Italian Epics

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Ashirg · #1 Post by **Ashirg** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 6:11 am

The Sicilian Clan has been playing often on Fox Movie Channel in widescreen, although dubbed English. Unfortunately, it's not scheduled anytime soon. And, just like Dodgy said, it's a slick crime film with a heist at its center.

Lino · #2 Post by **Lino** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 12:54 pm

I have the Brazilian edition of Ludwig which right now is the one to go but only if you understand German, Italian or Portuguese...

I was very tempted to buy the Italian Medusa DVD but I'm glad I held back because Versatil in Brazil has chosen to include both dubs on their edition unlike the Italian one which only offers its native language as audio choice.

Besides, the Brazilian edition has ported the extras of the Italian one and added some more. Shame about the absence of those English subs for the rest of you out there...

Dylan · #3 Post by **Dylan** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 3:46 pm

From what I recall, very few Medusa releases have English subtitles. Maybe the ones that do are the ones they expect to sell in other territories (though that does not explain the lack of them on "Red Desert" and countless others).

kieslowski_67 · #4 Post by **kieslowski_67** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 4:29 pm

Leone's "once upon a time in America" and "once upon a time in the West" are definitely right there with the best epics you can think of.

Visconti's "Ludwig", although flawed, is very effective. The DP work, costume design, art direction are the best that a Visconti film can offer. Romy Schneider is lovely, and Helmut Berger is a true revelation. This is his best work as an actor, better than his impressive turn in Visconti's "the damned" 3 years earlier.

And if you consider epics as long sagas of life, family, morality, loss, love and/or violence, Visconti's "Rocco and his brothers" and "Sandra of a 1000 nights" definitely fit the bill. More recently Marco Tullio Giordana's 7 hour long "La Meglio gioventu" really impresses me. That is soap opera at its best.

And I also have some special fondness for "La Piovra", a tremendously popular Italian TV series back in the 80s. The police and gangster story rarely gets any better. I believe that it's available on German DVD.

Scharphedin2 · #5 Post by **Scharphedin2** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 2:34 pm

The format is supposed to be correct. Someone from the forum wrote to Infinity, and they replied that it will be in the original aspect ratio (see the LUDWIG thread).

The greater worry is that most of their releases so far have not received very favorable comments either from various reviewers, or from people on this site (various problems with the transfers).

That said, I for one will not be able to help myself, as this is one film that I have wanted to see for such a long long time. Although, reading the above, I am a little curious about the Brazilian release, as I do have a reasonable command of German.