Criterion & Eclipse Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on Vol.4

[klee13]

They're missing his umlaut.

Perhaps they maxed out on their monthly umlaut allowance with the Kaurismäki set.

[Jeff]

Apparently I missed the first one.

From the The Great Umlaut Debate of 2006:

About the spelling of "Ophuls". In his remarkable study on Ophuls that he published in 1963 (Collection Cinéma d'Aujourd'hui), Claude Beylie devotes a whole chapter to the question of the way the name "Ophuls" should be spelled. He was born Oppenheimer in Germany, took the pseudonym "Ophuls" and then became french. He always considered himself as french with a french name and did not want the german "umlaut" to appear in the spelling of his name. Beylie says he even had it erased from the opening credits of Le Plaisir, where the ghost trace of the "umlaut" is still visible. So, it should by spelled "Ophuls" and not "Ophüls", once and for all. If it doesn't make such a difference to us, to him, apparently it did.

[domino harvey]

Ophuls covers are whatever, the Eclipse set's color scheme is good but they've gone back to the horrid small pics in the middle of white space arrangement

[Tom Hagen]

From the The Great Umlaut Debate of 2006:

In his remarkable study on Ophuls that he published in 1963 (Collection Cinéma d'Aujourd'hui), Claude Beylie devotes a whole chapter to the question of the way the name "Ophuls" should be spelled.

An excellent reminder that wildly excessive discussion of film-related minutea and tangents existed long before the advent of the internet.

[mfunk9786]

$39.95 per single disc film? I really hope those Ophuls films are going to be offered in a boxset... especially because the uniform artwork will lend itself to a nice one.

Kind of an underwhelming month.

[domino harvey]

Kind of an underwhelming month.

That's putting it mildly. Probably the worst release month of the year so far. And to think I was fondly recalling the September of two years ago in anticipation...

[tavernier]

Just think of it as easier on the wallet...just the Ozu for me.

[Cinephrenic]

I too have a fucking problem with pink and it has nothing to do with Peter Sellers or Aerosmith. Those color schemes of Eclipse are ghastly horrible, plain and simple.

[hammock]

I too have a fucking problem with pink

It's most likely the after effects of "Viridiana"!

[mfunk9786]

Not to start a firestorm or anything, but if they announced that they were simply making the original Viridiana coverart available for purchase (for those comfortable with their own sexuality), it'd be more exciting than anything else announced this month put together.

[tholly]

I'll add my 2 cents and say that I think it looks really good. The pink works well.

[psufootball07]

Ophuls covers are whatever, the Eclipse set's color scheme is good but they've gone back to the horrid small pics in the middle of white space arrangement

Yeah you need a super zoom lens to see the pictures on the Eclipse box.

[mfunk9786]

Especially with the fact that it's all white space, it just looks like an incomplete collage or something. Really a let down, because the cover looks great.

[TheGodfather]

The Ophuls covers look gorgeous and I will be getting them but it`s indeed a kind of underwhelming month on the titles.
I was getting my hopes up high for the release of Last Year In Marienbad. Guess we`ll have to wait another month...

[exte]

The Max covers are maybe the best I've ever seen for a dvd...

[mfunk9786]

Actually, the more I think about them, the more disappointed I am in them. If they weren't going to release the films as a box set, why go with the same art scheme for all of them? It seems counter-intuitive being that each film is its own seperate entity.

[jbeall]

Why not? They've done it before with multiple releases from the same director:

Dassin's Night and the City and Thieves' Highway
Dassin's Brute Force and The Naked City
Malle's The Lovers and The Fire Within
Ichikawa's Fires on the Plain and The Burmese Harp
the Yojimbo and Sanjuro re-releases...

There might be more, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

[mfunk9786]

These covers lack the individual personality of each film that those covers had. They just look like generic wealthy people trading cards.

[justeleblanc]

Anyone have an idea on how much the box would have cost, and how much they saved by not having a box? I assume it's not a negligible amount, being that Eclipse's box is pretty minimal, partly to save costs.

But then, are these films really related? I mean, as an Eclipse box they could be called "Late Ophuls" but for Criterion, they aren't a BRD trilogy or anything like that. They are just three films made around the same time by the same director.

And I love rich people trading cards.

[mfunk9786]

Well, the Varda box with 4 films was $100, but they didn't have commentaries. So for these, maybe $80-100 for 3 films with commentaries (and therefore a higher price point in general?) It definately wouldn't have been a $120 dollar set, which is what they're cost if purchased seperately.

EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that I am a huge dope, and totally misunderstood what question was being asked. I'm going to just leave my original reply up to keep myself humble.

[Cronenfly]

Cover art for An Autumn Afternoon (towards the center of the press release).

You can also get a look at the Essential Arthouse Vol. 1 covers (small) towards the bottom of the page.

[Cinephrenic]

Don't like the Ozu cover.

[cgray]

Really don't like the Ozu cover.

Not because it's trying to be courageous (or edgy, or ...) and fails, but because it doesn't seem like it's trying to do anything. Pretty boring. Looks like an amateur scrapbook page. I wish they would have used fancy scissors for the cutouts, at least.

[jon]

That is a jumbled mess. Perhaps a redesign is what is taking Criterion so long to post the Ozu cover on their site, though I doubt it.

[oldsheperd]

That's kind of cool that you can get stripped down versions for I would imagine 15 to 17 bucks if you look.