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I seem to recall reading somewhere (I think it was Jonathan Rosenbaum) that Tarr kept the cat afterwards as a pet.

I read the same thing, and I'm pretty sure it was Rosenbaum's article.

Has AE said anything regarding whether it will be anamorphic?

justeleblanc wrote:For anyone who has seen this film before... what is the best screening practice for it, in terms of breaking it up. I assume it should be broken up.

I saw it with two intermissions and it worked perfectly, I thought. After 2 hours it feels good to stretch a bit and just few minutes into the break you already feel like you want to go back. A great feeling.

Well, the word is that AE has decided to release this as letterboxed 1.66:1 rather than anamorphic, like their second pressing of Werckmeister Harmonies (the first was incorrectly 1.77:1 anamorphic). I have to say as someone with a 16x9 set, I'm disappointed. Why do some DVD labels still have a problem with doing 1.66:1 anamorphically? Now the choices are either to watch the film with giant black bars on every side (4x3 mode on a 16x9), or zoom to 16x9 and thus crop the film. Or watch it on a regular 4x3 set. I never thought I'd say this, but maybe, just maybe, Facets can save the day...

Well, the word is that AE has decided to release this as letterboxed 1.66:1 rather than anamorphic, like their second pressing of Werckmeister Harmonies (the first was incorrectly 1.77:1 anamorphic).

Ugh, what on earth for? I know AE released Taste of Cherry at 1.66:1 anamorphically -- why is this any less deserving? Big disappointment, if true.

I should mention this information came from the Frameworks listserv. It's from e-mails with someone at Artificial Eye...

The first e-mail, which caused some panic:

"Bela Tarr's 'Satantango' will be released in the UK on the 13th
November 2006 by Artificial Eye. It is 7 hours long and will be over 3 discs. The subtitles are optional, it is 4:3, and the extras are to be confirmed."

And a second confirming that it's at least OAR:

"4x3 will be the format and 1.66:1 will be the aspect ratio."

I imagine it's too late to start any kind of write-in campaign, but who knows? Maybe we should try, since the extras aren't confirmed and presumably that means the discs aren't pressed yet.

Didn't I read something about Tarr supervising the transfers, though? If that's the case, I don't know what to think.

I shot AE an email about this, and this was the reply:

It is at Bela Tarr's request we release ‘Satantango' in its original 4x3 ratio, as it is how he intended it to be viewed.

Is he indicating that it's actually 1.33:1, or just letterboxed 1.66:1? And if the latter, what's the point?

Sigh. Unfortunately AE are not above confabulating explanations like these. Another problem is that it is not always a good thing to have the director control video transfers ("a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" and all that). The film on the big screen is definitely not 1.33:1.

the dvd was just released in France (I swear) by Clavis film. this is definitely 1.66 (although I dunno if it's anamorphic) and has SOFT french&english subs (Sorry Facets )

it is the exact same print restored this year (under Bela Tarr supervision) that is used for the Clavis and Artificial eye releases (dunno for Facets, but I guess it's the same)

You can already buy it from their site (this is not a pre-order) or if you live in Paris just take the dvd from their hands...
BUT if you order the same Clavis dvd from another net store, you won't have it before November. I'm not even sure they have the right to sell it before november but actually, they do

Hmmm... it doesn't let you add "Satantango" to the basket (it does let you add other films).

Just ordered it from Clavis, no cart, but took me to a Paypal page.

Suddenly, it directed me to the PayPal page. I don't know what made that stupid button to work all of a sudden. The HTML source for that page clearly has a FORM there, perhaps the syntax is a bit off and it confuses the browsers (I tried Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Mozilla). We'll see.

we want screenshots from clavis!

quality is really really good. Here are some screenshots from a mpeg4 recompression from the clavis dvds (to put all 7h on one dvd) to give you an idea (dvds are not mine/ not in my hands, I can't post directly dvd screenshots). And despite the double comp. (xvid + jpeg) it's still rather impressive :

Thanks, those look great!
Damn, I love this movie. Just seeing that second cap sends shivers down my spine.

"These clocks are both wrong." (Something like that)

Here is a review of the DVD in French. Click on "menus" on the left to see them.

Amazon.uk has this listed at £14.99 now. They've got some other deals as well. The Tartan Ozu sets have been lowered and some of the AE titles seemed to have dropped, as well (Mirror is sitting at £7.98).

My God. Thanks a bunch for the heads up on this. I'm ordering mine immediately.

Titus wrote:Amazon.uk has this listed at £14.99 now.

£13.49 for those in the UK, if you choose the super-saver free delivery option

Amazon.uk has this listed at £14.99 now.

Thanks Titus. Wonder how long it will be before Amazon discovers that its 25% off is actually 50%.

Arn777 wrote:Just ordered it from Clavis, no cart, but took me to a Paypal page.

Did you receive any sort of email confirmation when your copy shipped? Also, has your copy arrived yet? Thanks in advance for your reply.

That's my question exactly

I got one e-mail:

In fact at this moment we don't charge the shipment.
So go for it, this is the moment to buy our DVD's!

This was their response to my question about shipping charges. In the same e-mail I included my PayPal receipt, so saying "go for it" is odd.

I emailed Clavis today to find out if they had shipped it, but haven't got an answer yet.

Edit: Just received an email from them (at 10.30pm!) that they shipped it to my French address late last week.

"The news is that it is coming" then

Oops, got an e-mail too. We'll see...

I received two emails indicating both when the DVD shipped from their headquarters and how long it will take for the DVD to arrive (both emails were sent upon request). It turns out the DVD shipped yesterday and it should be here in approximately one week (I live in the United States). Now, all I have to do is endure the waiting period...