Theo Angelopoulos

[Perkins Cobb]

Right, like when Robert Altman "approved" the butchering of California Split for DVD ... 'cause when the alternative is "we won't put it out without the cuts," what do you think he's going to say?

What a load of BS. Extremely angry about this, although it doesn't look like there's any realistic way to leverage AE into fixing it.

[tojoed]

Right, like when Robert Altman "approved" the butchering of California Split for DVD ... 'cause when the alternative is "we won't put it out without the cuts," what do you think he's going to say?

You're being overdramatic. "California Split" wasn't butchered. There were a couple of music changes because Sony were fearful, (I admit unnecessarily so), about rights. I only noticed one the first time, and I had seen the film half a dozen times in the late 1970s.

[Perkins Cobb]

Sony cut three minutes out of California Split. That's butchery.

[BradStevens]

Here's a complete list of all the cuts to the CALIFORNIA SPLIT DVD (from my VIDEO WATCHDOG review):

1- 11m 42s. A 32-second shot has been cut during Bill and Charlie's initial conversation. This showed Bill scat singing while Charlie informed him that "I love to play poker with those redneck fish. Y'now, who think they're Nick the Greek. Love to get 'em steamed. Easy to beat. Suckers".

2- 31m 50s. A scene showing Bill and Charlie at the racetrack ends as Charlie says "Let's go see a man about a horse". This scene originally continued for an additional 8 seconds as the men walked off singing together.

3- 35m 30s. After Barbara (Ann Prentis) opens the door of her house, Bill and Charlie enter. Charlie then turns to a man standing in the doorway, gives him a coin, and says "Here you are, Mr Tenor". This will make no sense to anyone who has not seen the original version, which contained an additional 24 seconds of footage showing Barbara opening the door and finding 'Mr Tenor' singing 'Happy Birthday To You'. Bill and Charlie then appeared and joined him in the song (while Barbara insisted "It's not my birthday").

4- 52m 32s. As Bill enters the strip club where a poker game is taking place, we see a basketball-themed cartoon playing on a television. In the original version, we also heard the song ('Basketball Joe') that accompanied this cartoon. (Incidentally, this animated clip can also be seen - and heard - in Hal Ashby's Being There.)

5- 77m 20s to 79m 16s. The two Phyllis Shotwell songs - 'Goin' to Kansas City' and 'Me and My Shadow' - heard during Bill and Charlie's journey to Reno have been replaced with an instrumental piece. 'Me and My Shadow' provided one of the film's most striking moments. As Shotwell arrived at the line "We never knock, 'cause there's nobody there", Charlie gestured at a passing car and shouted "there ain't nobody there". Although this scene is visually unchanged on the DVD, Charlie's line has been removed from the soundtrack (at 79m 2s). Incredibly, Joseph Walsh can be heard describing this moment (which he refers to as "a miracle") on the commentary track!

6- 86m 46s to 88m 4s. As Charlie walks away from the poker table, the sound of Phyllis Shotwell singing 'You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You' has been replaced with Shotwell's rendition of 'The Lonesome Road' - a reprise of the song we'd already heard her singing a mere 85 seconds ago!

7- 90m 12s to 90m 53s. A shot of Bill playing poker no longer includes that Shotwell song heard dimly in the original.

8- 92m 9s. After Charlie leaves Bill at the blackjack table, a 1m 40s scene has been cut. This showed Phyllis Shotwell behind a piano singing 'Georgia On My Mind'. While Charlie struck up a conversation with a fellow gambler sitting near Shotwell's piano, Bill continued playing blackjack, and we saw that the woman dealing him cards was wearing a badge revealing her name to be Barbara (making her the last of this film's many Barbaras). Columbia's editing has Charlie return to the blackjack table only a few seconds after he left.

[otis]

Just spoken to Artificial Eye about getting replacement discs for Volume 1. They told me to email them my contact details and my Amazon order number (to [email protected]), then followed up with this:

Thank you for your email. Replacement discs of 'The Reconstruction' and 'Days of 36' will be posted first class to you as soon as possible and should be received within 10 days. Please note that discs to non-UK customers will be sent via air mail and may take a little longer to arrive.

Please accept my sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused by this production error. I would like to assure you that such problems are very rare and we have taken steps to ensure that it does not happen again.

[Stefan Andersson]

Brad: Many thanks for posting the info re: California Split and The Hunters. Would you like to give a more detailed account of missing footage in The Hunters?

[bigP]

Just spoken to Artificial Eye about getting replacement discs for Volume 1. They told me to email them my contact details and my Amazon order number (to [email protected]), then followed up with this:

Thank you for your email. Replacement discs of 'The Reconstruction' and 'Days of 36' will be posted first class to you as soon as possible and should be received within 10 days. Please note that discs to non-UK customers will be sent via air mail and may take a little longer to arrive.

Please accept my sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused by this production error. I would like to assure you that such problems are very rare and we have taken steps to ensure that it does not happen again.

Thanks very much for posting this info otis. I've just emailed them and got the same response.

[J Adams]

What did I miss. Is there something wrong with Reconstruction and Days as well?

[GaryC]

Another error I've seen in a lot of places (including Amazon) is a 15 certificate for Volume 2. That's clearly incorrect, as it contains The Beekeeper, which is rated 18.

Whatever certificate Volume 3 gets will depend on The Dust of Time, as Ulysses' Gaze, Eternity and a Day and Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow are all PGs.

Incidentally, I've not yet seen any listing on the BBFC site for any of the discs in Volume 1, and everything in Volume 2 except the previously-certified The Beekeeper and Landscape in the Mist.

For the record, The Dust of Time is also a PG, so that will be the certificate for the Volume 3 box.

I still can't see certificates for the seven films that haven't had previous homeviewing certificates though. Artificial Eye must have submitted them to the BBFC or else they'd be breaking the law.

[otis]

What did I miss. Is there something wrong with Reconstruction and Days as well?

There was an authoring error that meant they stopped playing at the end of the first chapter.

[James43]

I just compared the Artificial Eye version of THE HUNTERS with a version I found online that runs 172 minutes at 24 fps, 23 minutes longer than the AE transfer (which runs 143 minutes at 25 fps, which would be approximately 149 minutes at 24 fps) ... Incidentally, the longer transfer (but not the AE version) digitally obscures a sex scene.

There is also a swiss edition of the THE HUNTERS which runs 168 Min. (PAL) - unfortunately, it's not english-friendly and quite expensive. The label is Trigon-Film and they put it out as part of a boxset which is equal to AE's Vol. 1 (contains LANDSCAPE IN THE MIST and a massive booklet additionally).

[bios]

Brad, as far as i'm aware, Theo owns the rights to his films. Why would he send an approved cut of a much shorter version of The Hunters if he didn't have to?

[BradStevens]

Surely the real question must be: Why would he send a version running 23 minutes longer to somebody else if he didn't have to? As I said before, we really don't know how carefully he checked the version that was released: he may not have realized that it was taken from a truncated print.

[bios]

^^maybe because the other dvds of the Hunters were released a long time ago? The first Greek one was released in 2004 i think. Perhaps even earlier.

Either way, it is a shame. Lucky i speak Greek so i have no problem watching the full cut without subtitles.

[Stefan Andersson]

New French-language article with some brief info about content and shooting of The Other Sea:

http://www.lemonde.fr/cinema/article/20 ... _3476.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

More info, in English:
http://cineuropa.org/2011/nw.aspx?t=new ... did=212418" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

BTW, in an early 1980s issue of Sight & Sound I found a brief mention of Angelopoulos´ plans to film a novel by Costas Taktsis, called The Third Wreath in the article. The film was never made. I think it is this novel:
http://openlibrary.org/works/OL10689104 ... ing_wreath" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[BradStevens]

maybe because the other dvds of the Hunters were released a long time ago? The first Greek one was released in 2004 i think. Perhaps even earlier.

Yes, but then the uncut Swiss DVD appears to be recent, and even includes a new interview with Angelopoulos (and is thus far more likely to have been authorized by the director).

[Stefan Andersson]

The Swiss Hunters DVD runs 143 mins. according to the German-language site OFDB. The site seems very useful when searching for German film/DVD facts.

[James43]

The Swiss Hunters DVD runs 143 mins. according to the German-language site OFDB.
The site seems very useful when searching for German film/DVD facts.

I own this dvd and definitely runs 168 minutes.

[J Adams]

Thanks James.

I can verify that:

1. The Greek DVD runs 143 minutes. It comes in a cheap cardboard sleeve (black and white on the front to boot, even though the film is in color) and looks semi-official. If AE in fact relied upon it in any way for their version, they are idiots. Did they really expect TA to sit through the whole thing to make sure it was all there? Not all directors are finicky (if you will) about their DVDs.

2. The DVD in the Chinese bootleg boxset (I think I paid $14.99 for it on eBay) runs just over 171 minutes. Video quality is, at best, VHS. If anyone doesn't speak Greek, it has optional Chinese subtitles.

In addition, I would argue that the AE "print damage" argument is a lie, just based on the shortening of the blackout scene.

[BradStevens]

I've asked a friend who is more technologically savvy than me to put some of the missing sections up on YouTube. Will let you know when this happens.

[bigP]

Did they really expect TA to sit through the whole thing to make sure it was all there? Not all directors are finicky (if you will) about their DVDs.

For what it's worth, here's a quote from the excellent Theo Angelopoulos Sight and Sound article this month, which appears to verify that Angelopoulos' watching of The Hunters in a "director approved" authority seems very unlikely.

Speaking to the 76-year-old Angelopoulos over the phone from his production office in Athens, I am impressed that all his films remain indelibly etched on his memory, even though he insists that he never watches them once they have been completed.

Certainly not a statement set in stone, but given how recently this interview went into publication, I would have assumed he may have mentioned re-watching some or all of his works if this had indeed happened.

[Perkins Cobb]

What a colossal clusterf*ck.

[Hail_Cesar]

The Swiss Hunters DVD runs 143 mins. according to the German-language site OFDB. The site seems very useful when searching for German film/DVD facts.

I own this dvd and definitely runs 168 minutes.

Wo kann ich diese kaufen?

[J Adams]

It can be kaufened here.

[Ishmael]

I know that Monte Hellman approved the Anchor Bay transfer of IGUANA, and even sat through the entire film while recording his commentary track, but failed to notice that a crucial scene had accidentally been left out.

What happened in the scene that was cut? I have the Anchor Bay disc, and I've never noticed anything suspicious about it, but then again, I've never seen the film in any other way.