German Filmmuseum Edition

[MichaelB]

Also coming up, and which I hadn't noticed before, are four volumes of films by the great Croatian animator Vlado Kristl. With a likely eight discs to fill, this should amount to a Complete Works. For a taste, take a look at the strangest version of Don Quixote you'll ever see.

Thanks for that - I'll investigate, as this sounds like a natural for a Sight & Sound review.

[zedz]

As I'm sure you're aware, 'coming soon' can mean a lot of things when it comes to Edition Filmmuseum, but at least these Kristl releases are on that list rather than the 'Oh, and by the way, we're also working on' one.

[AlexHansen]

RR/casting a glance is available on the website!

[knives]

I still have their first set in my kevyip. Exciting news all the same. Now I just need the money.

[warren oates]

RR/casting a glance is available on the website!

Aweseome! Just ordered it. RR is exceptional and will appeal to fans of Benning's work and of trains in general. The audience I saw it with in 16mm was about equally split between experimental film types and train spotters. Haven't seen Casting A Glance yet but that one looks equally interesting.

[zedz]

Also now available to order is the collection of Oberhausen Manifesto shorts. Considering I've only ever managed to see films by three of these directors, it's a bit like being able to discover another dozen Jacques Roziers.

[AlexHansen]

Daniel Kasman wrote a piece that talks a little about some of the shorts on the Oberhausen set for those who are looking for a little more info.

[AlexHansen]

Got my RR/casting set today. Flipping through the booklet revealed a disappointing detail: "For this DVD presentation of casting a glance and RR we have utilized standard definition film-video-transfers kindly proved by the West German Broadcasting Corporation in Cologne. (...) In each case, the films have been 'windowboxed' to avoid the loss of picture information(...)this results in a noticeable black border along all four edges of the frame."

Popped in the discs to give them and the border is definitely noticeable (probably comparable to New Wave's Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach) and the transfer are less than jaw-dropping. Better than nothing though.

[Fierias]

Thanks AlexHansen. That's pretty disappointing. Would you be able to post some screencaps in the appropriate thread please? Would much appreciate it.

[AlexHansen]

Done and done.

[warren oates]

Thanks for posting those grabs. Definitely disappointed about the window boxing and the standard def transfer. However, given those considerations, RR does look fairly close to an accurate rendition of what I saw in 16mm. One of the things I like about Benning's work is that it's not so pristine. His images are beautiful without being overly pretty. He doesn't do landscape porn.

[AlexHansen]

As I was capping I was thinking "these aren't terrible." Maybe not as crisp as a HD source would provide but not too bad. I can definitely live with the results.

[TMDaines]

So the people with the shittest of all settings on some badly designed TVs get the ideal picture, while everyone who has bothered to calibrate a set properly and find one that won't overscan is going to set a hugely thick outline around the outside. Why, oh why?! At least watching on a PC I can easily get around problems like that but a border like that is a huge loss of resolution. I really hope this isn't going to be a future trend.

[McCrutchy]

As I mentioned before, the other Benning set was windowboxed like this. If I recall, it wasn't as severe as RR, but it was definitely there.

[John Edmond]

It's just a bit disappointing after the lovely new 3K transfers American Dreams and Landscape Suicides received. I'd hoped this was the standard they'd be setting for the entire series, but I'm guessing it's only for films that haven't received a scan yet.

[knives]

I just opened up the Benning set and it's amazing how little the world has changed since American Dreams. I'm always miserable when a work reminds me of this stasis, but American Dreams' overwhelming simple dialectic form makes this point all the more painful to endure (and given how the film takes place in what would have then also been the past I'm sure this is deliberate). For a film that is the definition of easy in its presentation it is rather hard on the viewer with in its own way a crammed mis-en-scene that uses sound better than nearly any other film I've seen in developing that mis-en-scene.

[AnnetteGroschke]

Now available: Edition Filmmuseum Shop - Four films with Asta Nielsen Edition Filmmuseum 67

This 2-disc DVD set shows the versatility of silent diva Asta Nielsen: She fights for Women's rights in DIE SUFFRAGETTE, speculates successfully at the stock market in DIE BÖRSENKÖNIGIN, and shows off as an adolescant woman in male attire and as an Eskimo woman in the comedies DAS LIEBES-ABC and DAS ESKIMOBABY. Four rare films in newly restored and reconstructed versions for the first time available on DVD.

http://www.edition-filmmuseum.com/produ ... elsen.html

ps: I graduated from the Selznick School of Film Preservation at GEH in 2004 and have since been working at Deutsche Kinemathek; I supervised the production of the DVD and also did the digital reconstructions of Die Suffragette and Das Liebes ABC which, prior to the release of the DVD, were only available on film in incomplete versions.

[htshell]

Crossing my fingers for The Complete Afri-Cola DVD from Edition Filmmuseum!

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

I supervised the production of the DVD and also did the digital reconstructions of Die Suffragette and Das Liebes ABC which, prior to the release of the DVD, were only available on film in incomplete versions.

Great to have access to someone in the know and perhaps we could ask you to stick around and keep us up to date on forthcoming developments.
Maybe even with news on those titles that seem to have become mere mirages on a very distant horizon.

[AnnetteGroschke]

@McCrutchy

Re: Can someone help me out?

I see that Filmmuseum are preparing Thomas Heise's Sonnensystem (2011) for release, but if you visit the listing on Heise's own site it looks like you can inquire about a Blu-ray via an e-mail address, and I am wondering if this does exist and if it would be a pressed BD available to buy or if it is just for screenings...
Any assistance is greatly appreciated, since I don't speak German.

I am 99% certain that whoever reads that email will understand English or will know someone who does so don't be shy and just write to them in English

[AnnetteGroschke]

Crossing my fingers for The Complete Afri-Cola DVD from Edition Filmmuseum!

I'm curious to find out how you know about Charles Wilp?
In any case on the Orphans website there are some helpful (?) links

http://www.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/orphans8/thursday.php

[htshell]

I was at Orphans and your presentation was the highlight of the symposium!

[Wu.Qinghua]

Crossing my fingers for The Complete Afri-Cola DVD from Edition Filmmuseum!

Wilp was a photographer in the first place, right? I know some of his Afri-Cola ads and obviously don't like them, though I won't deny that they are pretty interesting and telling in many ways. Anyway, has he also produced a significant amount of TV etc. commercials and has there been serious talk about putting them on a DVD? I doubt that, so I guess, this is another joke and again I'm falling for it.

Holy canoli, the subbed Wilp ad which is linked on the site is really atrocious! I'll go Club Cola from now on!

[George Kaplan]

Crossing my fingers for The Complete Afri-Cola DVD from Edition Filmmuseum!

Holy canoli, the subbed Wilp ad which is linked on the site is really atrocious! I'll go Club Cola from now on!

I don't know. As a parody of the very thing that it embodies - an incongruously over-sexualized sales pitch promising ludicrously impossible benefits, if one only consumes the product - I think it is rather brilliant. The directness and transparency of the parody, which basically calls itself out on slinging bullshit seems a little shocking, particularly given the date. I'll grant you it is rather unsettling; which, combined with its parodistic nature reminds me of the wonderful, "Barkwell Dog Food" parody created by Norman Tobak, that closes Robert Aldrich's THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE. (That cha-cha-cha never fails to tickle me. Unfortunately, the link is to a less than stellar Youtube posting.)

To marry or not to marry is no longer the question with Afri-Cola!

[TMDaines]

Die Oberhausener is down to €18.40 on Amazon.it; a price that is pretty damn rare for an upper-tier Edition Filmmuseum release. I just bought it when it cost a further two euros.