Luis Buñuel on DVD

[AlexHansen]

The mention that Las Hurdes is also coming excited me. Finding out that Microcinema previously had plans to release it in late 2007 or early 2008 tempers that excitement a bit.

[Awesome Welles]

The disc is available for pre-order if anyone gets it please report back!

[L.A.]

There's an Australian release of Un chien andalou which also includes Las Hurdes.

[Yojimbo]

I'm just about to watch 'The Great Madcap' which just arrived yesterday.
Although I don't expect premium Bunuel, neither did I have high expectations for 'Susana', which I absolutely love, so here's hoping

[Yojimbo]

I disagree about this being minor Bunuel. Perhaps I'm biased -- I actually enjoy Bunuel's Mexican output as a whole much more than his earliest and latest works. But Susana is a film I can watch endlessly. It's charming and, I think, note-perfect in its portrayal of the reform school girl come to wreck the peaceful rancho by seducing anyone with a scrotum. I think it's a great doublefeature with El Bruto, as Susana and Katy Jurado's character in that film share certain affinities as lustful creatures. Also, I think it's interesting to see Bunuel's characterizations of the elderly in both films -- the slumlord's practically diapered dad in Bruto, and the dicho-spouting housekeeper in Susana. This film is especially about the subversion of order and even when order is seemingly restored, there's more subversion in the subtext.

Again, I highly recommend it to fans of epoca de oro Mexican cinema, Bunuelophiles and Russ Meyer fans. Ok, maybe they'll find it tame. But I dig it.

Speaking as a member of that exclusive club, I heartily concur: Bunuel is deliciously wicked and playful in this one: and its bookended by wonderful beginning and concluding scenes

[Yojimbo]

I agree Susana is far from minor. Among other things she becomes a catalytic agent who plays off labor and capital - and the way Bunuel embeds politics into his great Mexican pictures (Illusion Travels, etc) is wildly more sophisticated than the dominant play of political themes in the mid fifties French pics, notably La Fievre Monte a el Pao.

Speaking of Mexican Bunuel does anyone else have a soft spot for Abismos de Pasion? Along with the Rivette it's surely the best Wuthering Heights around. And light years ahead of the Wyler.

I studied the novel in school and was hugely disappointed by Kiju Yoshida's version, although I'll certainly be watching out for the Bunuel, whatever about the Rivette

[tavernier]

Microcinema is releasing Le Mort en ce Jardin in R1 on October 27.

Available for the first time on DVD! The DVD was created using a newly restored print!

Special Features
- Restored picture and sound plus new and improved subtitles
- Audio commentary by film scholar Ernesto R. Acevedo-Munoz
- New video interviews with actor Michael Piccoli and film scholar Victor Fuentes
- Booklet featuring essays by Javier Espada, Juan-Luis Buñuel and Susan Hayward
- New and improved English subtitle translation

[Revelator]

Here's the link to Microcinema's listing: http://www.microcinemadvd.com/product/D ... arden.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Can't wait to see it--part of my interest is that Raymond Queneau contributed to the script. A hell of a team-up!

[echopark_dweller]

Here is the trailer for Death in the Garden. It looks pretty clean.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Luis-Bunu ... 931?ref=mf

[Revelator]

DVD Beaver has put up an overall good review of the screener: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDRevie ... garden.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
You can preorder the DVD from Amazon for $17--I did so today.

[Perkins Cobb]

So ... it's in the wrong aspect ratio, and it's an improper PAL->NTSC conversion. How is that good exactly?

[Michael Kerpan]

So ... it's in the wrong aspect ratio...

Where do you get this notion? (Not in the DVDBeav review, so far as I can tell).

[zedz]

I can see there's a lot of headroom in most shots, but it looks to me more like a case of the film being shot with two ARs in mind, and in that case I'd much rather the transfer erred on the side of openness. The shot with the truck in it would certainly suffer from a wider AR. The caps look pretty great to me.

[Perkins Cobb]

Actually, that is in the DVD Beaver review about the aspect ratio ... but you're right, I'm foolish to refer to it with that as my only source.

[Fiery Angel]

IMDB lists the aspect ratio as 1:37.1, FWIW.

[Michael Kerpan]

Actually, that is in the DVD Beaver review about the aspect ratio ... but you're right, I'm foolish to refer to it with that as my only source.

As I recall the DVDB review calls the ratio used the proper one -- or did that get edited at some point?

[zedz]

Actually, that is in the DVD Beaver review about the aspect ratio ... but you're right, I'm foolish to refer to it with that as my only source.

As I recall the DVDB review calls the ration used the proper one -- or did that get edited at some point?

Yes, it's been edited to add that somebody claims 1.66 is the correct ratio. To me it looks like a good instance of cinematographic bet-hedging, but I'm skipping town before another no-win aspect ratio argument arises.

[GringoTex]

Yes, it's been edited to add that somebody claims 1.66 is the correct ratio. To me it looks like a good instance of cinematographic bet-hedging, but I'm skipping town before another no-win aspect ratio argument arises.

Wasn't VistaVision the only format using 1:66 in 1956?

[GringoTex]

Thanks, Dave.

[zedz]

The ever-reliable David Hare!

My understanding is that 1.66 was always much more common in Europe than the US, particularly through the 60s and 70s, and I've seen a lot of European films from the period misframed at 1.85 because projectionists were unwilling or unable to mask to 1.66.

[MichaelB]

The ever-reliable David Hare!

My understanding is that 1.66 was always much more common in Europe than the US, particularly through the 60s and 70s, and I've seen a lot of European films from the period misframed at 1.85 because projectionists were unwilling or unable to mask to 1.66.

Barry Lyndon was famously/notoriously in 1.66 - and Kubrick made a point of ringing up cinemas in advance and sending them compatible 1.66 masks if they weren't already equipped to show it properly.

[patricio00]

I'm amazed nobody has released a reputable copy of Él/This Strange Passion on DVD. For my money along with Exterminating Angel, it is among the greatest of Buñuel's Mexican period films, and yet it is one of his least known works. I saw it in 35mm in Mexico about 6 or 7 years ago, and the print was quite spectacular showcasing Gabriel Figueroa's crisp photography (it was a Figueroa festival); I think it was in even better shape than the Exterminating Angel dvd from Criterion.

[Ashirg]

It was released in France and Spain (NTSC and region 0), but is out of print now. Here's DVD Beaver review from the olden days.

[patricio00]

I bought a copy that was released in Mexico two years ago by "Z Films", saw about four minutes of it and threw it away. Probably the worst dvd transfer I have ever seen.

[der_Artur]

There's a good German DVD of Él, too. Alas, only subtitled in German.