484, 1203 Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968–1978

[kekid]

Why is Amazon not shipping this item?

[furbicide]

I just got a notification this morning that the shipping of my preorder had been delayed indefinitely – same story for you?

[kekid]

They asked me to approve the delay if I still wanted the item. They wrote that the delay was due to supply chain problems.
After I approved I got no further communication.

[mhofmann]

Saw a few screencaps of these. No surprises : the non Dielmann discs are over-filled, AVBs are around 20 Mbps, and the encodes are typical crap Pixelogic LEGO-vision.

Yeah, that was my first impression as well. Criterion doesn't learn

[tenia]

That sucks...I guess I'll hold on to my Dielmann and see if someone else releases the rest of the restorations. Surely there must be a UK or EU label who will do that.

I can only hope so, and it'll hopefully will be someone who works with an authoring house who doesn't already crap the bed at 30 Mbps but is trusted to handle correctly 4K restorations at 20 Mbps (and might be willing to go with an additionnal disc to avoid this situation altogether to begin with).
Some movies look like they have a thicker look originally, so the encode isn't challenged on these, but anything finer (4K-OCN based like) is a LEGO-vision fest. It reminds me of what happened with the Varda set. What a shame that such a premium label like Criterion can't premiumize this.

Jeanne Dielman is a new encode though, but I doubt it makes much difference.

[nicolas]

That sucks...I guess I'll hold on to my Dielmann and see if someone else releases the rest of the restorations. Surely there must be a UK or EU label who will do that.

I can only hope so, and it'll hopefully will be someone who works with an authoring house who doesn't already crap the bed at 30 Mbps but is trusted to handle correctly 4K restorations at 20 Mbps (and might be willing to go with an additionnal disc to avoid this situation altogether to begin with).
Some movies look like they have a thicker look originally, so the encode isn't challenged on these, but anything finer (4K-OCN based like) is a LEGO-vision fest. It reminds me of what happened with the Varda set. What a shame that such a premium label like Criterion can't premiumize this.

Jeanne Dielman is a new encode though, but I doubt it makes much difference.

A disaster as expected. Criterion just doesn't care any more for a significant audience base - ours. They barely did in the past, too but this set is an insult to those that buy physical media because of the quality improvements compared to streaming. Their business practice is despicable to put it mildly, saving money and effort where it hurts the most. Imagine what Fran / Radiance would have done with this...
The streaming versions may even look better all in all. I may check out the Apple stream of one of the films just to get a brief look.
When looking at a set like this, it hurts quite a bit that they're sitting on so many incredible licenses.

I already made peace with the fact that the Jean Eustache films probably won't look much better but thankfully Carlotta comes to the rescue.

[pistolwink]

Can someone summarize the visual (and audio?) problems with the transfers/encodes in jargonless language?

[TechnicolorAcid]

Can someone summarize the visual (and audio?) problems with the transfers/encodes in jargonless language?

I think they’re saying the encode makes the image look a bit pixelated.

[tenia]

Yes, the film grain turns into chunky pixelated blocks instead of finer grain as it should.

[A Tempted Christ]

The screencap for Le 15/8 on DVDBeaver perfectly demonstrates that. It looks really bad. Funnily, the exact same shot appears on Akerman Foundation's website. It's in lower resolution but should give you an idea of how it's supposed to look.

[senseabove]

Have not seen the set myself, but it should also probably be noted that, with thick 16mm grain, I'd expect a poor encode is much more visible in motion, which means just pointing to a cap won't demonstrate how egregious the problem is.

[hearthesilence]

The screencap for Le 15/8 on DVDBeaver perfectly demonstrates that. It looks really bad. Funnily, the exact same shot appears on Akerman Foundation's website. It's in lower resolution but should give you an idea of how it's supposed to look.

It's especially bad if you glance off to the sides when comparing those caps (and resizing them to match). It's similar to some of Criterion's worst-looking Blu-rays where I'd be watching the faces but I can't help but notice the constantly shifting Tetris-like phantom island that keeps forming out of the surrounding pixels.

[pistolwink]

Those still images don't look all that different to my flawed eyes, except that the Criterion seems higher contrast. But as senseabove points out, if there's pixelation in the blacks, I suppose that will be more evident in motion.

[furbicide]

They asked me to approve the delay if I still wanted the item. They wrote that the delay was due to supply chain problems.
After I approved I got no further communication.

I just got an email with a new delivery timeline – it's now 23 Feb to 18 March. A fair wait, but at least it's still coming!

[kekid]

They asked me to approve the delay if I still wanted the item. They wrote that the delay was due to supply chain problems.
After I approved I got no further communication.

I just got an email with a new delivery timeline – it's now 23 Feb to 18 March. A fair wait, but at least it's still coming!

I got an email stating that I should expect it Feb 6-11.
We still don't know what caused this disruption.

[olmo]

They asked me to approve the delay if I still wanted the item. They wrote that the delay was due to supply chain problems.
After I approved I got no further communication.

I just got an email with a new delivery timeline – it's now 23 Feb to 18 March. A fair wait, but at least it's still coming!

I got an email stating that I should expect it Feb 6-11.
We still don't know what caused this disruption.

Demand? I ordered direct from Criterion and it has already been delivered to my US carry forward address.

[Captain Paranoia]

Has anyone seen this Blu-Ray release to Jeanne Dielman?

https://store.potemkine.fr/dvd/35450200 ... l-akerman/

[furbicide]

In related news, I just saw this on Facebook from French label Capricci, about the new Toute une nuit restoration:

Good news: the film will join our Akerman retrospective, in theaters and on Blu-ray boxset, scheduled for this fall!

Nothing is on their website about this as of yet, but this is the same label that brought out the edition of Jeanne Dielman linked in the post above, and that does indeed, per the listing, have English subtitles. Fingers crossed this set (which already sounds amazing regardless) will be the same!

Edit: searching around the Capricci site, I did find this:

https://capricci.fr/wordpress/agenda/

September 25:
CHANTAL AKERMAN RETROSPECTIVE (cycle 1)

October 23:
CHANTAL AKERMAN RETROSPECTIVE (cycle 2)

I believe that's referring to the screening schedule rather than Blu-ray release times, but still might provide some indication on timelines and maybe how they're planning to package the Blu-ray set/s when it does come out.

[tenia]

That's indeed referring to the theatrical rereleases. No precise date for the boxset except "Fall 2024".

[furbicide]

For those who are familiar with these things, is it plausible that a Blu-ray set would come out so soon (i.e. November at latest) after a theatrical retrospective in late September / late October? It seems to me that there's usually a gap of several months or more.

The text above was auto-translated (apologies, I didn't even notice that myself before posting it here), so it's possible some nuance may have been lost and "Fall 2024" was referring to the screenings only. Here's the original text in French:

Bonne nouvelle : le film intègrera notre rétrospective Akerman, en salles et en coffret Blu-ray, prévue pour cet automne !

[tenia]

I actually didn't use this post to get the Fall 2024 for the BD set, but a post on dvdclassik talking specifically about the BD set (though it might have been sourced on the same Facebook post ).

I've seen video sets arriving that soon after a theatrical re-release. It depends on the rightholdings' contracts (some rightholders specifically ask for a fixed timeline and exclusivity windows), on whether the overall project is on time, etc etc.
But I think I recall, for instance, re-releases from Carlotta appearing a couple of months only after the theatrical re-release.
And in the case of Akerman, Jeanne Dielman is already out on BD through its recent re-release (single and through the Seyrig Arte Boxset), and it's arguably the biggest title anyway.

[furbicide]

Interesting, thanks! I saw this follow-up post on the DVDClassik forum:

Oui c'est annoncé depuis des mois, ce sera un coffret très complet avec plein de suppléments, dont les 2 disques de Jeanne Dielman.

What do you think they're referring to by "très complet" – as in, all of her films? Or just everything related to Toute une nuit?

I went searching and found this on Capricci's Twitter page, in response to a query about Les rendez-vous d'Anna:

Le film ressort au cinéma le 25 septembre, restauré en 4K, dans le cadre d'une grande rétrospective Chantal Akerman ! Il y aura une édition Blu-ray en fin d'année.

Oh, and found this, which seems to suggest that the box set and theatrical release may be simultaneous (in September):

https://twitter.com/CapricciFrance/stat ... 3205162264

[AxeYou]

re. the Capricci Blu-ray of Jeanne Dielman...:

This DVDClassik review, though scant on details, compares it favorably against the 2017 Criterion BD.

Interestingly, the listings on Amazon and Potemkine, as well as on blu-ray.com, all have the aspect ratio at 1.77:1 as opposed to the original 1.66. But the caps on DVDClassik are all in 1.66:1 (1794 x 1077 px), as is Capricci's trailer.

Does anyone have this release to confirm the picture quality and aspect ratio?

[tenia]

There is no reason to doubt Classik caps, so if they're 1.66, the disc is. Since they mention it's using the same restoration than the Criterion BD, it's logical it's also sharing the same AR.
I'm not sure if they're comparing the Capricci BD that favorably to the Criterion BD, though. They're mostly observing the movie has a higher AVB (28.2 Mbps vs 20.4 Mbps), but they don't say if that yields a noticeably better encode.

[Captain Paranoia]

I found this on the BFI page of the forum:
https://www.screendaily.com/news/bfi-di ... 78.article

(I'm surprised that BFI or any other distributor didn't release at least Jeanne Dielman on DVD in the UK at some point, but I'm looking forward to what BFI would do with a Blu-Ray release).