Kino

[HerrSchreck]

They'll probably be starting with the same digital beta tape-- whether or not it will be preconverted or not is anyones guess. However, their more recent treatment of silent video beta masters (with the exception of METROPOLIS) have been fairly beautiful even versus their sources, a la GOLEM & NOSFERATU.

The differences between the Murnau-Stiftung restoration of MABUSE vs. the old Shepard "fine grain" are like night and day. It should be a beautiful release.

My eyes are more on WARNING SHADOWS however. That's my kind of film, has never been on quality VHS let alone any DVD. Wait till you see it..

[Tribe]

Don't forget that Kino will likely replace the original German intertitles with English ones.

They can't be any worse than the ones used on the Image transfer, particularly the blocks of ugly english text that they used within shots...or can they be worse?

My eyes are more on WARNING SHADOWS however. That's my kind of film, has never been on quality VHS let alone any DVD. Wait till you see it..

I had never even heard of this on...and I thought I was pretty much on top of my Weimar Republic cinema. Asphalt I've ndever seen, but it's rep makes it a certain blind buy for me. Nice last couple of months for silents at Kino. I'm a major complainer regarding Kino, but you have it to them when it comes to European silents.

[HerrSchreck]

Don't forget that Kino will likely replace the original German intertitles with English ones.

They can't be any worse than the ones used on the Image transfer, particularly the blocks of ugly english text that they used within shots...or can they be worse?

Tribe

Their one saving grace on this intertitle issue (owing most likely to the fact that, being theatrical distributors, they rent these prints, once created, to American cinemas for exposition), being English speaking, their translators are generally top notch. No klunky usages resident in the Eureka MABUSE no doubt. The Swedish intertitles are absolutely beautiful-- done by a swede, but one who's obviously equally facile with poetic english as she is with Swedish. As well as understanding the soul and meaning of the original swedish.

This issue won't affect WARNING SHADOWS, as it was an intertitle-free film (one year before LETZE MANN). A haunting atmosphere reminiscent of NOSFERATU: same screenwriter (Grau), same cameraman (Wagner), same leading man (von Wangenheim), and shot the following year.

I always found ASPHALT visually interesting, but substantively predictable & trite.

[djali999]

Kino has finally posted thier press release for Shadows, Asphalt & Mabuse: http://www.kino.com/video/news.php

Nothing we didn't know already however.

[miless]

I hope they release Lang's Destiny sometime soon... the current DVD is a dissappointment for such a monumental film (plus it's the film that made Bunuel want to be a filmmaker)

[HerrSchreck]

Arthur Robison's WARNING SHADOWS
From the 35mm Restoration by the Cineteca del Comune di Bologna, the Cinémathèque Française and the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung

German expressionist cinema was at its height in the 1920s, and few films embodied the movement as much as Warning Shadows. Directed by Arthur Robison, this classic tale of psychological horror remains his best known work, celebrated for its outrageous visual style and notorious for its attempt to make a purely visual feature film - in other words, a film with no intertitles (except, of course, the opening credits).

A mysterious traveler and illusionist who performs shadow puppetry arrives to provide some entertainment at an otherwise routine dinner party. The host of the party is already mad with jealousy over the presence of his wife's four suitors, but when the puppet show begins, passions overtake reason and reality is not what it appears to be.

Shadows, reflections and silhouettes are the dominant imagery, and the film boasts the extraordinary camerawork of Fritz Arno Wagner, the German cinematographer who is renowned for his work with Fritz Lang (Spies, M) and F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu).

Although this marks the first time the film has been released on DVD in the United States, Warning Shadows has long been considered a landmark work by champions of the German cinema.

Lotte Eisner, in her book "The Haunted Screen," declared that director Robison "handles phantoms with the same mastery as his strange illusionist," while Siegfried Kracauer, in "From Caligari to Hitler," simply stated that Warning Shadows "belongs among the masterpieces of the German screen."

WARNING SHADOWS: A Nocturnal Hallucination
(SCHATTEN: Eine Nächtliche Halluzination)

Germany 1923 85 Min. Color Tinted 1.33:1

Directed by Arthur Robison
Concept and Design by Albin Grau
Edited by Rudolf Schneider and Arthur Robison
Cinematography by Fritz Arno Wagner
With Fritz Kortner, Ruth Weyher, Gustav von Wangenheim
Music composed and performed by Donald Sosin
Restoration and Preservation: L'Immagine Ritrovata

Sosin... ugh.

[stroszeck]

I recently rented LA CHIENNE (RENOIR) from my local library and was surprised to note that it was KINO VHS. So why didn't Kino release a double disc of SCARLET STREET with LA CHIENNE? Have they lost the rights?

[miless]

I recently rented LA CHIENNE (RENOIR) from my local library and was surprised to note that it was KINO VHS. So why didn't Kino release a double disc of SCARLET STREET with LA CHIENNE? Have they lost the rights?

Most home video companies only purchased the video rights, not knowing that in a few years DVD was coming (or, they licensed home video rights from Criterion's LD)... now distributor's have learned their lesson and add to their contracts something like 'any format in the known universe' as a way of saying 'we get this until the contract's out'

[unclehulot]

I recently rented LA CHIENNE (RENOIR) from my local library and was surprised to note that it was KINO VHS. So why didn't Kino release a double disc of SCARLET STREET with LA CHIENNE? Have they lost the rights?

This is part of the Interama Video collection that for some reason could/can only be licensed for VHS. Interama used to be it's own VHS label, but Kino picked a number of these up more recently. Some of the titles used to be on LD (including La Chienne).
It might be explained on the Kino website, and I'm sure someone else here knows the details more thoroughly. I'm not sure about this point in time, but Kino's rights date from sometime already into the DVD era.

[HerrSchreck]

Some of those Interama transfers were pretty beastly stuff. Even with my forgiving (sometimes too forgiving) nature viz these guys I took a look at their DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST VHS (this was substantially before there was any hint that anyone had any intention of releasing Bresson on DVD-- he was lost in the abyss that Ophuls & Feyder are only now being rescued from-- let alone DIARY) and nearly puked all over everything. I could not in front of myself hang onto such fuzzed-out slop, and promptly returned it to Kino in person, exchanging it for, I believe, TRAFFIC IN SOULS from 1913 on VHS... which looked like crisp HD digital video by comparison. When the sole surviving print of an exploitation film from 1913 looks better than an acknowledged Bresson masterpiece... there be problems.

[dx23]

Reminder to everyone who don't follow the bargain thread: DDD is currently having a sale of up to 50% off on Kino DVDs, including pre-orders like Mabuse.

[htdm]

As well as two very good forthcoming DVD releases of the documentaries Henri Langlois: Phantom of the Cinemateque and The Last Mogul.

[HerrSchreck]

So I've got a hilarious Kino story you guys are gonna eat up like doublestuf oreos:

One of my most eagerly awaited dvd-releases on my personal lifetime, WARNING SHADOWS-- I get an early copy of it, along w BEYOND THE ROCKS from Milestone/NYer and Kino's MABUSE. So I get to my old lady's apt & naturally I tear SHADOWS apart to get it the fuck up right inta the dvd player.

First thing that starts scrolling and the classic colorful Kino FBI warning is not there... it's a scrolling black screen with something about "CF Weber"... in white digitized lettering coming on about rights etc. Then the menu screen comes on:

it's a watercolor instructional video, from the painter CArole Weber. There is no WARNING SHADOWS on the disc, which is still silkscreened for WARNING SHADOWS, Kino, etc. I nearly shit on the floor.

[skuhn8]

From this may we assume that Carole Weber's Instructional Watercolor Video is in fact to be released by Kino?! HOly shit there is a god! I greatly enjoy her Fetid Hobbies for Feral Housewives series.

[FilmFanSea]

From this may we assume that Carole Weber's Instructional Watercolor Video is in fact to be released by Kino?! HOly shit there is a god! I greatly enjoy her Fetid Hobbies for Feral Housewives series.

Nothing like a little Diet Coke out the nose to start a Monday morning. Thanks for a great laugh!

[Anonymous]

Any recommendations for "must-have" Kino discs? I already have The Golem, Nosferatu and The Hitch-Hiker.

Unfortunately, it appears that some of the discs I'd like to get are not carried by DDD (The Old Dark House, The Naked City).

[BrightEyes23]

i think the D.W. Griffith set is a can't miss.
The Man Who Laughed is a GREAT film, and the transfer is pretty solid.

I just purchased a handful of discs from the sale, I don't know if I'll have time to watch all of them before the sale ends, but if I do, I'll post my thoughts.

[HerrSchreck]

So I got my replacement disc for WARNING SHADOWS.. was a one-shot fuckup apparently from the authoring house.. in other words the whole 1st printing is not watercolor instructional video. The transfer is about on a par with MAN WHO LAUGHS.

Seeing t in it's full blown 35mm tinted glory confirms this film as one of the strangest films ever made, so much more here to see vs. atrophied 16mm tapes... an operatic, no intertitle, miming dance of strangeness from start to finish. It's like all the strange birds from NOSFERATU got back together the following year to continue along the dark shadowy psychological corridors that murnau had opened up with his shot of Schrecks shadows... descending on Hutter in bed... creeping up the steps & reaching for Eellen's door... snatching hold of her heart-- taking these haunted visual ideas & constructing a complete "Nocturnal Hallucination" around it. Even the "acts"/reels of the film are singalled by the sillouhette of a hand behind a thin veil backlit, raising the corresponding number of fingers. Albin Grau, Fritz Arno Wagner, Gustav von Wangenheim, Alaxander Granach (Knock from NOSFERATU, he plays the bizarro shadowplayer/puppeteer)... they're all here, from Murnau's film one year prior.

Note the moving camera, and no-intertitle presentation (which had been done 2 years prior in HINTERTREPPE), a year before DER LETZE MANN.

Mabuse was a revelation as well-- so much more STORY here vs. the Image R1. The Eureka had been on my list for quite some time, then just figured I'd grab this. The image is stunning, but wow what a difference those extra 40-or-50-some-odd minutes make in the narrative, particularly as regards setting up Mabuse's character.

And this is Zimmerman's best score by far.

[devlinnn]

Up for pre-order on Amazon on Sept. 12 is Film Noir: The Dark Side of Hollywood from Kino - rrp$49.95, 5-disc set. No further details, but does anyone know what titles? I'm presuming a collection a previously released titles at a much better price (Hangmen Also Die/Hitch-Hiker/Railroaded/Blue Gardenia etc.)

[HerrSchreck]

TLA Vid's Page on this box (Meshman/Ashirg turned me on by default to these guys as bellweathers) indicates it's a box-up of their existing titles. I can attest to three of them: HANGMEN, RAILROADED, BEHIND LOCKED DOORS... they're all solid interlaced transfers from the early dvd days, (see the Beevs newly added review, actually Ashirgs, of BEHIND LOCKED DOORS, for an example). They're probably throwing them out there in a box to grab the new wave of noir fan's attention and move some units by letting them know they exist.

[Ashirg]

I also did Sudden Fear review - probably the worst DVD in this collection. I just picked up Hangmen Also Die and The Long Night in the Deep Discount DVD sale, so of cause they had to release the box set after that...

There's no Kimstim post, so I'm posting it here since it's going to be released by Kino. On September 12 there're 2 more sets of expiremental animation coming to DVD.

Jiri Barta: Labyrinth of Darkness
A Ballad About Green Wood - 11 minutes, color, 1983
The Club of the Laid Off- 25 minutes, color, 1989
The Design - 6 minutes, color, , 1981
Disc Jockey - 10 minutes, color, 1980
The Last Theft - 21 minutes, color, 1987
The Pied Piper of Hamelin - 55 minutes, color, 1985
Riddles For a Candy - 8 minutes, color, 1978
The Vanished World of Gloves - 16 minutes, color, 1982

Jan Svankmajer: The Ossuary and Other Tales
The Last Trick - 1964/color/11:30mins
Don Juan - 1970/color/31mins
The Garden - 1968/black&white/19mins
Historia Naturae - 1967/color/9mins
Johann Sebastian Bach - 1965/black&white/9:30mins
The Ossuary - 1970/black&white/10mins
The Otrants Castle - 1973-79/color/17mins
Darkness Light Darkness - 1989/color/8mins
Manly Games - 1988/color/12mins

[FilmFanSea]

Does anyone have any idea how much of an improvement, if any, the Kino Mabuse will be over the existing Image Entertainment release?

The Kino will be a direct port of the Transit Films release from Germany (which also served as the source for the 2004 Eureka release), though I suspect it will suffer from PAL-to-NTSC transfer issues (though I could be wrong--the listed running time of 270 minutes is identical).

The Beaver comparison (Image vs. Eureka) will give you some idea of the dramatic improvement in picture quality you can expect.

Bad news from the first review I've seen, by Keith Uhlich at Slant:

Image / Sound
Kino on Video presents this definitive 270-minute edition of Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (taken from a 2000 restoration by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung) over two discs in a 1.33:1 transfer plagued by prevalent ghosting and combing. This indicates the film was not mastered progressively from what is probably a PAL source. Par for the course for Kino, but what the purist in me particularly scoffs at is the exclusion of the film's German intertitles, replaced here—as on the company's other Lang releases—with redone English intertitles. Barring a film-projected screening, one should turn to the European home video company Eureka to see Dr. Mabuse, as well as other Lang films like Spies and Metropolis, in ideal presentations. The Kino image is still pleasant enough; certainly it is more crisp and robust than the prior, still-available 229-minute Region 1 release from Image Entertainment, a stellar effort for its time (mastered by film preservationist David Shepard) that also contains a superb commentary from Lang scholar David Kalat, which puts this set's meager extras to shame. Kino's only audio option, very well presented, is the wonderful, recently composed musical accompaniment by Aljoscha Zimmerman.

Extras
The only extra of note is an extremely dry 52-minute documentary entitled The Story Behind Dr. Mabuse, of primary interest for its interview with composer Aljoscha Zimmerman. The rest is all a dull succession of facts better stated elsewhere—see, among others, David Kalat's book The Strange Case of Dr. Mabuse or Patrick McGilligan's Fritz Lang biography The Nature of the Beast. A Fritz Lang biography/filmography and notes on the film are spread out over several text pages. A behind-the-scenes/promotional photo gallery rounds out the disc.

[emphasis added]

That Kino 50%-off sale at DDD doesn't look like such a great deal after all, does it?
<shakes fist in the direction of Kino's home office>

[souvenir]

Dave Kehr of the NY Times also reviewed the new Mabuse, as well as the other two German silents in the DVD section of today's paper:

[quote]Three classic titles from the rich German cinema of the 1920's arrive today from Kino on Video, all in definitive editions produced by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation. Though at least one of the titles might sound familiar — Fritz Lang's “Dr. Mabuse, the Gamblerâ€

[justeleblanc]

This isn't a surprise. Kino's ghosting and English intertitles are old news. I'm a huge Lang fan and I really don't care too much about either.

Keep in mind that when I saw the Eureka discs, I decided not to buy them cause I saw typos -- or at least awkward translations -- from the intertitles.

[skuhn8]

did they intentionally lag on sending out review copies or something? why wasn't some of this info out there before? I'm pissed cause I ordered 8 days ago from DDD and it finally shipped yesterday. Would've cancelled and waited for a Euro release of this if I thought Kino would screw it up. Grrrrr!