Claire Denis on DVD

[Gregory]

I asked this yesterday in another thread:

I've put off buying Trouble Every Day for years, being unsure how to choose from what's available. Looks like the Panorama might be the only DVD still in print. Can anyone tell me if it's anamorphic (or at least OAR?) and uncut? Decent picture quality?

Normally I wouldn't ask again, but it seemed like the original question was quickly blown away during a shitstorm.

[oh yeah]

Not sure if anyone's interested, but apparently Trouble Every Day was released on R1 DVD in 2014 by something called KimStim which I'd never heard of before. I have the disc now and the transfer is certainly good, if not outstanding. No ghosting or the like, that I can see. Elegantly packaged, at the least. Oddly, though, the spine doesn't even bear the title on it: only "A Film by Claire Denis" or whatever.

Anyway I'm getting into Denis big-time again after finally watching the copy of Les salauds which I had lying around for ages -- loved it. Along with Trouble, I picked up Vendredi soir (the Wellspring), Nénette et Boni (the Strand disc), and 35 rhums (Cinema Guild). I've seen the latter but not the former two, so I'm looking forward to them. I adore Denis' much-vaunted sensuality, and judging from what I've read and seen of Vendredi it looks particularly beautiful. I also own L'intrus (Wellspring; my favorite Denis at the moment), and Beau travail (the New Yorker disc, ugh -- though at least it's a marginally better transfer than, say, their desecration of The Wind Will Carry Us, which I sold a while ago).

One of my greatest dreams is a Criterion Beau, though really a nice release of most of her pre-rhums work would be very welcome. While getting these Denis flicks I was also browsing through Jia Zhangke's works which are available on R1 and was appalled at how poor quality almost all seemed from dvdbeaver caps, not to mention unusually over-priced. It's a shame how so much foreign art cinema (especially Asian and the less trendy Euro films) inevitably gets relegated to mediocre-at-best Wellspring/Strand/Fox Lorber/New Yorker releases, if they're released at all. I suppose this has been largely righted with Claire's last few films, but I suspect only because she's built up enough critical buzz over the years to be welcomed with open arms now; more subversive and unfamiliar and culturally Other-ized filmmakers don't stand much of a chance.

Still have yet to see J'ai pas sommeil, Chocolat, White Material, and S'en fout la mort...

[criterionsnob]

I've also been rewatching Denis' films, while reading this book. I somehow missed that there is a French DVD of S'en fout la mort, which has long been a film I've tried to track down. Denis' storytelling is so visual that it didn't matter to me that there aren't subtitles on the disc. I'd highly recommended it to fans of her work, as I doubt it will become available elsewhere (I'm guessing the cock fighting sequences are problematic for a release in other countries).

[whaleallright]

The great "lost" Denis film is one she made for French TV, US Go Home. It's as good as anything else she did in that part of her career, maybe better. However, it uses a ton of Anglo-American pop music (The Troggs, Otis Redding, Nico) so it's unlikely that it will ever be cleared for home-video release anywhere.

Fortunately, it is available--for the moment--in that black hole of copyright enforcement, You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dc1bbbfbIA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

[zedz]

The great "lost" Denis film is one she made for French TV, US Go Home. It's as good as anything else she did in that part of her career, maybe better. However, it uses a ton of Anglo-American pop music (The Troggs, Otis Redding, Nico) so it's unlikely that it will ever be cleared for home-video release anywhere.

Fortunately, it is available--for the moment--in that black hole of copyright enforcement, You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dc1bbbfbIA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

It's a really great film (along with several others from that series), and the first thing I saw by her (after Chocolat, which was nice enough but didn't blow me away) that made me realize that she was a truly important filmmaker. Has anybody here ever seen her feature length music documentary Man No Run?

I can't help Gregory with his query, since I don't have that edition, but now I want to see the shitstorm!

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

The French dvd of Trouble Every Day features a commentary between Denis and Agnes Godard.

[Oedipax]

The French dvd of Trouble Every Day features a commentary between Denis and Agnes Godard.

Wow, thanks for the tip, I never knew this. Already own the R4 edition but I'll keep an eye out for this one should it pop up used somewhere...

[kubelkind]

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but Trouble Every Day is available on a German blu
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Vincent-Gallo/dp/B0B1C1PMXJ

German subs only. I confess, I wasn't sure what to make of this and wondered if it was an upscale, so I sampled a copy from backchannels (which has English subs appended) and it looks pretty great (example: I'd only seen it on my shoddy Tartan DVD before, and had never noticed that the "flashback" sequences seem to be shot on 16mm). I'll wait until I find out if anyone has an English-friendly version in the works before I pick this up, but the picture quality here is a vast improvement. (Of course, most of the film is in English anyway, and dialogues are minimal, but, you know...)

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Rapid Eye Movies (the German distributor) did a 4K remaster under Godard's supervision. It's showing here in Austin this weekend, but I don't know if they booked it from a U.S. distributor or if they worked with REM as they've done with some other recent screenings (Underwater Love, Space Is the Place).

[beamish14]

Rapid Eye Movies (the German distributor) did a 4K remaster under Godard's supervision. It's showing here in Austin this weekend, but I don't know if they booked it from a U.S. distributor or if they worked with REM as they've done with some other recent screenings (Underwater Love, Space Is the Place).

The Film Desk still holds the North American rights. I’m not sure as to whether or not they’ll give it a home video release themselves. Like with Michael Roemer’s Vengeance in Mine, they appear to just have theatrical distribution and no plans for video