'Forthcoming' Lists Discussion and Random Speculation Vol.1

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

There was a week-long Zeitgeist sponsored festival here in Seattle a few months back were Umbrellas of Cherbourg screened, along with some other titles they've recently released on DVD (Irma Vep, Guy Maddin's Careful), maybe they have the rights?

Zeitgeist has had the theatrical rights to Cherbourg for at least five years (they were also responsible for the 2004 reissue). The video rights went to Koch Lorber and remain there per KL themselves. There's no reason to think Zeitgeist will be doing their own DVD.

[Jeff]

According to the Mulvaney, there is no Preminger whatsoever on the horizon. Au revoir, Bonjour Tristesse. Adieu, Skidoo

[domino harvey]

That's incredibly disappointing. Sometimes I fell like Criterion's producers are just grown-up versions of the Auteurs-style Criterion fan whose knowledge of cinema is limited by what Criterion's already released.

[solaris72]

Thank you for your email! To the best of my knowledge we do not have any current plans to release "Things to Come" this year.

Now to decide between the R1 from Legend Films or the R2 from Network.

[Adam]

I asked Fincher's DVD producer David Prior via email if they were going to work on a special edition of The Game w/Criterion....well, it seems that they are in discussions/negotiations. I'm somewhat confused by his reply:

We've already had informal discussions about it. We have to wait until someone at the studio really wants it, that way we're in a better position to do it the way we like.

I'm a bit unsure if he's referring to Universal or Criterion when he says "if someone at the studio really wants it". I think he might mean Criterion, as from my talks with him, it would be a similar situation in which Prior would produce the new DVD rather than Criterion themselves and he's mentioned to me that there was difficulty with Criterion with Benjamin Button over the studios relative lack of involvement...I dunno.

Anyways. Interesting answer...The Game looks to be a possibility sometime in the future.

I infer that they want money from the studio to "do it the way we like," and that somehow the title is co-distributed...

[HerrSchreck]

That's incredibly disappointing. Sometimes I fell like Criterion's producers are just grown-up versions of the Auteurs-style Criterion fan whose knowledge of cinema is limited by what Criterion's already released.

They definitely aint what they usedta be.

[Obade]

It's a long standing tradition that Criterion doesn't release Rivette films, regardless of rights issues (though I believe Out 1 has some).

I don't think Out 1 has rights issues, why do you say that?

[Obade]

Anyone interested in Rivette's "Out 1: Noli me tangere", there is a producers' joint venture between France and Germany working to a future DVD release of the movie.

[Dr. Snaut]

That is great news. Where can one find this information?

[kaujot]

I don't think Out 1 has rights issues, why do you say that?

I was under the impression that it did? As I said, I believe that it had some, but then a lot of things I believe are hokum.

[Obade]

That is great news. Where can one find this information?

It's a little anticipation I personally got from Stéphane Tchalgadjieff. It seems there is a collaboration going on between them and Wilfried Reichart, a well-known German critic and journalist. He is a passionate Rivette fan, he interviewed him twice for the WDR (that he has been the head of) and he brought Out 1 to Germany, both Spectre (which has been created for the German TV and broadcasted [in PRIME TIME ] on 1972) and Noli me tangere. That's all I know about this possibility, I hope I'll get soon in contact again with Sunshine to ask some news.

(@kaujot: sorry for my English, I am Italian so I may sound a bit harsh sometimes (and I may misunderstand what I read as well ). Anyway, I believe that nowadays Out 1 has no right issues anymore, since from 1991 Sunshine Films (ex-Sunchild) re-became the rights owner, and Roissy Films owns the international rights).

[kaujot]

Oh don't worry! I'm happy to be corrected about this!

[Doctor Sunshine]

That's incredibly disappointing. Sometimes I fell like Criterion's producers are just grown-up versions of the Auteurs-style Criterion fan whose knowledge of cinema is limited by what Criterion's already released.

Are you sure you didn't want this thread? I kid. If they seem to focus on only a handful of big names at a time it seems to work for two reasons, one, it's always advisable not to blow one's load right away and, two, they can avoid bidding wars or being scooped by other companies by acquiring much of a director's oeuvre at once. First they went through the bulk of Janus' Kurosawa, Bergman and Fellini, then they bought the rights to a lot of Malle and every Ozu film. A business model built on getting burned plenty in the past, no doubt. I guaranty that one day, I'm going to say within the next five years, this forum will be flooded with "Oh god, more Rivette? Did this guy ever make a film under four hours?" and "Is Godard just gonna die already? I've had enough of his late stuff."

[knives]

That's incredibly disappointing. Sometimes I fell like Criterion's producers are just grown-up versions of the Auteurs-style Criterion fan whose knowledge of cinema is limited by what Criterion's already released.

I guaranty that one day, I'm going to say within the next five years, this forum will be flooded with "Oh god, more Rivette? Did this guy ever make a film under four hours?" and "Is Godard just gonna die already? I've had enough of his late stuff."

Something tells me the highlighted portion won't come true, now some more Rohmer is something I'll look to as possible.

[Adam]

That is great news. Where can one find this information?

It's a little anticipation I personally got from Stéphane Tchalgadjieff. It seems there is a collaboration going on between them and Wilfried Reichart, a well-known German critic and journalist. He is a passionate Rivette fan, he interviewed him twice for the WDR (that he has been the head of) and he brought Out 1 to Germany, both Spectre (which has been created for the German TV and broadcasted [in PRIME TIME ] on 1972) and Noli me tangere. That's all I know about this possibility, I hope I'll get soon in contact again with Sunshine to ask some news.

(@kaujot: sorry for my English, I am Italian so I may sound a bit harsh sometimes (and I may misunderstand what I read as well ). Anyway, I believe that nowadays Out 1 has no right issues anymore, since from 1991 Sunshine Films (ex-Sunchild) re-became the rights owner, and Roissy Films owns the international rights).

I helped bring Out 1 to Los Angeles. You are correct. Rights were very simple, through Sunshine. but the soft titles for translations were done & owned by BFI. I guess one could buy those and do whatever is done to encode them as removable subtitles, but i don't know how much that will cost.
Honestly, a high-quality telecine of this 12-hour film that almost no one will buy will almost certainly cost more than any potential revenue. I don't know why anyone would pay for it in this day & age to release on DVD, but would love to be proven wrong.

Oh, by the way, it's just "Out 1" (12 hours) and "Out 1: Spectre" (4 hours). "Out 1: Noli Me tangere" (representing the long version) is a false title that keeps getting spread along.

[Gregory]

They can avoid bidding wars or being scooped by other companies by acquiring much of a director's oeuvre at once. First they went through the bulk of Janus' Kurosawa, Bergman and Fellini, then they bought the rights to a lot of Malle and every Ozu film. ... I guaranty that one day, I'm going to say within the next five years, this forum will be flooded with "Oh god, more Rivette? Did this guy ever make a film under four hours?" and "Is Godard just gonna die already? I've had enough of his late stuff."

Licensed films by Preminger and his ilk are an exception to that pattern, I think, and a special edition of Bonjour Tristesse (with a parallel Blu-Ray release) would provoke about zero complaining. It's a shame Criterion never really got hip to Preminger. They never even released any of his work in the laserdisc days.

[Obade]

That is great news. Where can one find this information?

It's a little anticipation I personally got from Stéphane Tchalgadjieff. It seems there is a collaboration going on between them and Wilfried Reichart, a well-known German critic and journalist. He is a passionate Rivette fan, he interviewed him twice for the WDR (that he has been the head of) and he brought Out 1 to Germany, both Spectre (which has been created for the German TV and broadcasted [in PRIME TIME ] on 1972) and Noli me tangere. That's all I know about this possibility, I hope I'll get soon in contact again with Sunshine to ask some news.

(@kaujot: sorry for my English, I am Italian so I may sound a bit harsh sometimes (and I may misunderstand what I read as well ). Anyway, I believe that nowadays Out 1 has no right issues anymore, since from 1991 Sunshine Films (ex-Sunchild) re-became the rights owner, and Roissy Films owns the international rights).

I helped bring Out 1 to Los Angeles. You are correct. Rights were very simple, through Sunshine. but the soft titles for translations were done & owned by BFI. I guess one could buy those and do whatever is done to encode them as removable subtitles, but i don't know how much that will cost.
Honestly, a high-quality telecine of this 12-hour film that almost no one will buy will almost certainly cost more than any potential revenue. I don't know why anyone would pay for it in this day & age to release on DVD, but would love to be proven wrong.

Oh, by the way, it's just "Out 1" (12 hours) and "Out 1: Spectre" (4 hours). "Out 1: Noli Me tangere" (representing the long version) is a false title that keeps getting spread along.

I know about the subtitle, I still use it sometimes because I'm not sure if people know about it, many people still refer to it as "Noli me tangere"

This subtitle issue is too interesting, I just finished my thesis about this movie and still I couldn't get any precise information about this. I believe that this subtitle wasn't on the can in 1971, I think it has been written on the workprint in 1974 or at least between 1971 and 1974, when Spectre was released, to keep the two versions separated. I spoke to the men at Le Havre who were there at the 1971 screening (Joste and Zarifian), they suggested me that maybe the subtitle has been added after for that reason; Tchalgadjieff and Rivette don't remember anymore, but Thalgadjieff believes I may be correct. There's no material evidence, only their memory. I checked all the interviews, reviews and articles about Out 1 between 1971 and 1974, and there's no mention of the subtitle. It appears just in 1974, so maybe that could be the reason.

Whatever, this phantom subtitle issue is quite ridicolous, almost every essay and dictionary refers to the movie using a wrong title (or better, a phantom one ). I am astonished about this, but it seems that none (among critics and professionals) cares.

[Doctor Sunshine]

Licensed films by Preminger and his ilk are an exception to that pattern, I think, and a special edition of Bonjour Tristesse (with a parallel Blu-Ray release) would provoke about zero complaining. It's a shame Criterion never really got hip to Preminger. They never even released any of his work in the laserdisc days.

Yeah, I don't think they'd ever be able to lock down a golden age American director like they did with Ozu. But crazier things than Bonjour Tristesse have happened, they didn't do any Malick on laserdisc either.

[knives]

Honestly, a high-quality telecine of this 12-hour film that almost no one will buy will almost certainly cost more than any potential revenue. I don't know why anyone would pay for it in this day & age to release on DVD, but would love to be proven wrong.

I agree with you, but playing Devil's Advocate it is entirely possible for them to put out a nice edition of Out 1. Afterall they put out an extremely good edition of Berlin Alexanderplatz and not only is that about three hours longer, but had an additional film with it along with a few extras. If they test the waters first with a few shorter Rivette's and like the results I can't imagine anything from stopping them putting out a nice transfer for Out 1.

[domino harvey]

If they test the waters first with a few shorter Rivette's and like the results I can't imagine anything from stopping them putting out a nice transfer for Out 1.

Well, that's certainly the second-biggest "If" in the history of the label

[bearcuborg]

There are no plans for any Rivette by Criterion.

[Cinephrenic]

There are no plans for any Rivette by Criterion.

Where you get this from? Janus holds the rights to Paris Belongs to Us.

[Tommaso]

I agree with you, but playing Devil's Advocate it is entirely possible for them to put out a nice edition of Out 1. Afterall they put out an extremely good edition of Berlin Alexanderplatz and not only is that about three hours longer, but had an additional film with it along with a few extras.

I hope you're right, of course. But remember that CC basically only took over an existing resto of "Alexanderplatz" from the RWF Foundation, and that resto - not least for monetary reasons - had been in the making for years and only came together because the Foundation managed to get the money for it from a variety of sources, some of them not 'commercial', i.e. the German State and state-governed TV stations. However, Obade's initial post indicates to me that the German-French release of "Out 1" will also have 'official' support; I smell a co-operative release of arte France and Germany (pure speculation, of course). If so, CC could do the same as with "Alexanderplatz" and simply licence the whole thing.

Also remember that the whole film was shot on 16 mm; the image quality will never be as good as that of a normal 35 mm film, so at least theoretically they could put out the whole 12 hours on four, perhaps five discs without great loss of quality, which would make such a box set more cost-effective. I'm still not sure how well it would sell, of course. But "Out 1" has such a mythic quality surrounding it nowadays that I'm sure many libraries considering themselves decent would jump on it, as would each and every Rivette fan, of course. Also consider that not only MoC, but various other companies did release Lanzmann's "Shoah", another very long film that I cannot imagine so many people would want to sit through more than once. Sure, "Shoah" is a very different film which would appeal to many for its theme alone, of course, but still I have the feeling that the pure fact of having such a much-talked about film like "Out 1" on one's shelf would appeal to many.

[Harmonov]

It's been awfully quiet on here the last three days. I assume people are prepping their snarky disappointment responses for today's big announcements...

[Fiery Angel]

It's been awfully quiet on here the last three days. I assume people are prepping their snarky disappointment responses for today's big announcements...

Tax time.