criterionforum.org

Posted: **Wed May 11, 2005 5:28 pm**

BrightEyes23 wrote:Why is it that the Bresson "L'Argent" isn't available from any of the major e-tailers that I can see? I even emailed digitaleyes and they said they their supplier had no information on this title...kind of strange with the fact that there's review copies out already.

DVD Planet, Deep Discount, and Digital Eyes all use the same distributor, so that's why it's not listed with any of the three. New Yorker has always had distribution problems, as far as I'm concerned.

L'Argent is available for preorder from Amazon, DVD Empire, Overstock, and CD Universe.

Posted: **Fri May 13, 2005 7:23 pm**

DVD Planet responded this way to the absence of L'Argent on their website:

Thanks for the email. We no longer are going to carry any new titles from New Yorker.

Sorry we can't help you out with that one.

-DVDPlanet.com

Since they all use the same distributor, I'll assume that this also affects Deep Discount and Digital Eyes. I'll further speculate that New Yorker's wholesale prices weren't low enough, so the distributor dropped the company.

Jeez I wish New Yorker could get their head out of their ass and become a viable and reliable DVD producer.

Posted: **Wed May 25, 2005 5:04 pm**

I received New Yorker's L'Argent yesterday (from Overstock.com, since my usual etailer, Digital Eyes, is not stocking it) and watched it last night. To me, the transfer was even more disappointing than DVD Beaver's screencaps would indicate. Colors are dull, contrast is off (whites are washed out: notice the white laundry on the line at 1:15:45), and the image is quite soft. PAL-to-NTSC ghosting is present, and was noticeable to me in several scenes with movement. I also feel the subtitling leaves something to be desired in the translation (too literal and un-idiomatic, though I should really leave that judgement to someone who is more fluent in French than I am). To nitpick, there are also occasional annoying spaces between letters within words; I realize that the subtitles are player-generated, but I haven't noticed these gaps within words with any other foreign film DVDs.

I hope to listen to the Kent Jones commentary tonight---I have high hopes that it alone will justify the purchase.

Posted: **Thu May 26, 2005 2:25 am**

FilmFanSea wrote:I hope to listen to the Kent Jones commentary tonight---I have high hopes that it alone will justify the purchase.

I received mine today as well and I'm a bit dissapointed. I should have trusted my instinct and gone with the french box. Now that I've committed though, I'll probably end up getting the artificial eye releases. The Jones commentary is nice. Oh, and Doug, I loved your review in Paste. Let's hope it brings more people into the world of Bresson. I plan on showing L'argent to as many people as I can. It's literally an amazing film, I think.

Posted: **Mon May 30, 2005 2:24 am**

Hey, thanks Steven--I'm glad you noticed.

Posted: **Mon May 30, 2005 5:40 pm**

Maybe it's just me, but I found Kent Jones' L'ARGENT commentary to be AWFUL! For someone who's a supposed expert on Bresson, he had nothing of import to say - no insights, nothing. A classic example is when he says that he loves how Bresson changed the characters of the shop owners from what they were in Tolstoy's original story - then goes on to something else, not even bothering to explain why or how the characters were different!
I've heard Jones speak several times at the NY Film Festival and I've always found him to be lacking as a film "expert" - I'm still trying to figure out how he got that job!

Posted: **Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:15 pm**

Coming soon (according to DVD Empire)

July 26th:
Gabbeh
How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman

August 9th:
The Stationmaster's Wife
The Crazy Stranger

August 16th:
Platform

August 23rd:
After Sex (Post coïtum animal triste)
Landscape In The Mist

September 6th:
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach
Quilombo

Posted: **Sun Jun 05, 2005 3:10 pm**

I just saw press releases from New Yorker confirming the above titles and dates.

Posted: **Sun Jun 05, 2005 7:21 pm**

The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach

Holy crap. I don't have any high hopes but I wonder if this will lead to New Yorker releasing some of other Straub/Huillet stuff they've been sitting on, like History Lessons, Moses and Aaron, Not Reconciled, and at least a few others I'm forgetting. And I've always been a bit puzzled Class Relations is MIA from home video given its rather well-known source material.

Posted: **Mon Jun 06, 2005 5:52 pm**

Ashirg wrote:Coming soon (according to DVD Empire)

The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach

This is terrific news! I had the good fortune of seeing this once in London and, though I won't try to convince anyone that its not boring, it is a monumental film and now one of my most anticipated upcoming releases! Bravo New Yorker!

Posted: **Mon Jun 13, 2005 5:32 pm**

Amazon now lists both Herzogs as pushed back to July 5th.

Posted: **Mon Jun 13, 2005 5:36 pm**

whatever happened to "Weekend" and "For Ever Mozart"? Any word of these just dropped off the face of the earth it seems. Not as if I think that their "Weekend" will be an improvement over the AE one, but it'd be nice to have "For Ever Mozart" on DVD...

Posted: **Mon Jun 13, 2005 5:48 pm**

The cover is up for "For ever Mozart"

amazon link

coming June 28

Posted: **Mon Jun 13, 2005 9:05 pm**

BrightEyes23 wrote:whatever happened to "Weekend" and "For Ever Mozart"? Any word of these just dropped off the face of the earth it seems. Not as if I think that their "Weekend" will be an improvement over the AE one, but it'd be nice to have "For Ever Mozart" on DVD...

Weekend is still due on June 28th as far as I know (see my earlier post: I don't believe DVD Planet, Deep Discount, or Digital Eyes will be carrying New Yorker DVDs anymore).

There is potentially exciting news in the specs of New Yorker's Weekend release:

DVD Features:
* Available subtitles: English
*Available Audio Tracks: French (Dolby Digital 2.0)
* Audio Commentary by Critic David Sterritt
* Interview with Raoul Coutard
* Mike Figgis on "Weekend"
* Biographies of Jean-Luc Godard, Cinematographer Raoul Coutard, Film Director Mike Figgis and Prof. Colin MacCabe
* Theatrical Trailer
* Scene Selections

Amazingly, New Yorker has provided audio commentaries on this disc and on the recent L'Argent! (I can't recall any commentaries on any of their other DVDs that I own.)

I'll be waiting patiently for the DVD Beaver comparison before I plunk down my money.

Posted: **Mon Jun 13, 2005 9:41 pm**

Thanks, I had been periodically checking dvdpricesearch and didn't see it. I think "Weekend" gets a netflix rental to hear the commentary and "For Ever Mozart" gets a blind buy, as I'm a Godard fanatic. Even if it's less than steller, hopefully strong sales of these will get New Yorker to release any more Godard they're holding on to!

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2005 3:58 am**

For what it's worth, Trond Trondsen and I have posted our review of L'Argent at www.robert-bresson.com, here.

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2005 9:27 pm**

Weekend cover's up on Amazon, such as it is....

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0009 ... ZZZZZZ.jpg

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2005 9:32 pm**

...and one of the worst covers ever made

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2005 9:35 pm**

Subbuteo wrote:...and one of the worst covers ever made

did you read my mind?, I hope it's a working cover and not the definitive one. I really liked very much the AE cover. this one is so god-awful.

Axel.

Posted: **Fri Jun 17, 2005 10:28 am**

At least they included extras this time. Babysteps...babysteps...

Posted: **Fri Jun 17, 2005 10:37 am**

Like L'ARGENT this appears to be a port in of the R2 AE disc, plus added commentary track, but with unfortunate PAL->NTSC conversion...

Posted: **Fri Jun 17, 2005 1:14 pm**

The cover is a re-working of their earlier VHS cover... oddly enough they've actually made it worse.

Posted: **Fri Jun 17, 2005 1:34 pm**

I can't think of anything to say other than "sooooo lame".

Even though it's probably far too late for them to change the cover-art, you can always voice your distaste for the cover to New Yorker Films:

[email protected]

Posted: **Fri Jun 17, 2005 9:43 pm**

Langlois68 wrote:At least they included extras this time. Babysteps...babysteps...

Yeah, but they made two giant leaps backwards.

Read DVD Beaver's Xala Review Here and Mandabi Review Here.

They've released two very important films with original burned-in subs from the film print! As if the aesthetics and readability of that wasn't bad enough, it also usually portends of subtitling from an earlier era that is at least sparser and can often be of poor/misleading translation quality. Kind of a far cry from a Criterion improved subtitle translation.

Yeah, the Weekend cover is beyond piss-poor and you should complain, but maybe you should also bitch about the more serious problem here on Xala and Mandabi.

Posted: **Sun Jun 19, 2005 5:36 am**

Darn it. And now someone just posted elsewhere on this site that they're releasing Angelopoulos's excellent Landscape in the Mist (1988).

Why must such important classic films be in the hands of dangerous bunglers?!? (Facets, this means you too!)

I just hope it's one of the babysteps forward and not the giant leap backwards with burned-in subs, etc.

I'd just like to say that New Yorker's VHS collection was excellent. I really hope they figure out the technical aspects of the DVD format really, really, really soon and start releasing these important films with the Criterion level of quality they deserve.