Kino

[HerrSchreck]

I wasn't taking it out of context, as it simply had no context-- and if anything I was asking very simply for the context, and giving you the opportunity to tell us what it was that you meant. Thus the request for elaboration. There are a good many (silent film fans in particular) who deeply appreciate this label and all they've done for silent film who would be confused by the comment about "taste".

The context was in reference to poor taste in how they handle encodes and as he pointed out he was being somewhat sarcastic and didn't intend for you to pick it apart on a literal level.

That being said, based on the screencap in this thread something clearly is not right with the General BD transfer and considering Kino have been at this for quite some time they should know better than to digitally manipulate titles that are going to be purchased mainly by cinephiles who don't appreciate the application of DNR or EE or whatever is causing those thick black lines. Not to mention that a vastly superior master is out there...

Just because a said company releases obscure or often overlooked titles doesn't mean they are above reproach.

Excuse me there, Blood Pie, I was asking the gentleman who made the remark to explain what he meant. I wasn't asking you for your intention for something you didn't say and had nothing to do with.

Your saying "I think we all know what he meant" to Kerpan is utterly meaningless; 'taste' is defined multiple ways by, say, Princeton, and I still have difficulty ascertaining how any of these definitions of the word plays into byproducts of the extremely tight economics of a company like Kino-- which has no global equivalent of releasing such a vigorous schedule of silent film titles for home video, month after month and year after year. TASTE (def):
•the sensation that results when taste buds in the tongue and throat convey information about the chemical composition of a soluble stimulus; "the ...
•have flavor; taste of something
•preference: a strong liking; "my own preference is for good literature"; "the Irish have a penchant for blarney"
•perceive by the sense of taste; "Can you taste the garlic?"
•delicate discrimination (especially of aesthetic values); "arrogance and lack of taste contributed to his rapid success"; "to ask at that particular time was the ultimate in bad taste"
•sample: take a sample of; "Try these new crackers"; "Sample the regional dishes"
•smack: have a distinctive or characteristic taste; "This tastes of nutmeg"
•a small amount eaten or drunk; "take a taste--you'll like it"
•distinguish flavors; "We tasted wines last night"
•the faculty of distinguishing sweet, sour, bitter, and salty properties in the mouth; "his cold deprived him of his sense of taste"
•experience briefly; "The ex-slave tasted freedom shortly before she died"
•a kind of sensing; distinguishing substances by means of the taste buds; "a wine tasting"
I fail to find correspondence to the technical production of silent films for DVD, and the occasional technicals sacrifices that had to be made when dealing with a foreign sourced master, and any of the definitions above.

That out of the way, in reference to what you said-- you're setting up a straw man. I never said any company is "beyond reproach", nor I daresay has anyone. I was questioning the statement that Kino has not never and cannot ever release a product devoid of some expression-- yet to be ascertained-- of poor taste. In other words every title in their entire catalog contains some expression of poor taste.

I simply pointed out that Kino had greatly improved their transfers on European sourced transfers, to the degree where their editions are superior in some cases to the PAL editions, which you would imagine would have the home court advantage of native standard for the digibeta. I'd remind everyone that these PAL/NTSC issues plague any company (Milestone, Eureka, Image, Kino, Janus) releasing silent films from sources outside of their own native standard, especially before the days of HD transfers.

As far as replacing original intertitles, they have indeed begun balancing their needs as a distributor where they need to strike prints for the cinema where common audiences want to see intertitles in their own native language as was done during the actual silent era, i e reproduce the original theatergoing experience, and the desire to listen to folks buying for serious home video libraries who want as much original material from the preservation reels as possible, who want to see the original print's intertitles when they exist. Smaller boutque labels who have no need to correspond to the theatrical circuit are free of this concern. But you'll agree that Kino is not different from Flicker Alley, another fabulous label for silents, who must produce video for American television/TCM, and therefore balance the needs of USA television exhibition. It's a quandary between the general market and the hardcore that plagues CC with the issue of pictureboxing their transfers for common folks with tube televisions.

[Sloper]

As far as replacing original intertitles, they have indeed begun balancing their needs as a distributor where they need to strike prints for the cinema where common audiences want to see intertitles in their own native language as was done during the actual silent era, i e reproduce the original theatergoing experience

I was about to express surprise over the idea that the theatre audience for silents today prefer English intertitles to foreign ones with subtitles, but on second thought - every time I show someone a foreign silent, they always ask, 'Why not just replace the intertitles with English ones?' It seems weird, because these same people would object if a foreign film were dubbed...

I'm afraid, though, that I really don't put much store in this 'reproducing the original theatregoing experience' thing, at least not in this instance. By that logic, we'd see mutilated or inferior versions of foreign classics (Hollywood often treated epics like the 1925 Les Miserables in much the same way they did von Stroheim's films, apparently), and have really lousy, incomplete subtitles on sound films, as on current editions of Rome, Open City and The Adversary (both dismissed as unwatchable on this very forum). I understand there's a commercial reason for replacing intertitles, but as far as 'taste' is concerned, for my money it's not an aspect of the original experience worth reproducing.

[Blood Pie]

I wasn't taking it out of context, as it simply had no context-- and if anything I was asking very simply for the context, and giving you the opportunity to tell us what it was that you meant. Thus the request for elaboration. There are a good many (silent film fans in particular) who deeply appreciate this label and all they've done for silent film who would be confused by the comment about "taste".

The context was in reference to poor taste in how they handle encodes and as he pointed out he was being somewhat sarcastic and didn't intend for you to pick it apart on a literal level.

That being said, based on the screencap in this thread something clearly is not right with the General BD transfer and considering Kino have been at this for quite some time they should know better than to digitally manipulate titles that are going to be purchased mainly by cinephiles who don't appreciate the application of DNR or EE or whatever is causing those thick black lines. Not to mention that a vastly superior master is out there...

Just because a said company releases obscure or often overlooked titles doesn't mean they are above reproach.

Excuse me there, Blood Pie, I was asking the gentleman who made the remark to explain what he meant. I wasn't asking you for your intention for something you didn't say and had nothing to do with.

Your saying "I think we all know what he meant" to Kerpan is utterly meaningless; 'taste' is defined multiple ways by, say, Princeton, and I still have difficulty ascertaining how any of these definitions of the word plays into byproducts of the extremely tight economics of a company like Kino-- which has no global equivalent of releasing such a vigorous schedule of silent film titles for home video, month after month and year after year. TASTE (def):
•the sensation that results when taste buds in the tongue and throat convey information about the chemical composition of a soluble stimulus; "the ...
•have flavor; taste of something
•preference: a strong liking; "my own preference is for good literature"; "the Irish have a penchant for blarney"
•perceive by the sense of taste; "Can you taste the garlic?"
•delicate discrimination (especially of aesthetic values); "arrogance and lack of taste contributed to his rapid success"; "to ask at that particular time was the ultimate in bad taste"
•sample: take a sample of; "Try these new crackers"; "Sample the regional dishes"
•smack: have a distinctive or characteristic taste; "This tastes of nutmeg"
•a small amount eaten or drunk; "take a taste--you'll like it"
•distinguish flavors; "We tasted wines last night"
•the faculty of distinguishing sweet, sour, bitter, and salty properties in the mouth; "his cold deprived him of his sense of taste"
•experience briefly; "The ex-slave tasted freedom shortly before she died"
•a kind of sensing; distinguishing substances by means of the taste buds; "a wine tasting"
I fail to find correspondence to the technical production of silent films for DVD, and the occasional technicals sacrifices that had to be made when dealing with a foreign sourced master, and any of the definitions above.

That out of the way, in reference to what you said-- you're setting up a straw man. I never said any company is "beyond reproach", nor I daresay has anyone. I was questioning the statement that Kino has not never and cannot ever release a product devoid of some expression-- yet to be ascertained-- of poor taste. In other words every title in their entire catalog contains some expression of poor taste.

I simply pointed out that Kino had greatly improved their transfers on European sourced transfers, to the degree where their editions are superior in some cases to the PAL editions, which you would imagine would have the home court advantage of native standard for the digibeta. I'd remind everyone that these PAL/NTSC issues plague any company (Milestone, Eureka, Image, Kino, Janus) releasing silent films from sources outside of their own native standard, especially before the days of HD transfers.

As far as replacing original intertitles, they have indeed begun balancing their needs as a distributor where they need to strike prints for the cinema where common audiences want to see intertitles in their own native language as was done during the actual silent era, i e reproduce the original theatergoing experience, and the desire to listen to folks buying for serious home video libraries who want as much original material from the preservation reels as possible, who want to see the original print's intertitles when they exist. Smaller boutque labels who have no need to correspond to the theatrical circuit are free of this concern. But you'll agree that Kino is not different from Flicker Alley, another fabulous label for silents, who must produce video for American television/TCM, and therefore balance the needs of USA television exhibition. It's a quandary between the general market and the hardcore that plagues CC with the issue of pictureboxing their transfers for common folks with tube televisions.

And despite your response and your semantic argument I still knew exactly what he meant as it was in direct response to the speculation of a picture posted in this very thread not a few posts back. Thats all the context anyone following the last few pages of this thread needs (besides the fact that the poster did clarify what he meant). I don't need a dictionary and a thesis statement from the original poster to understand his statement was directly correlated to the possibility of EE or another form of digital manipulation being visibly apparent on the general BD release and how it was tied to the greater history of Kino and their lackluster practices.

[nsps]

It's not good for no other reason that "it's not the MK2"? It's a pristine transfer that's been struck from the original camera negative, that has obviously been fully restored, shows no damage whatsoever.. so what does the fact that they've encoded a blu from their own HD transfer from last year's SD have to do with anything?

While I wasn't the one who brought it up initially—and in fact was completely confused as to why anyone would expect Kino to release the MK2 HD transfer when their own HD transfer is more recent—I do feel obliged to clarify my opinion on the matter since I the chimed in on the differences between Kino and the MK2.

So, to be clear: The Kino transfer (prior to any BD processing that hopefully isn't overdone) is indeed pristine. It has crisp detail and is in the top percentile of silent film transfers. I would not hesitate to pick up the BD (or the DVD if you don't have it and aren't going Blu any time soon). It's simply gorgeous.

However, I do take issue with the statement that it "shows no damage whatsoever." Yes, it is taken from the original negative and yes, the image is fantastic, but watch the first couple minutes of Kino and the MK2 DVDs (I don't know if what further adjustments were made for the Blu-ray). On the Kino, you'll see MINOR scratches and even decay—including at least one rather mangled frame in the opening sequence—and you won't see any of that on the MK2. Some might rather see any scratches that were present on the extant source, in which case the Kino is the way to go. These are not reasons to avoid the Kino, which probably contains more detail from its source than the MK2.

Also, if you're curious, back when the Kino first came out, I wrote this comparison between the two DVD editions. I personally prefer MK2's black-and-white version to Kino's tinted one, but consider both to be worth owning. And hey, you only have one choice if you want to watch The General in HD on your home theater.

[Tribe]

I'm afraid, though, that I really don't put much store in this 'reproducing the original theatregoing experience' thing, at least not in this instance. By that logic, we'd see mutilated or inferior versions of foreign classics (Hollywood often treated epics like the 1925 Les Miserables in much the same way they did von Stroheim's films, apparently), and have really lousy, incomplete subtitles on sound films, as on current editions of Rome, Open City and The Adversary (both dismissed as unwatchable on this very forum). I understand there's a commercial reason for replacing intertitles, but as far as 'taste' is concerned, for my money it's not an aspect of the original experience worth reproducing.

This is an issue that's far away from the tenor of this discussion regarding Kino's taste, or lack thereof, but it's worth talking about, I think. While there is something to be said about reproducing the original viewing experience or displaying a movie according to the wishes of (an often long dead) the creator, there is such a fine line that it can end up as merely just appealing to some undefined purist. For example, tinting or colorizing a movie that was intended to be displayed is something that everyone can agree goes way beyond just subtly manipulating an image to enhance viewing. On the other hand, replacing intertitles has never appeared to be that big of a deal to me, especially when its conceivable that creators expected intertitles from the original language to be replaced by intertitles in the native language wherever a particular movie was to be eventually viewed. The same goes for scores associated with silent films.

I'm not certain I'm accurate in my asumptions however.

[HerrSchreck]

As far as replacing original intertitles, they have indeed begun balancing their needs as a distributor where they need to strike prints for the cinema where common audiences want to see intertitles in their own native language as was done during the actual silent era, i e reproduce the original theatergoing experience

I was about to express surprise over the idea that the theatre audience for silents today prefer English intertitles to foreign ones with subtitles, but on second thought - every time I show someone a foreign silent, they always ask, 'Why not just replace the intertitles with English ones?' It seems weird, because these same people would object if a foreign film were dubbed...

I'm afraid, though, that I really don't put much store in this 'reproducing the original theatregoing experience' thing, at least not in this instance. By that logic, we'd see mutilated or inferior versions of foreign classics (Hollywood often treated epics like the 1925 Les Miserables in much the same way they did von Stroheim's films, apparently), and have really lousy, incomplete subtitles on sound films, as on current editions of Rome, Open City and The Adversary (both dismissed as unwatchable on this very forum). I understand there's a commercial reason for replacing intertitles, but as far as 'taste' is concerned, for my money it's not an aspect of the original experience worth reproducing.

Why? It's not an equivalent situation to dubbing. Subtitling subtracts from what is on the original subtitles in some cases, and can be hard to read due to text-over-text problems against a dark background. Why simplify and truncate sentences down at the bottom of the screen when you can reproduce them in full without text-over-text confusion? We're talking the average theatregoer here.

There is an acting performance that's lost when a film is dubbed-- that's something organic to the film, even if the viewer doesn't understand the language, that goes out the window. When you see a film in the cinema, you don't "own" the intertitles; they can't be gone over again and again with a rewind/freeze function where a scholar who doesn't speak the language can translate with a lexicon over time. They go by once and are gone-- the person just wants to see the film; there's no Study Aspect involved. But subtitling involves sacrifices, especially for very wordy silent films, in cramming text that must fit down in a limited space at the bottom of the screen, and therefore be truncated, with fragments flashed over a limited amount of time until the whole card's gist is rendered, where full literary expression can be lost. In some cases a replaced intertitle provides a fuller, more true and complete translation. This is why silent films were never subtitled-- in cases where there were multilingual cards, the cards were divided equally with fonts slightly resized and repositioned, so that the texts of both languages were given equal weight. It wasn't "subbing"-- they were simply dual intertitles. Many of the silent films we love so much were meant to be true children of the world, with more effort put into the foreign editions to impress the huge US market.

When silent films were prepared, texts in all languages were prepared beforehand, so there is nothing inorganic being added to the film. Half the films you see nowadays-- especially for restored films-- involve recreated subtitles anyway, since flash titles are usually what remain on preservation negs. So even intertitles in the language of the home market of the film must be electronically recreated. So when taking it up onscreen in a country that has very few non-English speaking residents, why not recreate the intertitles the author of the film prepared for that market? They are going to be reading that translation to the exclusion of all else when they go see it in the cinema anyhow. The originals in this specific case merely serve to reduce legibility by forcing the trans down into the margin as little subs, which are often truncated, and remain on screen for fleeting periods as the sentences must be divided in two and three parts and flashed by in fragments to fit into the time of the original single card with larger letters.

And again, it's a given anyway that we here don't prefer intertitles from the non-home country of the film. But, like the pictureboxing issue, distributors must reckon with the majority, which is far less esoteric about this.

But I'll tell you one thing-- I'd rather go to the movies and see a Kino print of say Caligari with English intertitles the way it was viewed in the US upon original release, than see a film at the Anthology with no subs at all, and a piece of paper handed out with the translations printed on the paper that I have to try to follow along with in the dark. With my first viewing I want to take in the film and vanish into the world it creates: I don't want to be distracted by translation issues. Home video is the place I want to pick a film apart, note differences between versions, nuance between region's cards, etc.

And despite your response and your semantic argument I still knew exactly what he meant as it was in direct response to the speculation of a picture posted in this very thread not a few posts back. Thats all the context anyone following the last few pages of this thread needs

It's not semantic, it's a question-- the tough economics of releasing silent films has nothing to do with "good" or "bad" "taste". This is why not only me but the founder of the forum, Matt, and Michael Kerpan, and myself are saying that "taste" has nothing to do with it. This is where the confusion lies, as this isn't how the word is used. Those who look beneath the surface of the production situation for a house that specializes in silents know that this is not a matter of taste, it's a cruel fact of life that's not unique to Kino (Milestone has the same problem with all of their Channel 4/BBC silents, which are their PAL-sourced library titles).. and therefore try to at least compliment them as they manage to improve themselves in this very difficult zone of production.

It is in fact you who are wholly expressing your distaste for Kino, for whatever reason. A majority here, including DVDBeaver, myself, Michael Brooke from Sight & SOund and the BFI, find the BD of The General stunning and want to salute a good job and own what they consider an exemplary product. You want to take this occasion to, rather than congratulate Kino for releasing the first silent film in R1 with a wonderful edition, express your long term DIStaste for Kino-- a distaste which I'd imagine you extend to most other small-house producers of silents, since these tight-budget/small-market byproducts plague their releases as well. As should be obvious to anyone, companies like Kino and Milestone and Flicker Alley and Eureka would love to be able to have had larger budgets and native transfers for all of their non-home-standard releases. Taste doesn't play into it.

[Tribe]

But I'll tell you one thing-- I'd rather go to the movies and see a Kino print of say Caligari with English intertitles the way it was viewed in the US upon original release, than see a film at the Anthology with no subs at all, and a piece of paper handed out with the translations printed on the paper that I have to try to follow along with in the dark.

This is actually done? Expecting spectators to read the translations off of paper during the movie?!?

[Michael Kerpan]

This is actually done? Expecting spectators to read the translations off of paper during the movie?!?

Well -- in the Kerpan family theater (so to speak), this is how we originaly watched most Studio Ghibli films (in the era prior to the DVD release of these movies). ;~}

I wouldn't mind intertitle translations that retained the typographic and decorative aspects of the original inter-titles. But newly translated inter-titles are so often drab and boring looking.

[cinemartin]

But I'll tell you one thing-- I'd rather go to the movies and see a Kino print of say Caligari with English intertitles the way it was viewed in the US upon original release, than see a film at the Anthology with no subs at all, and a piece of paper handed out with the translations printed on the paper that I have to try to follow along with in the dark.

This is actually done? Expecting spectators to read the translations off of paper during the movie?!?

This is how I first saw Renoir's Nana. An extremely disagreeable experience that definitely had an effect on how I felt about the film. It took DVD for me to finally appreciate it.

[Tommaso]

What I don't quite understand in this discussion is the following: Kino are preparing the films for both theatrical and dvd release;thus they obviously have to cater for the demands of the normal cinema-goer, as Schreck says. But before they can do that, they must receive a master from elsewhere, say, FWMS. That master supposedly has the original or recreated German intertitles. What speaks against preparing a version for theatrical release with replaced titles and nevertheless releasing the original FWMS-supplied master with subs on dvd (and they could of course use the text of the translated cards as the basis for the subtitle files)? Is that really so much more expensive? Or another possibility, used by divisa on some of their discs: use seamless branching, which gives you either the original cards or the translated ones. Worked perfectly on their "Faust" disc, for example.

We talked about this many times, of course, and Schreck's point about many seemingly 'original' cards being already electronic recreations is valid. But it's not the fact that they are electronic recreations or not which is important for me, but to have the possibility to read the original texts; all texts suffer in translation, some less, some more (like those of Lubitsch films, believe me). And although Kino of course have to cater to the US market and are officially only allowed to sell their discs in the US and Canada, I still believe that there are many people in the US who are able to read at least a little German, or Italian, or French, or Chinese, especially if my preconception that many people in the US come from families who once immigrated from said countries isn't totally off the mark; and at least people with such a background might want to read the titles in a language that they in fact can read.

[HerrSchreck]

But I'll tell you one thing-- I'd rather go to the movies and see a Kino print of say Caligari with English intertitles the way it was viewed in the US upon original release, than see a film at the Anthology with no subs at all, and a piece of paper handed out with the translations printed on the paper that I have to try to follow along with in the dark.

This is actually done? Expecting spectators to read the translations off of paper during the movie?!?

Yep-- try watching something with really obscure intertitles to begin with, like Dovzhenko's Zvenigora. I saw that at the Anthology in this fashion and it was a major Ugh..

What I don't quite understand in this discussion is the following: Kino are preparing the films for both theatrical and dvd release;thus they obviously have to cater for the demands of the normal cinema-goer, as Schreck says. But before they can do that, they must receive a master from elsewhere, say, FWMS.

What I don't quite understand in this discussion is the following: Kino are preparing the films for both theatrical and dvd release;thus they obviously have to cater for the demands of the normal cinema-goer, as Schreck says. But before they can do that, they must receive a master from elsewhere, say, FWMS. That master supposedly has the original or recreated German intertitles. What speaks against preparing a version for theatrical release with replaced titles and nevertheless releasing the original FWMS-supplied master with subs on dvd (and they could of course use the text of the translated cards as the basis for the subtitle files)?

The fact is, and what we've been acknowledging here today, is that Kino are doing this for some of the films that are better known and will enjoy a larger market (Potemkin, Nosferatu).

The answer is probably obvious: money. One winds up being the source for the theatrical print, so the english beta has to be maintained individually. I think? It involves processing and maintenance of two digital masters-- one with english intertitles to strike the theatrical print from, and one with German titles plus subs to compress/author-encode a DVD from. There's man-hours involved for sure, I don't know if there's any difference in licensing costs for an quote unquote English Version with the add-on for the German version with english subs (sub-timing and authoring is a bitch and costs money).

But they have been doing it on the more profitable titles, anyway.

And Tom, no, even here in a melting pot like NYC, beyond Latino's and people with immigrant parents (who are not old world Europeans like French, Dutch and Germans) people are not bilingual... and few would really look to double-read a subbed title card in the limited time of it's spooloff anyhow.

[nsps]

But I'll tell you one thing-- I'd rather go to the movies and see a Kino print of say Caligari with English intertitles the way it was viewed in the US upon original release, than see a film at the Anthology with no subs at all, and a piece of paper handed out with the translations printed on the paper that I have to try to follow along with in the dark.

This is actually done? Expecting spectators to read the translations off of paper during the movie?!?

Yep-- try watching something with really obscure intertitles to begin with, like Dovzhenko's Zvenigora. I saw that at the Anthology in this fashion and it was a major Ugh..

Sounds like quite the drag. I've been at screenings where someone reads the translations out loud, but never one where I've had to read a piece of paper in a dark theater.

[HerrSchreck]

Sounds like quite the drag. I've been at screenings where someone reads the translations out loud, but never one where I've had to read a piece of paper in a dark theater.

People seem to be 50/50 on that (i e the way the Japanese once did)-- most famously with Kalat/All-Day's release of La Chute de la maison Usher, with Jean P Aumont reading the French intertitles aloud in English trans when they appear. They're such cool looking intertitles it's kind of nice not to see them marred by subs. But it definitely takes getting used to. What saves that edition is the sublime Rolande de Cande score, the best I've ever heard for a silent.

[Michael Kerpan]

The Japanese benshi (narrators) did not just read the dialogue of films (domestic and foreign) but kept up an almost non-stop running commentary -- though there was also musical accompaniment. ;~}

[nsps]

There's not much aesthetic debate in the case of the screenings I attended, as they were projections of non-subtitled prints. So there wasn't really much of an alternative—other than reading a piece of paper in the dark, of course. The quality of the reader definitely makes a difference, though.

It might make for an alternate option on a DVD with original intertitles, though—regular audio with subtitles of VO audio reading the intertitles without.

[Sloper]

It's not an equivalent situation to dubbing. Subtitling subtracts from what is on the original subtitles in some cases, and can be hard to read due to text-over-text problems against a dark background. Why simplify and truncate sentences down at the bottom of the screen when you can reproduce them in full without text-over-text confusion? We're talking the average theatregoer here. There is an acting performance that's lost when a film is dubbed-- that's something organic to the film, even if the viewer doesn't understand the language, that goes out the window.

I knew I should have qualified my statement that replacing intertitles is like dubbing: I realise it isn't nearly as damaging to the experience, but would basically echo what Tommaso said a few posts back about the importance of the text. I have just about enough knowledge of European languages (especially French) that I can get something out of the original intertitles, and even with a language I'm not very familiar with, such as German, I can sometimes see that the translation has simplified or omitted something, or even just that the word order was more elegant in the original text. No specific examples spring to mind, I'm afraid - there's Michael of course. But think of a few English-language films: imagine how much you would lose if you had to watch The Kid Brother or The Crowd with translated intertitles. The words are often very important, and sometimes not much less important than the images, so if you replace them with different ones you absolutely are adding something inorganic (if I haven't misunderstood you here, Schreck) to the film. Yes, as Tribe says those writing the intertitles knew they would be represented differently in different countries - so do poets and novelists today, but that doesn't mean you don't irreparably lose something in translation, just as you do if a film is dubbed. One of my favourite writers, Ishiguro, deliberately tries not to write anything in his novels which will not be understood by other cultures, since he knows his work will be translated into so many different languages. To anyone who cares about the text, that process of translation, inevitable as it is, is a painful one, and I think a lot of intertitles were written with great care, simply on the textual level.

Yes there is an argument for saying that replacing the original intertitles but reproducing their style, as with Caligari, actually gives a better impression of what the 'original' film was intended to look like, and I absolutely agree that subtitles can and do detract from what is on screen. But at the same time the pictorial effects possible with German words are not necessarily possible with English ones - so often what can be said in one word in one language takes up a nice long sentence in another. Again, I can't really think of any good examples, but just take a look at the Eisenstein silents and you'll see lots of really striking, bold intertitles that just wouldn't have the same impact if the words expanding and revolving on the screen were anything but Russian.

I realise I'm preaching to the converted here, and I do acknowledge that, for the average cinema-goer, these concerns might not be so important, and of course I sympathise if Kino has to make certain decisions for commercial reasons.

And I take your point that there's less of a 'Study Aspect' involved in the cinema, as opposed to the home video experience, though even there I'd prefer (as a rule) to see the original text subtitled. Reading from a piece of paper does indeed sound like a nightmare.

[Tommaso]

The fact is, and what we've been acknowledging here today, is that Kino are doing this for some of the films that are better known and will enjoy a larger market (Potemkin, Nosferatu).

Yes, and these are precisely those that are available on dvd even in the silent wasteland that Germany is. Which leads me to surmise (pure speculation) that it might not just be the costs of processing two masters that might keep Kino from releasing other films with the original titles, but perhaps indeed, as you seem to indicate, also contractual prohibitions; FWMS/Transit might not want Kino to release other films with the original titles for fear or them being imported back to the German-speaking countries, or at least they would want to charge a higher licensing fee for films with original titles (though that would only make sense if these films had a German release, which they haven't in most cases). And I may be totally mislead here, as the example of MoC and Divisa shows. But it would be good to know (from Nick perhaps?) whether it is indeed more expensive to license a film from FWMS if you want to release it with the original titles.

And Tom, no, even here in a melting pot like NYC, beyond Latino's and people with immigrant parents (who are not old world Europeans like French, Dutch and Germans) people are not bilingual... .

Makes me really sad to hear that... at least among those friends I have here, there's a wide variety of second languages that they know at least a little; some speak French, others a little or even quite good Russian, one even a little Japanese; and they all speak English, and none of them has immigrant parents or so. Basically similar to what Sloper just wrote. Believe me, I'm not mentioning this to indicate any sort of European superiority or something, but this apparent difference is quite striking and surprising to me.

I can sometimes see that the translation has simplified or omitted something, or even just that the word order was more elegant in the original text.No specific examples spring to mind, I'm afraid - there's Michael of course. But think of a few English-language films: imagine how much you would lose if you had to watch The Kid Brother or The Crowd with translated intertitles.

Absolutely, that's why I mentioned Lubitsch's Berlin silents in my first post; once the titles are not in standard German or English, when they use slang or regional expressions, they become more or less untranslatable in terms of 'feeling', unless you have a literary genius doing the work. There's also the difference between 'high' and 'low' language, which can be far easier bridged in English than in German; that's why it's such a pain if you have to read a Pynchon novel in German; the language (though 'correctly' translated) simply doesn't convey the original feeling and the fun anymore. Admittedly, most silents don't pose problems like that, and if it's a Swedish or Norwegian film, I also don't care very much for translated or original titles, so there's certainly a little selfishness here. But then, it's always good to have at least the option to read the original text.

[ptmd]

This is actually done? Expecting spectators to read the translations off of paper during the movie?!?

As someone who once worked at Anthology, I feel obliged to step in here and point out that these were prints acquired as part of the Essential Cinema (a repertory program that was originally supposed to keep the great classics of international cinema screening year round) more than forty years ago at a time when subtitled versions of many of these films simply were not available. Bringing all of these prints from different international sources together was one of the major achievements of Anthology in the early days and they have helped to keep some of these films "in circulation" even in situations where rights have changed hands or distributors have folded (there was a period where Anthology was just about the only place one could see films like Au Hasard Balthazar in the US). Intertitle lists are handed out, but the assumption is *not* that one would read the translation during the film, but simply have that to refer to later. There are some notable exceptions - Soviet silents, some surrealist and expressionist films, etc. - but by and large, I think titles are almost completely irrelevant to the experience of watching a silent film, or should be if the film is any good (which is why so many talented directors tried so hard to minimize them). I will agree that it makes it hard to follow films like Zvenigora, but that's the exception that proves the rule.

The idea in the case of some of the sound films (mainly early Ozu, Renoir, and Dreyer) is that the absence of subtitles would make it easier to concentrate on the images and sounds. This is definitely true and while watching films like this can be frustrating initially, it helps free one of over-dependence on dialogue and can actually be a far richer experience. Again, there are exceptions, but it's well worth trying to watch films without subtitles sometimes, especially in a theater.

As far as Kino goes, all of this discussion of edge-enhancement, etc. is totally legitimate, but I think many people are far too harsh on the company, which is a small operation that has done an absolutely invaluable service to North American film culture over the past thirty years simply by making good prints of films like The General available to cinemas, universities, and film societies, as well as the home video market. Frankly, while their technical standards aren't anywhere near as impressive as Criterion's, their releases are often much bolder (who else would put out so many silents?).

[Ben Cheshire]

As far as Kino goes, all of this discussion of edge-enhancement, etc. is totally legitimate, but I think many people are far too harsh on the company, which is a small operation that has done an absolutely invaluable service to North American film culture over the past thirty years simply in making good prints of films like The General available to cinemas, universities, and film societies, as well as the home video market. Frankly, while their technical standards aren't anywhere near as impressive as Criterion's, their releases are often much bolder (who else would put out so many silents?).

That's an excellent point; we have received so many obscure silents that we will never see in more technically satisfing versions, because they wouldn't have been worth the risk to Masters of Cinema, MK2 or Criterion.

And yes of course many people before me on this thread have been too harsh on Kino; but hey, its fun. Seriously, they're putting the General out on BD and have left dirt on the transfer. Yes, Kino are valuable: they're the first to release the earliest silent on blu ray(as of this writing)... Its just that it happens to be one of the most visible silents, that I know MK2 will eventually put out as well, so its bound to suffer by comparison to theirs.

[nsps]

How sure are we that MK2 is eventually going to put The General out on Blu-ray? Sure, it's the fantasy Blu-ray I've been masturbating to, but let's not kid ourselves that even the most major of silent titles are automatic Blu-ray releases. Hell, every time a 30-year-old movie comes out we see articles about how, hey, it turns out old films can look good on blu-ray too! Not too mention all the questions like, "Hey, this movie's old, it couldn't have been SHOT IN HD!" ](*,)

Kino's disc will almost surely contain THE best-looking tinted version of the film available as well as the 5.1 mix of the Carl Davis score, which is widely considered to be the best accompaniment recorded for the film. Licensing the Davis score was a major hassle and expense for Kino, and not one MK2 felt compelled to bother with. The HD transfer looked great on the DVD last year, and it will most surely look great on Blu-ray.

If you aren't compelled to buy this disc, I'm certainly not out to force you to do so. But I would encourage everyone to at least give it a good look-over before skipping it. When Kino and other companies explore the possibilities of more silent Blu-rays, does anyone believe that the success or failure of this release won't be taken into account?

[whaleallright]

I think titles are almost completely irrelevant to the experience of watching a silent film,

I would raise an objection to this. A title-free silent cinema was the ambition of a few directors and theorists in the late 1920s (resulting in a very few films without titles), but the vast majority of silent films from the mid-1910s forward had a considerable number of titles -- expository, dialogue, etc. -- that are as essential (or more) to a basic understanding of narrative, character, tone, etc. as subtitles would be for many films today. Just to take one example, the clever, punning titles written for American silent comedies are an essential part of the experience of those films. Anyone who has had to analyze a print of a silent film that's missing titles will recognize how much the films relied upon them.

The suspicion or marginalization of titles seems to be a carry-over from the neo-Kantian aesthetic program of silent-era aesthetes, who wished for a "pure" cinema of images. This program was openly defied at the time by Carl Dreyer's JEANNE D'ARC, and it's been dismantled in any number of ways by directors and theorists in the decades since. But versions of this purism persist, in the avant-garde in particular. I don't doubt the continued inspiration of such ideas on filmmakers, and we might profitably argue about whether title-less films are somehow "better" than those with titles, but to insist that titles are "irrelevant" to watching most silent films is profoundly ahistorical -- and misguided as a curatorial policy, in my view.

I hope I didn't misunderstand your point, making a mountain out of a molehill as a result..

[Ben Cheshire]

Original intertiles are great if you speak the language; Harold Lloyd's titles were always beautifully illustrated, as are the ones in the movietone Sunrise. Those on The General have a nice wood-grain finish, for intance.

[Gregory]

From what I've seen (mostly silents), Kino has improved in the last few years, but I still notice a serious problem here and there. The Sjöstrom discs from last year are a good example. Ingeborg Holm was so zoomed-in that there are times when the title character drifts totally out of the viewing area when she's supposed to be positioned the edge of the frame. In other instances, actors' heads are all but completely cut off at the top of the frame. I was surprised I didn't see more comment about this on the forum. To squelch any suspicions to the contrary, I have a projector setup with no overscan. The other Sjöstrom, A Man There Was, has already been described in detail as the blunder that it is by those on the forum who regularly post about silents, so I won't get into that again -- but it is another example.
Again, they have improved, and I'm really grateful, because with the exception of them, Flicker Alley, and the occasional Milestone, R1 is a wasteland for silents. With a third volume of Experimental Cinema coming this month, it's as hard as ever to overstate the company's importance.

[Blood Pie]

Didn't Kino strike their own master for the DVD which is the same master the BD is encoded from?

[ptmd]

I would raise an objection to this. A title-free silent cinema was the ambition of a few directors and theorists in the late 1920s (resulting in a very few films without titles), but the vast majority of silent films from the mid-1910s forward had a considerable number of titles -- expository, dialogue, etc. -- that are as essential (or more) to a basic understanding of narrative, character, tone, etc. as subtitles would be for many films today. Just to take one example, the clever, punning titles written for American silent comedies are an essential part of the experience of those films. Anyone who has had to analyze a print of a silent film that's missing titles will recognize how much the films relied upon them.

The suspicion or marginalization of titles seems to be a carry-over from the neo-Kantian aesthetic program of silent-era aesthetes, who wished for a "pure" cinema of images. This program was openly defied at the time by Carl Dreyer's JEANNE D'ARC, and it's been dismantled in any number of ways by directors and theorists in the decades since. But versions of this purism persist, in the avant-garde in particular. I don't doubt the continued inspiration of such ideas on filmmakers, and we might profitably argue about whether title-less films are somehow "better" than those with titles, but to insist that titles are "irrelevant" to watching most silent films is profoundly ahistorical -- and misguided as a curatorial policy, in my view.

I hope I didn't misunderstand your point, making a mountain out of a molehill as a result..

Jonah, my comment may have been a bit baldly stated and I don't really disagree with what you say here, but I also don’t think the actual content of intertitles is indispensable in the vast majority of cases. I’ve watched dozens of silent films with original or substitute intertitles in languages I can’t read – Chinese films with Chinese intertitles, John Ford films with Czech intertitles, Griffith films with Russian ones, etc. – and I’ve never felt like I was missing anything. Filmmakers like Griffith and Ford do such a good job conveying all the tonal and narrative information in the images themselves that the intertitles basically just function as breathing space or punctuation, and watching the films with intertitles one can’t read helps drive home how totally redundant they are in most cases. On the other hand, I am definitely not in favor of simply removing the intertitles Langlois-style, that can do real damage to the rhythmic shape of a film and also eliminates the design aspect of the intertitles (which is sometimes more important than the actual text).

What I am saying is that not having the intertitles translated on screen is not necessarily a problem. Only a small handful of prints were ever made with subtitled intertitles in the first place, and many of those were made by specialized distributors in the last thirty years, so unless a company like Kino or Flicker Alley or a national archive like the DFI has committed the resources to a subtitled DVD release, original prints (which sometimes have replacement intertitles in the language of the host country) are still the only way to see most silent films. I have arranged a screening of a beautiful complete print of Tih Minh at Yale in a few weeks and since that film was never translated at all, we will just be running it (at the proper speed) with the original French intertitles and providing a synopsis and subtitle handout for those who want to consult it later. The only other option would have been to arrange for live vocal translation, which I find extremely annoying because it often gives things a campy flavor and it always shifts the balance away from the images and towards the spoken text.

In the case of Anthology, the prints are doubly historical – first, because they were taken directly from the original negatives or from nitrate prints (which is why, despite the scratches, most of them still look surprisingly good after all these years) and second, because the whole Essential Cinema project is a testament to the position you mention in your second paragraph. The program traces a particular aesthetic trajectory that runs from the Lumieres through the landmarks of the silent/early sound era and up to the works of Brakhage, Markopoulos, Snow, etc. There is an internal unity to the cycle that helps makes the lineage many of the 1960s/70s avant-gardists aligned themselves with clear. Obviously, this is a special case and I am delighted that it is now possible to see many of these same films on prints and DVDs with English-subtitled intertitles, but I am never against any venue showing a good print with intertitles in a foreign language. MoMA used to do this all the time for prints outside their own “circulating film” library and they still do when the opportunity presents itself (just last week, they ran an excellent print of Ingeborg Holm with the original Swedish intertitles, accompanied only by a four sentence synopsis).

This an important aspect of film culture that is too easily forgotten in the DVD era and it is often more "historical" than attempts to reconstruct versions of films that may never have existed in the first place. To give a concrete example, of a film Anthology included in the Essential Cinema, there’s nothing authentic about watching Vertov’s One Sixth of the World with English intertitles or even English subtitles, because it was never distributed internationally and was only seen by audiences outside the Soviet Union in the 1960s. Obviously, every case needs to be dealt with individually and I am very much looking forward to the subtitled Editions Filmmuseum Vertov DVD set next year, but there is also no reason to stop screening prints that only have the original Russian intertitles.