Cohen Film Collection

[domino harvey]

Discussion of Cohen Media's recent purchase of Landmark Theatres split off here

[Peter McM]

Finally getting around to watching Godard Mon Amour, which includes a trailer for Rodin, which looks good but IMDB has it a really low score. Has anybody seen it and would it be worth at least a rental when it comes out?

[Aunt Peg]

Finally getting around to watching Godard Mon Amour, which includes a trailer for Rodin, which looks good but IMDB has it a really low score. Has anybody seen it and would it be worth at least a rental when it comes out?

Rodan is a monumental bore. However, I am a great believer if you think the films looks good from the trailer than you should give the film a go regardless of anyone telling you the film is terrible or a low imdb rating. Rent before buying is very much recommended though.

[Peter McM]

Finally getting around to watching Godard Mon Amour, which includes a trailer for Rodin, which looks good but IMDB has it a really low score. Has anybody seen it and would it be worth at least a rental when it comes out?

Rodan is a monumental bore. However, I am a great believer if you think the films looks good from the trailer than you should give the film a go regardless of anyone telling you the film is terrible or a low imdb rating. Rent before buying is very much recommended though.

Good to know. Thankfully my public library has a good selection of such films. Should be able to find it there when available.

[ethel]

Les Parents Terribles is a superb 2K restoration for the film’s 70th anniversary. It’s been difficult to find with English subtitles and is now the best it’s looked (and sounded) for decades. Made between Beauty and the Beastand Orpheus, it’s a filmed play photographed in impossibly glamorous black and white by Michel Kelber, who does here for monochrome what he later did for Technicolor in Renoir’s French Cancan. A great master.

Featured are the original stage cast of Jean Cocteau’s tragicomedy about what happens when the 22 year old son of a possessive mother and other needy relatives announces he’s fallen in love. With Jean Marais, Josette Day and Marcel Andre’ (all from Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast), and the formidable leading ladies Yvonne de Bray and Gabrielle Dorziat channelling oh, let’s say, later Bette Davis and middle Agnes Moorehead. For connoisseurs of this genre, these are two of the central performances of their kind, every bit the equal of their American contemporaries. Fur and feathers fly, and scenery is chewed and stays chewed, yet often with extraordinary economy and intimacy. Repeat viewings await.

The fine Cohen package includes a solid introduction by Richard Pena, old and new trailers, 13 minutes of original screentests, and a fascinating 10 minute 2010 interview with Claude Pinoteau, the film’s assistant director. Unfortunately, this was subtitled (and proofed) by people who know nothing about cinema, so we have Pinoteau referring to the great directors “Clouseau and Max Rufus” [Clouzot and Ophuls of course], and to watching “the rocks” [i.e. not “les roches”, but “les rushes” = “the rushes”]. The crowning insult is the complete misspelling of the name of the star of Les Parents Terribles, Yvonne de Bray.

The feature itself is subtitled adequately, though with excessive compression of the literary dialogue (IMHO) and with recurring (and irritating) spacing errors in the text which should have been eliminated.

But these are relatively minor (if avoidable) blemishes in a spectacular reissue of one of Cocteau’s most celebrated projects.

[FrauBlucher]

The Great Buster: A Celebration The Bogdanovich Doc will be getting a release April 2. Odd they still haven’t released the 4k restorations of the Keatons.

[Roger Ryan]

The Great Buster: A Celebration The Bogdanovich Doc will be getting a release April 2. Odd they still haven’t released the 4k restorations of the Keatons.

A delightful documentary in all the ways you'd expect, even if Bogdanovich sometimes ends his excerpts before the gag fully plays out. The doc got an unintentional laugh out of me with the inclusion of a scene from 1957's The Buster Keaton Story which looked liked it was sourced from a VHS copy. That this dreadful Paramount biopic from the mid-50s looked far, far worse on the big screen than even the rattiest surviving print of Keaton's 20s work seemed appropriate.

Although not unwelcome, the entire documentary feels like an advertisement for Cohen's Keaton catalogue, so it doesn't surprise me to see The Great Buster getting issued ahead of the 4K restorations.

[tenia]

Elephant Films released Seven Chances on BD (Region Free) in France a few days ago, and the Cohen 4K restoration is absolutely gorgeous. It's a tad dull and oh-so too bright, but the clarity and precision plus the stability and cleanliness of the restoration are very impressive. It also contains The Railrodder (1965) in a copy that looks quite good, and the documentary "Buster Keaton Rides Again" (upscaled).

[whaleallright]

Although not unwelcome, the entire documentary feels like an advertisement for Cohen's Keaton catalogue, so it doesn't surprise me to see The Great Buster getting issued ahead of the 4K restorations.

Well, it's vital that they introduce the kids to the glories of silent comedy via a documentary featuring noted post-millennial icon

[checks notes]

Peter Bogdanovich.

[Roger Ryan]

Although not unwelcome, the entire documentary feels like an advertisement for Cohen's Keaton catalogue, so it doesn't surprise me to see The Great Buster getting issued ahead of the 4K restorations.

Well, it's vital that they introduce the kids to the glories of silent comedy via a documentary featuring noted post-millennial icon

[checks notes]

Peter Bogdanovich.

Hey, the documentary prominently features Johnny Knoxville (with footage from Jackass) as well as a little-too-long segment on how Keaton somehow inspired the CGI "performance" of Spiderman in Spiderman: Homecoming! True, most of the other interviewees are/were in their 90s (along with 104-year-old Norman Lloyd), but that's because these guys actually knew Keaton and/or worked with him.

At the screening I attended, there were a number of pre-teens, teenagers, and young adults. It's not unimaginable that a number of them were encountering Keaton for the first time apart from, maybe, a YouTube compilation. The excerpted clips, from the restored Seven Chances (yes, it looked gorgeous) and others, certainly sold me on buying these titles for a fourth or fifth time!

[Big Ben]

Johnny Knoxville is indeed a huge Buster Keaton fan. While I'll reveal my age here and say I watched Jackass in it's heyday and thought it was immensely amusing (At the time.) the guy isn't some testosterone ravaged frat boy. He knows his stuff and well, I can't knock him for that.

[domino harvey]

I always opened my History of Film survey course with a screening of Sherlock Jr and it never failed to kill. My students were always so surprised that they could enjoy a silent film, and the self-reflexivity of the movie opened up a lot of ideas and themes we used to build on going forward. So young people can be receptive to Keaton for sure

[Roger Ryan]

Johnny Knoxville..knows his stuff and well, I can't knock him for that.

I didn't have a problem with Knoxville's appearance in The Great Buster (his assessment of Keaton's famous collapsing facade gag from Steamboat Bill, Jr. combined with Jackass footage showing a more modern attempt at the same stunt fit well into the documentary); I only mentioned it because the inclusion of Knoxville, Bill Hader, and, especially, the director of Spiderman: Homecoming, struck me as an attempt to include something relatable to viewers under the age of 50.

[Big Ben]

Johnny Knoxville..knows his stuff and well, I can't knock him for that.

I didn't have a problem with Knoxville's appearance in The Great Buster (his assessment of Keaton's famous collapsing facade gag from Steamboat Bill, Jr. combined with Jackass footage showing a more modern attempt at the same stunt fit well into the documentary); I only mentioned it because the inclusion of Knoxville, Bill Hader, and, especially, the director of Spiderman: Homecoming, struck me as an attempt to include something relatable to viewers under the age of 50.

Oh I never meant to insist that you did have an issue and I'm sorry if I gave off that impression! Knoxville just isn't known for being exactly highbrow in any regard and looking back on it now there's more than one Jackass sketch I could have gone without seeing. I can certainly see the influence on Knoxville but I'm quite sure never reached the grotesqueness of say what Jackass.

[MichaelB]

Unfortunately, this was subtitled (and proofed) by people who know nothing about cinema, so we have Pinoteau referring to the great directors “Clouseau and Max Rufus” [Clouzot and Ophuls of course], and to watching “the rocks” [i.e. not “les roches”, but “les rushes” = “the rushes”]. The crowning insult is the complete misspelling of the name of the star of Les Parents Terribles, Yvonne de Bray.

When Arrow licensed the Cohen interview with Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, I found that I had to make quite a few changes to the subtitles - the core translation was fine but the description “subtitled (and proofed) by people who know nothing about cinema” rang a loud bell! In particular, the original subtitles would get names wrong (exacerbated by the Tavianis’ tendency to refer to people only by their surnames even when they were far from household names), although my favourite flub was an initially head-scratching reference to “Rossellini’s film about the doctors”, which I worked out must have been a mistranslation of “i Medici”, which does indeed mean “the doctors” but it’s also the name of the family at the heart of this film.

[FrauBlucher]

I always opened my History of Film survey course with a screening of Sherlock Jr and it never failed to kill. My students were always so surprised that they could enjoy a silent film, and the self-reflexivity of the movie opened up a lot of ideas and themes we used to build on going forward. So young people can be receptive to Keaton for sure

I always love hearing these anecdotes about young people discovering something that may seem ancient to them and feel rewarded afterwards. After all they will be the ones to carry on and pass along the great rich history of film. Kudos to you as well.

[whaleallright]

What's missing from this thread is an acknowledgment that everybody likes Buster Keaton. Everyone who encounters his films, that is. So the key thing is just getting folks to see them, and if it means having infamous reality-TV star and erstwhile Ariana Grande paramour Peter Bogdanovich hosting a documentary tribute on Twitch, that's fine with me.

[agnamaracs]

Question: does the Keaton deal include all his pre-MGM stuff? I checked the list on the website, and I didn't see The Saphead, My Wife's Relations, The Navigator, Go West, Battling Butler, or College. Though this could just be an oversight.

Also: I wonder how their copy of Hard Luck ends.

(Edited to consider the post below mine.)

[tenia]

The Cohen restoration program specifically states it's 1920-1928 (if that's any help).

[filmyfan]

Any one any idea of when the Busters may start getting released ?

[domino harvey]

Cohen will be releasing Bertrand Blier’s Préparez vos mouchoirs

[Slaphappy]

I always love hearing these anecdotes about young people discovering something that may seem ancient to them and feel rewarded afterwards. After all they will be the ones to carry on and pass along the great rich history of film. Kudos to you as well.

I'm participating in a movie club on a mixed martial arts fan forum. My first pick was The General. There was a lot of crumbling on why should we watch something ancient without sound. Some members had not seen a single silent movie before, but everyone except two hard core Chaplin fans ended up loving it.

[Michael Kerpan]

Any hint as to why the Chaplin films disliked the Keaton films?

[FrauBlucher]

That does seem odd.

[Brian C]

Chaplin bros, probably