Criterion Discussion and Random Speculation Volume 7

[beamish14]

I really hope there are more Naruse Mikio films that will get collected in a box. Floating Clouds will probably be a stand-alone, but great films which really show the full scope of his work like Moment of Terror and the hilarious Traveling Actors

[Mr.DarjeelingLimited]

That's something I'm surprised they haven't done, some sort of Nouvelle Vague starter kit. They seem more inclined to do boxes with films from different licensors, and this would make for a much more sensible gift item for a budding cinephile than the CC40 box.

As I recall, one of the first announced titles for the Eclipse series was a French New Wave box, but presumably those films found release later in other editions from Criterion

I wonder what was planned to be included. Perhaps some of the less popular Truffaut and Godard films that got releases like The Soft Skin and Every Man For Himself.

[Peter McM]

That's something I'm surprised they haven't done, some sort of Nouvelle Vague starter kit. They seem more inclined to do boxes with films from different licensors, and this would make for a much more sensible gift item for a budding cinephile than the CC40 box.

As I recall, one of the first announced titles for the Eclipse series was a French New Wave box, but presumably those films found release later in other editions from Criterion

I wonder what was planned to be included. Perhaps some of the less popular Truffaut and Godard films that got releases like The Soft Skin and Every Man For Himself.

I remember Every Man For Himself was being my first Criterion blind buy. There are other films Godard made during the 80s and 90s during a less political period--that Kino Lorber once had available, but seem to be OOP now. I'm thinking specifically of First Name Carmen, Detective, and Oh, Woe Is Me. I'd like to see Criterion do a set of these more dramatic narrative, less political works of Godards'.

[omegadirective]

Man.. what I wouldn't give for a 4K upgrade of the Louis Malle box set with Au Revoir, Les Enfants, Murmur of the heart, and Lacombe, Lucien...

[tolbs1010]

Man.. what I wouldn't give for a 4K upgrade of the Louis Malle box set with Au Revoir, Les Enfants, Murmur of the heart, and Lacombe, Lucien...

Seconded. Guessed it once or twice in the guessing thread but gave up hope.

[Lowry_Sam]

Man.. what I wouldn't give for a 4K upgrade of the Louis Malle box set with Au Revoir, Les Enfants, Murmur of the heart, and Lacombe, Lucien...

Seconded. Guessed it once or twice in the guessing thread but gave up hope.

Thirded. Actually that's true for many of Criterion's trilogy boxes: Wajda, Teshigahara, Imamura, Fassbinder, Bunuel, Cocteau. Criterion seems to have dropped the ball on these small box sets that it used to do such a nice job with.

[Matt]

Criterion seems to have dropped the ball on these small box sets that it used to do such a nice job with.

I think a problem is that they're almost entirely dependent on outside entities to do 4K restorations, and in many of the cases you've mentioned, these are just not happening.

[Rupert Pupkin]

sorry I did not find "A.Kechiche" in the criterionforum or a thread dedicated to his movie "L'Esquive"

this is more a "hope" than a speculation, but who knows :

"L'Esquive" seems to have been somehow restored although there is no info at the opening of the movie : "L'Esquive" by Abdelatif Kechiche because in comparison to the French DVD, it does not look totally like an upscale (it was shot in DV SD so smaller than the blu-ray resolution but on the DVD the trailer looked better than the transfer of the movie itself); keeping in mind that it has been shoot with low-res DV, you can notice now some digital DV artefacts but when a different DV digital camera has been used you can tell it; there are also more details (skin, clothes, etc...)
I remember I have tried to use Topaz AI to upscale my DVD and this Mubi "transfer" looks way better.

If Criterion could release this masterpiece this would be amazing
https://mubi.com/en/fr/films/games-of-love-and-chance

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I feel reasonably confident Criterion will never do another Kechiche film. As for L'esquive, I haven't seen what Mubi is streaming, but with digital films of the pre-DCP era it was common to do the home video masters from 35mm, i.e. digital-to-35mm-to-digital. For more recent remasters they'll sometimes go back to the digital source, which will produce a sharper image.