovar box set went out of print, which seemed to have happened rather quickly after it was first released .

They've given us a flat-out "never" in the past, but given what they have been doing with Sony recently, I wouldn't rule it out completely.

The recent news about varda trying to get Umbrellas of Cherbourg restored led me to do some more searching for any Demy-Janus connections.

(any thoughts btw on Varda trying to get it restored? Is she restoring it prior to shopping it out for a new distribution deal? Self-distribution? Umbrellas of Cherbourg/Donkey Skin/most of the other world cinema classics that we'd be interested in are no longer appearing on Koch/Entertainment (E)One's website - not under their library nor their website search. Since those all seem to be OOP, and no longer mentioned on their website, I think its safe to assume they no longer have the rights.)

Anyway, to make this more interesting, we now have some actual confirmation that Janus/Criterion has picked up rights to Demy's Lola (1961) from Wellspring.


Previously, only Demy's Bay of Angels was known.

What else did Wellspring previously have the rights to? So far the big Janus/Criterion pickups have been Fassbinder, Rohmer and Demy. Any others to add to that list? This seems to be the only list I can find of Wellspring products.

Edit-

Re: What else Wellspring owns

Oh God, its an Andrew Weil conspiracy.

Wellspring previously released Young Girls of Rochefort which would make for a great paired release alongside Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Unfortunately, I think Young Girls of Rochefort is still with Miramax. It's at least playing on their Hulu channel.


I had some time to kill, so I took a brief look through that CD universe page. Don't nitpick everything, since I'm already well aware that not everything has been licensed out, nor are some of them all that great of movies, etc etc. I mostly just went by directors that Criterion has worked with in the past or that have been floating around. Some of these seem like obvious choices (the Rohmers and Fassbinders) and others are probably way off (Kotani, probably most all of the Breillat films, etc). I started off strong but became lazy quick - so apologies to several directors who I probably missed (Desplechin's and Tsai Ming-Liang's names came up a lot). It does seem like a lot of these films are OOP and have been so for a while without any further news - so there's at least hope for several.


Dark Habits - Pedro Almodóvar
What Have I Done To Deserve This? - Pedro Almodóvar
Ulysses' Gaze - Angelopoulos
Millionairess - Anthony Asquith
Beat That My Heart Skipped - Jacques Audiard

36 Fillette - Catherine Breillat
Brief Crossing - Catherine Breillat
Real Young Girl (2001) - Catherine Breillat

Attila '74 - Michael Cacoyannis
A Girl in Black - Michael Cacoyannis
Matter Of Dignity - Michael Cacoyannis
Stella - Michael Cacoyannis
Boy Meets Girl - Leos Carax
Il Sacco di Roma - The Pagans - 1958 - Ferruccio Cerio
Alexandria... Why? - Youssef Chahine
ALEXANDRIA AGAIN AND FOREVER - Youssef Chahine
Egyptian Story - Youssef Chahine

The Neon Bible - Terence Davies
The Intruder - Claire Denis
Kings And Queen - Arnaud Desplechin
Humanite - Bruno Dumont

Katzelmacher - Fassbinder
Niklashausen Journey - Fassbinder
Rio Das Mortes - Fassbinder
Orchestra Rehearsal - Federico Fellini

First Name: Carmen - Godard
LE PETIT SOLDAT - Godard
LES CARABINIERS - Godard
Notre Musique (2004) - Godard

Wheel Of Time - Herzog
White Diamond (2005) - Herzog
Cafe Lumiere - Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Flowers of Shanghai - Hou Hsiao-hsien
Good Men, Good Women - Hou Hsiao-hsien
Goodbye South, Goodbye - Hou Hsiao-hsien
Puppetmaster (1993) - Hou Hsiao-hsien

the funeral - Juzo Itami
tampopo - Itami
Taxing Woman - Juzo Itami

Violent Cop - Takeshi Kitano
Bushido Blade - Tom Kotani

Meantime - Mike Leigh
June Night - Per Lindberg
Carla's Song - Ken Loach

Montenegro (1981) - Dusan Makavejev
Blackboards - Samira Makhmalbaf
Two Nights With Cleopatra - Mario Mattoli
Alias Betty - Claude Miller
L'Effrontee (1985) - Claude Miller
Hole - Tsai Ming-Liang
Intermezzo - Gustaf Molander

David And Lisa - Frank Perry

Vie De Chateau - Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Not On The Lips - Alain Resnais
Two Deaths - Nicolas Roeg
Aviator's Wife - Rohmer
Boyfriends And Girlfriends - Rohmer
Full Moon In Paris - Rohmer
Good Marriage - Rohmer
Marquise Of O - Rohmer
Perceval - Rohmer
Summer - Rohmer
Chappaqua (1966) - Conrad Rooks

Father And Son - Aleksandr Sokurov
russian ark - Aleksandr Sokurov
Palindromes (2004) - Todd Solondz
incubus - (1965) that Esperanto shatner movie ( Leslie Stevens)

Nostalghia - Andrei Tarkovsky

The Game Is Over - Roger Vadim
Liaisons Dangereuses - Roger Vadim
Dear Wendy - Thomas Vinterberg

Elvira Madigan - Bo Widerberg

Love And The Frenchwoman (1960)
World Of Jacques Demy - 2003
--------

So, to spark some hope in those titles, here's just a few films that were previously with WellSpring, and are now confirmed with Janus/Criterion:

Breaker Morant - BERESFORD
Bay of Angels - Demy
Lola - Demy
American soldier - fassbinder + the other 15 titles that played recently
Madadayo (1993) - Kurosawa
La Notte -Michelangelo
Claire's Knee + rest of moral tales (1971) - Rohmer
Bed & Board - Truffaut
Confidentially Yours (1983) - Truffaut
Soft Skin (1964) - Truffaut
Two English Girls (1972) - Truffaut
Woman Next Door - Truffaut

Puppetmaster is in dire need of a decent English-friendly release so hopefully Criterion will consider Hou-Hsiao Hsien, and Nostalghia would be a welcome addition unless Kino got there first.

The original negative of Lola was lost long ago and it doesn't look very good in high definition, as the French blu-ray (English friendly) aptly demonstrates. A strange acquisition.

It's very likely if not certain that digital fuckery, not merely the actual conditions of the elements, made the Arte release of Lola look as poor as it does.

Also, there's definitely a real beauty to less than ideal elements that have nevertheless been lovingly and faithfully transferred, as many of BFI's Ozus and Criterion's own Music Room attest. The latter was maybe my favourite transfer they released that year, a glorious tribute to the strengths and frailties of celluloid.

Hell even Stagecoach manages that charm and I believe it's in a far worse situation than Lola.