Criterion Blu-ray

[matrixschmatrix]

There are at least a few DVDs- here I am thinking of Fishing with John, but there are probably others- where the chance of a blu has to be practically nil.

[knives]

The OOPs(specifically the SC titles) of course won't be upgraded and as mentioned certain titles like the Golden Age boxset and Fishing with John really can't be upgraded. That still leaves about fifteen years for the entire catalog though.
EDIT: okay, I did a quick look through and based on what's presently OOP and what can't be upgraded(I believe Berlin Alexanderplatz comes from a 16mm source so however unlikely it is I counted it as a possible upgrade) that leaves 356 titles to upgrade. Assuming they average 2 titles per month or 24 each year that means it will take exactly 14.8333... years(otherwise known as 2026) to upgrade all possible titles not counting those that were published after Bottle Rocket.

[zedz]

In response to swo: I'm charitably assuming that the greater rate of upgrades recently has been due to titles that are ready being moved up to fill the gap made by one or two substantial new titles that have been delayed. We'd normally have had at least one box set announced by this point of the calendar year. This could all be a flow-on effect of the massive effort that must have gone into the BBS box.

[aox]

I know people will cite something like Robinson Crusoe on Mars (further research has shed light onto why something this unseemly was upgraded), but I still think it is fair that something like Boarder Radio isn't going to be upgraded at least until 2026. There are probably 50-100 like films that can be deducted from that 356 number.

/supposition]

[captveg]

There are at least a few DVDs- here I am thinking of Fishing with John, but there are probably others- where the chance of a blu has to be practically nil.

Hoop Dreams, shot on SD video, is also incredibly unlikely.

[Cinephrenic]

When they cease the DVD format, I can see them increasing the output of upgrades to Blu. There are still people buying DVD's? Really? 8-[

[sleepy]

When they cease the DVD format, I can see them increasing the output of upgrades to Blu. There are still people buying DVD's? Really? 8-[

I'd think Bluray region coding is making a lot of international people having to stick with DVD's. Their numbers may not be that big at all to have an effect to anything, though. . .

[swo17]

In response to swo: I'm charitably assuming that the greater rate of upgrades recently has been due to titles that are ready being moved up to fill the gap made by one or two substantial new titles that have been delayed. We'd normally have had at least one box set announced by this point of the calendar year. This could all be a flow-on effect of the massive effort that must have gone into the BBS box.

I just had a sobering thought--of the five(?) boxsets we got last year, I'm pretty sure we knew about all of them coming at least a few months before they were officially announced. Do we know of any boxsets currently on the docket? The only things that come to mind are the rumored World Cinema Foundation set and possibly a Vigo set, but I'm not entirely convinced by the evidence for those.

[domino harvey]

Gorin

[movielocke]

How can you have a Vigo set when he did one fiction short, one fiction feature and two doc shorts (one of which is already in the collection)? I suppose Mishima/Patriotism is a similar situation, but even that would seem excessive when all of Vigo would easily fit on one DVD, not even needing a second disc since L'Atalante is so short.

Though perhaps Criterion isn't really planning any new sets (though there is the youth 'trilogy' from Oshima) and are rather planning on upgrading some of their top selling sets to bluray? I suppose another Ozu double feature could be in the cards, or a second Golden Age of Television set. A David Lean set is perhaps possible as well. and Gorin seems possible as well.

Maybe criterion will forego any mainline sets for the rest of 2011 and give us eclipse sets for seven consecutive months (May-November)? I'd actually prefer more eclipse releases to more mainline sets since there's a huge swath of material I'm constantly hoping for in the eclipse line.

[zedz]

Swo, that was really a shameless set-up for domino to play his catchphrase.

I don't think there's been any indication whether or not Vigo would be a box set, L'Atalante with extras, or paired releases of L'Atalante and Zero de conduite, but the latter two seem as likely as the first one to me. The WCF films were definitely mentioned as a box set prospect early on, but since all has gone silent on that front since then, who knows? And the early Oshimas certainly sound like a box, but I don't recall whether there's ever been a whisper one way or the other on those from Criterion - maybe only the background buzz of random speculation.

Oh, and Out 1, obviously. This June, for sure.

[fdm]

There still is the possibility of the Pasolini trilogy...

[swo17]

All I meant by a Vigo box was the possibility of both L'atalante and Zero de conduite, but yeah, they could both fit on one disc.

[onedimension]

If Criterion maintain their current upgrade pace (about 38 titles over two and a half years, by a quick count) of approx. 15 titles per year, it will take them another 27 or so years to get around to all of the pre-Blu titles, by which time all of the present formats will likely be long obsolete. And if Criterion step up the upgrade pace and become a tail-eating serpent, neglecting new titles in favour of regurgitating old ones, they're not going to retain their market position for long.

Although we may disagree about which ones they are, there are probably only 100 odd titles that would benefit from a blu upgrade.. They did seem to have a logic to their choices until Crusoe/Campion, probably based on sales, a loose idea of a canon, and titles that could be significantly improved by a new transfer/blu..

Plus, does Criterion intend to keep growing the main line indefinitely? At some point they'd be diluting their brand.. So isn't having blu-ray reissues of catalog titles spread out over ten+ years a good way to keep money rolling in? I may be a Criterion-fetishizing cinephile, but I'm not going to buy "4 Films By Michael Bay" in 2020.

[John Edmond]

Well yes, but Criterion would have to keep going at this rate for another 100 years before even coming close to exhausting the unreleased canon. Plus who knows, an interesting film may be made within that period as well.

[Jun-Dai]

…there are probably only 100 odd titles that would benefit from a blu upgrade…

What do you mean by this? I would think that any film that wasn't shot on SD would benefit from a blu upgrade, though arguably films that are in poor condition (Tokyo Story) or films that are not visually interesting (???) aren't worth the time. Is that what you're referring to? If so, do you really think there are only 100 films left after you subtract those? I'm having trouble coming up with more than a couple dozen titles that meet those disqualification criteria—easier to think of titles that I didn't really care to see in the collection in the first place (e.g., Armageddon).

And as John said, CC isn't ever likely to exhaust the main line, as they've only released a fraction of the films they'd probably be interested in releasing if they could get their hands on the rights and materials. Even if you just took the directors already in the collection and put out the rest of their interesting films, you'd much more than double the collection. Add to that all the directors that have never seen a CC release, and all the odd films here and there that aren't really known for the director. Plus all the new films coming out each year that CC would probably love to get their hands on.

[onedimension]

I mean, although technology may improve, that there are some films that don't have the materials for a blu upgrade, and others that aren't sufficiently "visually interesting" to be a priority - theoretically, sure, everything looks better on blu - but in terms of prioritizing reissues, I think Tokyo Drifter gets the nod over Pygmalion.. Maybe this is just my way of saying that I'm more likely to buy the next 100 blu reissues than the next 200.. But are we really so awash in good unreleased films that the "unreleased canon" can furnish Criterion with multiple decades of product? I'd love for that to be the case, but I'm just not well-versed enough to know. And doesn't the idea of a canon require that you put boundaries around it at some point?

[Jun-Dai]

And doesn't the idea of a canon require that you put boundaries around it at some point?

Yeah, certainly. Then again, Criterion isn't restricted to the canon. If you consider the canon to be films like Rules of the Game or Vertigo—films that would belong in any film 101 class—then Criterion goes quite a bit beyond that. Films like Kagemusha, A Woman is a Woman, Monterey Pop, White Nights, etc. have their place in the collection too (and make up the majority of it). These are highly prized films that reflect something interesting about their makers, but may not have universal acclaim, or may be well-regarded without being superlative in any sense. With a nod to the auteur theory, I would daresay that there are a few hundred directors whose every film is interesting enough to be in the collection. Plus, rights aside, I suspect would be just enough new films each year to keep them busy without needing to expand the back catalog.

On the other hand, whether Criterion will, for decades, be able to get ahold of enough films to continue expanding their spine numbers at the recent rate is another question. I expect they will, but that's less certain.

[matrixschmatrix]

I think in many ways I value the Criterion brand more for the entries like White Dog and An Angel At My Table, movies that don't have the universal name recognition of a Seventh Seal or a 400 Blows but which mean a lot to me, than anything else; if they were a company that pursued and released movies exclusively from something like the AFI best films list, it wouldn't be that interesting to me.

My hope is that as the value large companies place on their back catalogs get lower, Criterion will have access to more movies and therefore be able to apply a more strange and personal taste to their selections- running out of top canonical movies wouldn't block that in the least.

[swo17]

I haven't even seen this many yet, but I am sure there are at least 10,000 movies in existence that are worth slapping a wacky C on.

[colinr0380]

Absolutely. The idea that suddenly Criterion might have run out of decent films seems quite bizarre. The idea that there may be difficulties producing DVDs and Blu-Rays of films could be a different matter though - either logistically putting them together and gathering the materials could lead to particular decisions about what films to focus on, or simply there being a lack of distribution of 'physical products' compared to a few years ago might have an effect. Though this has its own benefits too - as seen with the Laserdisc catalogue, Criterion has recently gotten access to a lot of films it probably otherwise would not have been able to access had the major studios not been moving away from disc manufacture of their own product. In the end it all comes down to access and rights that might dictate why there were, until recently, so many Studio Canal licensed films in the collection and comparitively fewer from say Russia; or the way that more recent independent films in the Collection occurred patchily until the recent IFC deal (which brings about its own benefits and drawbacks).

And the 'canon' is only created through access and availability to films. Criterion's mission statement might be to select some of the best films for release but I've always liked the way that they also choose films that give opportunities to illustrate many different areas of filmmaking or different eras of cinema - from public domain horror spruced up and given the deluxe treatment such as Carnival of Souls, to the latest blockbuster CG'd Armageddon, they might not be the best or most notable films in the collection (though I'd make the case for Carnival of Souls!), but they allow the label to travel into territory that might otherwise be left unexplored if they just singlemindedly pursued a 'tradition of quality' cinema.

Especially when it comes to previously unacclaimed films by famous directors (I'd add Quai des Orfervres, The Pornographers and The White Sheik to that list of films I'm grateful to Criterion for having the opportunity to have seen), such a release can help to place the more famous works into a larger context, sometimes strengthening and sometimes interestingly wobbling the 'canon'. This can be due to any number of factors: allowing for more familiarity with the filmmaker's work can insprie greater admiration (or alternatively boredom with recycled tropes!); innovations attributed to better known films might have gestated in many earlier films before receiving the proper attention or acclaim, or alternatively the filmmaker might have pushed their interests further in less acclaimed films which followed their 'established masterpieces'. And films that were seen as failures because they were not as successful as those that came earlier can be rehabillitated somewhat and shown to have just as much merit as those that came before (Peeping Tom is perhaps the most obvious example here).

While films like the BBS boxset, Jubilee, The Rock, Border Radio, the Paul Robeson box, Permanent Vaction, or Fat Girl might inspire some protestations as to the individual quality of the films, I'm personally glad to see such titles enter the collection, strenghtening the eclecticism of not just the brand but of the variety of filmmaking itself. Not everything will be to everyone's taste or even be able to act as the best example of, say, blockbuster Hollywood films or a particular director's body of work, but they are at least a start at doing that and an acknowledgement of there being many different, important strands to follow in understanding and appreciating cinema (yes, even Michael Bay can teach us some painful lessons!)

[zedz]

I haven't even seen this many yet, but I am sure there are at least 10,000 movies in existence that are worth slapping a wacky C on.

A conservative estimate.

The thing is, canons change, and institutions like Criterion are engines for that kind of change. Forty years ago, Ozu wasn't in the (Western) canon, though Kurosawa and Mizoguchi were. Twenty years ago, Naruse was all but unknown in the West. Five years ago, the same went for Shimizu. Imamura and Oshima were pretty securely canonical in the early 70s, then years of critical neglect and scarce availability of their key films meant they had to work their way up there all over again. And there are Japanese filmmakers as great as all of these who will probably never achieve widespread appreciation, including, I'm sure, some that none of us have heard of yet.

Back in the fifties, if you'd told a serious cinephile that one day Rene Clair would be a semi-obscure figure rather than a filmmaker automatically on a par with Chaplin, Renoir and Eisenstein, they'd probably have laughed in your face.

Even though it's often hard to see it at the time, I'm sure there are more than four great films being made on a monthly basis, which means that Criterion as a label will never catch up with all the worthwhile current films, let alone the vast riches of the past.

Also, as we've seen, licensing situations and element restrictions change, so films which might now seem unobtainable or unreleasable because of condition could end up as future possibilities.

Hell, even if Criterion restricted themselves to the world-class films already released on DVD in other regions by such labels as Second Run, MoC, Carlotta or Filmmuseum they'd be set up for about ten years.

[Michael Kerpan]

There are a lot of great films that will probably never get BR treatment -- like the films of Bernal and Brocka from the Philippines -- which seem to survive only in a pretty deteriorated state.

[onedimension]

I was kind of hoping that at some point I could stand atop a pile of watched Criterion DVDs & plant my flag and proclaim victory.. but they keep making pile faster than I can climb it. At least blu ray cases are smaller. (and/or: so glad to live in an era of such cinematic riches)

[Cinephrenic]

What? We needed a Fat Girl and Smiles of a Summer Night on Blu right now? Really? Somebody shoot me please.