Napoleon

Discuss releases by the BFI and the films on them.

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domino harvey
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Re: Napoleon

#126 Post by domino harvey » Sun Dec 04, 2016 1:53 pm

Was this announced as being a limited edition?

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MichaelB
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Re: Napoleon

#127 Post by MichaelB » Sun Dec 04, 2016 2:00 pm

domino harvey wrote:Was this announced as being a limited edition?
No, they just underestimated demand. But selling out 7,000 copies of a five-hour silent film from 1927 would have seemed like wild fantasy with any other title, with the possible exception of Metropolis.

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Cronenfly
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Re: Napoleon

#128 Post by Cronenfly » Sun Dec 04, 2016 3:00 pm

Glad that I jumped on this relatively quickly, and that it is doing so well for the BFI (I imagine that a more massive amount of effort went into putting this together than the average release, so this must be very pleasing to Kevin Brownlow and everyone else who helped make his happen). Sounds like the reissue will appease those unhappy with the packaging, though it's sad to hear that the booklet will be trimmed a bit.

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Spatulater bro!
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Re: Napoleon

#129 Post by Spatulater bro! » Sun Dec 04, 2016 3:10 pm

I'm very glad I jumped on this, but now I'm concerned about the packaging. Mine is currently on its way from Amazon UK. I'm in the US and I always seem to have bad luck with receiving damaged packaging. And since it's now OOP, I likely won't be able to get a replacement.

For those who own this, how's your packaging?

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bearcuborg
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Re: Napoleon

#130 Post by bearcuborg » Sun Dec 04, 2016 4:05 pm

Mine was shipped squished together like Allison's Cap'n Crunch sandwich in Breakfast club. I guess I could complain, and they'd possibly refund some money. Amazon is usually pretty good about this...

It shipped in the flat cardboard instead of the one that can bend. So it was probably squeezed in there to begin with... So the whole thing was folded at the top and bottom. I tried to bend it the other way...but you know, the crease. My other issue is BFI itself, the info cardboard is taped to the box itself. Which after time, will probably tear away.

The booklet is a great read. I still kick myself for missing the Oakland screening...
Last edited by bearcuborg on Sun Dec 04, 2016 5:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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colinr0380
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Re: Napoleon

#131 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Dec 04, 2016 4:08 pm

I got my copy of Napoleon from Amazon.co.uk on Saturday and it arrived absolutely fine, though mine was packaged in a box (my copy of the BFI's edition of Pioneers of African-American Cinema in the same box was very slightly dented on one corner, but I've never been too concerned about those things).

The set itself is the same height as a Blu-ray but about half an inch or so wider than normal cases. I'm taking this as a sly in-joke nod towards the unorthodox wider ratio of the triptych sequences!

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Jean-Luc Garbo
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Re: Napoleon

#132 Post by Jean-Luc Garbo » Sun Dec 04, 2016 5:59 pm

Is the book being edited down or will content be dropped entirely?

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swo17
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Re: Napoleon

#133 Post by swo17 » Sun Dec 04, 2016 9:06 pm

Maybe the second pressing can move the center panel to disc 3 so that one can seamlessly transition from the movie before that point to the triptych (i.e. not having to take disc 3 out and move it to a player that will display the right panel)?

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tenia
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Re: Napoleon

#134 Post by tenia » Mon Dec 05, 2016 1:48 am

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:Is the book being edited down or will content be dropped entirely?
From what I read so far, the booklet will be reduced to 30 pages, not dropped entirely.

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domino harvey
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Re: Napoleon

#135 Post by domino harvey » Mon Dec 05, 2016 1:51 am

And at least eight of those pages were just full of screenshots pulled from the internet of one-star reviews of Coppola wines

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TMDaines
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Re: Napoleon

#136 Post by TMDaines » Mon Dec 05, 2016 7:46 am

I've just realised this release only has English intertitles... lol, what? Why? That's not like the BFI who even rescued the Dreyer silent.

In terms of availability, I think this is a case where it might be unavailable at wholesale, but there is tons of stock laying around. About a dozen in stock in my local Fopp, for example. Still think Amazon might not be selling it currently because of customers receiving damaged copies. It doesn't take much for them to pull it.

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Black Hat
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Re: Napoleon

#137 Post by Black Hat » Mon Dec 05, 2016 8:33 am

I picked this up on Saturday at London's Fopp and at the time they had lots of copies.

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Ribs
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Re: Napoleon

#138 Post by Ribs » Mon Dec 05, 2016 10:59 am

Back in stock at Amazon

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MichaelB
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Re: Napoleon

#139 Post by MichaelB » Mon Dec 05, 2016 11:16 am

TMDaines wrote:I've just realised this release only has English intertitles... lol, what? Why? That's not like the BFI who even rescued the Dreyer silent.
The Brownlow restoration has always had English-only intertitles. I suspect there may well be contractual reasons for this given how complicated the rights history of this film has been.

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AidanKing
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Re: Napoleon

#140 Post by AidanKing » Mon Dec 05, 2016 12:51 pm

Last week, my local HMV had sold out of the DVD but still had a copy of the BluRay. The HMV website states both are sold out. If you want the full book, you would be best advised to act fast, I think.

It looks as if this has been a major success for the BFI, probably because of the film's reputation, tortuous history and potential appeal to more than just fans of silent film.

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zedz
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Re: Napoleon

#141 Post by zedz » Mon Dec 05, 2016 2:39 pm

AidanKing wrote:Last week, my local HMV had sold out of the DVD but still had a copy of the BluRay. The HMV website states both are sold out. If you want the full book, you would be best advised to act fast, I think.

It looks as if this has been a major success for the BFI, probably because of the film's reputation, tortuous history and potential appeal to more than just fans of silent film.
I put it down to thousands upon thousands of soon-to-be-disappointed Carmine Coppola fans.

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Tommaso
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Re: Napoleon

#142 Post by Tommaso » Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:10 pm

MichaelB wrote:
TMDaines wrote:I've just realised this release only has English intertitles... lol, what? Why? That's not like the BFI who even rescued the Dreyer silent.
The Brownlow restoration has always had English-only intertitles. I suspect there may well be contractual reasons for this given how complicated the rights history of this film has been.
Phew... and just in time when I was about to give this to myself as a Christmas present. I see the point about the contractual reasons, but that's still disappointing. Should I wait for the forthcoming French restoration, then? Most likely that one will be all French and no English subs, though...

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MichaelB
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Re: Napoleon

#143 Post by MichaelB » Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:26 pm

I've never seen it with anything other than English intertitles, so I'm completely unfazed.

Jonathan S
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Re: Napoleon

#144 Post by Jonathan S » Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:26 pm

The BFI/Photoplay Nosferatu has English-only intertitles too, as do the Photoplay versions of La Terre and Le joueur d'échecs, as released on DVD by Milestone.

I believe another factor may be that the Photoplay versions of all four films originated with and received UK TV funding in the Thames Silents series (though La Terre was never televised here and The Chess Player received only an unscheduled broadcast in the middle of the night). Foreign-language sound films were of course regularly broadcast with subtitles, but I understand it was a requirement in the 1980s and '90s that silent films could only be televised with intertitles in one language. Electronic subtitling in those days was often either illegible (the white-on-white effect familiar from old 35 or 16mm prints) or set on black strips which obscured areas of the image.

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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Re: Napoleon

#145 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:39 pm

Tommaso wrote: Should I wait for the forthcoming French restoration, then? .
If you want the Coppola score over the Carl Davis and can wait until the wrangling over structure is resolved then yes.

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zedz
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Re: Napoleon

#146 Post by zedz » Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:45 pm

Tommaso wrote:
MichaelB wrote:
TMDaines wrote:I've just realised this release only has English intertitles... lol, what? Why? That's not like the BFI who even rescued the Dreyer silent.
The Brownlow restoration has always had English-only intertitles. I suspect there may well be contractual reasons for this given how complicated the rights history of this film has been.
Phew... and just in time when I was about to give this to myself as a Christmas present. I see the point about the contractual reasons, but that's still disappointing. Should I wait for the forthcoming French restoration, then? Most likely that one will be all French and no English subs, though...
There's also a good chance that the two restorations will end up being quite different in content / structure (and certainly in terms of the score), with no guarantee that the French one will be superior. From what I understand, even in the abstract there isn't a definitive version of the film, since Gance kept reworking it. I don't even know whether the two restorations are even aiming to reconstruct the same version of the film. If you like Napoleon, you'll ultimately probably want to have both versions.

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tenia
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Re: Napoleon

#147 Post by tenia » Mon Dec 05, 2016 5:09 pm

It shouldn't be the same version at all. Seemingly, the Opera reconstructed should use take from alternate cameras that shouldn't be in the Apollo version (and if they are, there's an historical issue about it).

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Caligula
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Re: Napoleon

#148 Post by Caligula » Fri Dec 09, 2016 10:14 am

Received my copy from Amazon yesterday in the mail. Would get my vote for the crappiest/flimsiest packaging I've seen in a long time. Kinda dampens my enthusiasm for getting into the whole package, now that it's totally squashed

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Ribs
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Re: Napoleon

#149 Post by Ribs » Fri Dec 09, 2016 10:23 am

Yeah, it looks like it must be a really nice-looking set if it wren't squished and bent. I'm still just over the moon to have it but I wish they'd put a little more into making the set sturdier.

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Emak-Bakia
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Re: Napoleon

#150 Post by Emak-Bakia » Fri Dec 09, 2016 11:02 am

Mine shipped on the 19th from Amazon, but still no sign of it in Pittsburgh. I keep telling myself that Asendia is the carrier, so it's going to take an extra week or two, but this has me more anxious than even the wait for the Rivette set (which took three weeks and a day to arrive, the longest I've ever had to wait from shipment to arrival for a package from the UK.) Is there anyone else in the US who pre-ordered from Amazon who has not yet received their copy?

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