Zeitgeist Films

[patrick]

I finished watching The Draughtsman's Contract last night, I'm pretty pleased with the image quality (especially after seeing the restoration demonstration on the disc). The audio was a bit off though, just because Nyman's score seems much louder than the dialogue - however, that could easily be due to the way it was filmed. Now it's time to watch A Zed & Two Noughts, which I've seen before but am looking forward to revisiting.

[Hopscotch]

Glitterbox? Sheesh. Otherwise - SUPERB! Blue on DVD at last. A good set with great extras, too! Where can I pre-order this?

Very excited.

[jbeall]

Didn't know where else to put this:

Gay, Punk and Ever the Provocateur

WITH each passing year the British artist and iconoclast Derek Jarman seems at once more important and more marginal. His place in history as a pioneering gay filmmaker is secure, but his work remains little seen, and the spirit in which it was made seems further away than ever.

Mr. Jarman died of complications from AIDS in 1994, at 52, and perhaps the time is ripe for reappraisal. “Derek,” a documentary tribute by Isaac Julien that had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, will screen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from June 9 through 16. On June 24 Zeitgeist Films, the distributor that helped introduce Mr. Jarman to American audiences, is releasing “Glitterbox,” a DVD set that represents a cross section of his films: the neo-Brechtian biopics “Caravaggio” (1986) and “Wittgenstein” (1993); the homoerotic reverie “The Angelic Conversation” (1985); and his monochrome valediction, “Blue” (1993), as moving an epitaph as any artist has ever composed for himself.

[Hopscotch]

Here's the inside:

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Here's the inside

I saw that on Amazon and I hope that it's not the final product. They said "box" not "slipcase"! The individual releases are normal cases so I hope this will the same for the Glitterbox. I'm glad to have it, but this is born of my dislike of such packaging for DVDs. I'd rather have sturdier boxes so I can lend the DVDs to friends more safely and easily.

[domino harvey]

What the hell is wrong with DVD studios that they think consumers like horrible packaging like that

[Hopscotch]

Yeah I hate the sleeves too. Fucking Al Gore.

[tavernier]

Fucking Al Gore.

=D>

[Tribe]

The new newsletter commemorating Zeitgeist's Twentieth Anniversary notes that Todd Haynes' Poison and Olivier Assayas' Irma Vep will be re-issued on DVD by Zeitgeist. No time frame for Poison aside from "the near future." "Late 2008" for Irma Vep.

Guy Maddin's Careful will be re-issued in 2009.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Sweet! I was just wondering about both those films the other day. I hope that the estimate for Irma Vep is a firm one. Do you think they'll keep Haynes' original commentary or do a new one?

[dadaistnun]

I could be wrong, but I think Zeitgeist's site originally gave a 2008 timeframe for Poison. The change to "the near future" sounds like it may be delayed.

I'd like to think they would keep the old commentary track, both because it's a good one and because it feature the late Jim Lyons.

[justeleblanc]

Maybe Poison will include some of Haynes's early works.

I'm actually quite happy that Zeitgeist is continuing to pull from the Fox Lorber catalog. Does anyone know a contact email for Zeitgeist?

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

This should help, juste.

[miless]

hmm... maybe they're the ones who ended up with Nostalghia.

[ptmd]

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe they've acquired *any* of Fox Lorber's titles. Irma Vep was a fluke and that's because of a weird arrangement with the licensing, wherein Zeitgeist, who always controlled non-theatrical and theatrical rights, didn't have the video rights and the company in France who did control those sub-licensed a video master to Fox Lorber. Neither Assayas nor Zeitgeist was happy about this (and I got all this from Assayas) which is why they've gone back to properly release everything and, hopefully, do a much better job.

So, unfortunately, since Zeitgeist never had anything to do with Nostalghia, I'm almost certain nothing is happening with them on that front. That's a real shame, of course, because the film, Tarkovsky's best and in my opinion the greatest film of the 1980s (with the possible exception of City of Sadness), urgently needs a proper release.

[justeleblanc]

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe they've acquired *any* of Fox Lorber's titles. Irma Vep was a fluke and that's because of a weird arrangement with the licensing, wherein Zeitgeist, who always controlled non-theatrical and theatrical rights, didn't have the video rights and the company in France who did control those sub-licensed a video master to Fox Lorber. Neither Assayas nor Zeitgeist was happy about this (and I got all this from Assayas) which is why they've gone back to properly release everything and, hopefully, do a much better job.

So, unfortunately, since Zeitgeist never had anything to do with Nostalghia, I'm almost certain nothing is happening with them on that front. That's a real shame, of course, because the film, Tarkovsky's best and in my opinion the greatest film of the 1980s (with the possible exception of City of Sadness), urgently needs a proper release.

Weren't Poison and the two Greenaways Fox Lorber titles as well?

[luridedith]

I really hope we get more Greenaway titles from them. Drowning By Numbers, Prospero's Books and The Baby Of Macon especially need good quality, easily available releases.

[ptmd]

All three of those were always Zeitgeist titles, but those DVDs were from 1999/2000, and they were farmed out to Fox Lorber because Zeitgeist was not doing in-house DVD production at that time. All they are doing now is releasing proper transfers of their own titles now that their own label is going strong. The full list of Zeitgeist's holdings is available on their website here: . It's likely that all of these will get DVD releases at some point (if they aren't out already), although some, like Taste of Cherry, were already sub-licensed to people like Criterion. Zeitgeist has been a reliable distributor for 20 years now and I hope they will continue to pick up risky titles in the future. They're getting a tribute at MoMA this month

Drowning By Numbers, Prospero's Books and The Baby Of Macon especially need good quality, easily available releases.

Drowning by Numbers is a possibility, since the original distributor for that was a small company that has gone bankrupt, but I think it's stuck in rights limbo somewhere. The Baby of Macon has never had North American distribution and Prospero's Books is Miramax...

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

All three of those were always Zeitgeist titles, but those DVDs were from 1999/2000, and they were farmed out to Fox Lorber because Zeitgeist was not doing in-house DVD production at that time.

Poison was always a Zeitgeist title, but The Draughtsman's Contract was originally released by United Artists and A Zed and Two Noughts by Skouras Pictures. All indications are that Zeitgeist only acquired those films within the last year or two -- they're not listed in older versions of Zeitgeist's catalog, there's no mention of Zeitgeist anywhere on the old Fox Lorber discs (unlike the FL Poison), and the press kit from the 2007 reissues refers to the company as "the new home for these landmark films."

[ptmd]

Poison was always a Zeitgeist title, but The Draughtsman's Contract was originally released by United Artists and A Zed and Two Noughts by Skouras Pictures. All indications are that Zeitgeist only acquired those films within the last year or two -- they're not listed in older versions of Zeitgeist's catalog, there's no mention of Zeitgeist anywhere on the old Fox Lorber discs (unlike the FL Poison), and the press kit from the 2007 reissues refers to the company as "the new home for these landmark films."

That's odd, because I seem to remember the print of The Draughtsman's Contract that I showed about 5 years ago coming from Zeitgeist, but perhaps I'm thinking of The Falls instead. It's definitely possible that Draughtsman and ZOO were recently acquired from the BFI, who now control the rights to the early Greenaway films (but not Drowning by Numbers, unfortunately).

In any case, there's still no reason at all to believe that Zeitgeist suddenly has access to titles that used to be controlled by Fox Lorber. The Fox Lorber DVD catalog was made up about 80% of titles that their parent company owned and which eventually became Wellspring titles (many of which are now in limbo) and about 20% of titles that were sublicensed by other distributors who didn't have the ability to make their own DVDs at the time. Poison definitely falls into the latter category.

[Tribe]

Poison was always a Zeitgeist title, but The Draughtsman's Contract was originally released by United Artists and A Zed and Two Noughts by Skouras Pictures. All indications are that Zeitgeist only acquired those films within the last year or two -- they're not listed in older versions of Zeitgeist's catalog, there's no mention of Zeitgeist anywhere on the old Fox Lorber discs (unlike the FL Poison), and the press kit from the 2007 reissues refers to the company as "the new home for these landmark films."

Thanks for linking to the older catalog list. It's interesting that Jarman's The Tempest is a Zeitgeist property. It would be nice if we could see a nice release of this from Zetigeist to replace the dreadful Kino DVD, like we'll eventually see with Guy Maddin's Careful.

[Cronenfly]

DVD Talk on the Jarman set.

[Gary Tooze]

Just to catch anyone prior to ordering ... DVDTalk makes no mention that all 4 transfers are from unconverted PAL sources and are rife with ghosting/combing artefacts. Our own DVDBeaver review will be forthcoming...
Best,
Gary

[What A Disgrace]

Glad I got the BFI discs. They are absolutely stunning. Wittgenstein was the first time I was ever really blown away on my new high-def set.

[Cronenfly]

Just to catch anyone prior to ordering ... DVDTalk makes no mention that all 4 transfers are from unconverted PAL sources and are rife with ghosting/combing artefacts. Our own DVDBeaver review will be forthcoming...
Best,
Gary

Ughh...Missed out on this before my order shipped. Zeitgeist had been doing so well in terms of converting from PAL, too (at least I thought, given their fine Quay/Greenaway ports)... The set's cheaper (thankfully there's at least one positive) than getting all the BFIs/other R2s, but it's still a very unfortunate ball-dropping on the part of Zeitgeist, and it makes me wish I hadn't bothered holding out for R1 releases of these (lower cost be damned).