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On the one occasion I attended a Labour Party policy forum as an ordinary member (before I left the party in 1998), we were shown a video presentation outlining the issues the organisers wanted us to discuss. It featured key New Labour figures talking to an offscreen interviewer located at the side of the camera and contained unmotivated zooms, cuts, changes of angle, shifts from colour to black and white and so on. No one ever addressed the camera directly. It looked as if whoever directed it had recently watched Oliver Stone's Nixon and JFK and thought it would be a good idea to replicate their style. Unfortunately, whoever it was forgot about the content and the fact that, when Stone filmed someone in this way, it was because they were not to be trusted. Ironically, considering what happened after the 1997 election, you could say that the style of the video told the truth.

The above is just a roundabout way of saying that it's the content of the Romney interview that was good: I can live with the style under those circumstances.

I think the best two interviews with directors I have seen have both been on BBC2. The series Moving Pictures had a special edition in which Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker went through key sequences from Goodfellas explaining exactly what motivated the filming and editing choices. Mark Cousins' series Scene by Scene had an edition featuring Brian de Palma which was particularly memorable because you could see an initially visibly wary de Palma gradually coming to appreciate Cousins' approach to the interview.

Clearly, the resources available to the BBC at the time were greater than those available to DVD producers now but my favourite director interview on DVD that I've watched is on AE's Kings and Queen, especially where Arnaud Desplechin talks about being taken to see Bergman films at a (possibly too early) age and the influence of Bergman on his own work.

AidanKing wrote:On the one occasion I attended a Labour Party policy forum as an ordinary member (before I left the party in 1998), we were shown a video presentation outlining the issues the organisers wanted us to discuss. It featured key New Labour figures talking to an offscreen interviewer located at the side of the camera and contained unmotivated zooms, cuts, changes of angle, shifts from colour to black and white and so on. No one ever addressed the camera directly. It looked as if whoever directed it had recently watched Oliver Stone's Nixon and JFK and thought it would be a good idea to replicate their style.

I was working in a museum and a colleague somehow ended up with the responsibility for shooting and editing a conservation video intended for school groups. He had no experience whatsoever making films of any kind, but was assigned a lackey to do the technical stuff. He had just seen Prospero's Books. O the horror.

I actually quite like the sound of a Prospero's Books-influenced conservation video. Presumably every last piece of relevant information was up on the screen but was so densely packed and layered that it was impossible to interpret?

The BBC has just shown a series about geology called Rise of the Continents which, although rather good, had an unfortunate tic of going into a Tony Scott post-Enemy of the State-style frenzy every time it wanted to say that this geological process happened a very long time ago and took a very long time. It was extremely eye-catching, and quite beautiful, to look at whenever it did this but it didn't really help with conveying the information.

I really like Artificial Eye's home made interviews, where they just train a camera on a director or performer in their office. The only snag is that they're so low-tech that they sometimes don't check to see if the auto-focus is on the speaker rather than the wall of VHS tapes behind them.

AidanKing wrote:The BBC has just shown a series about geology called Rise of the Continents which, although rather good, had an unfortunate tic of going into a Tony Scott post-Enemy of the State-style frenzy every time it wanted to say that this geological process happened a very long time ago and took a very long time. It was extremely eye-catching, and quite beautiful, to look at whenever it did this but it didn't really help with conveying the information.

Jump to 0:54 for a splendid corrective.

Great stuff indeed. Is that Mr Miller's Dogme Documentary Manifesto? Thanks for the link.

3 Documentaries by Sergei Loznitsa available for pre-order at VivaVerve! A propos, the aforementioned DocAlliance announced last week that O Milagre de Santo António (2012) is "coming soon" on their site.

repeat wrote:A propos, the aforementioned DocAlliance announced last week that O Milagre de Santo António (2012) is "coming soon" on their site.

It's online, 720p and streaming free for the rest of the week ("in your country", presumably in some others as well)

Sorry if I've missed this, but Pat Collins' SILENCE is only listed on DVD at Amazon (not that I buy discs from there anymore). Hoping there will be a Blu!

I think Caesar Must Die is also DVD-only.

I received my Blu Ray of In the Fog and the print is thing a beauty.

The subtitles are also optional.

peerpee wrote:Sorry if I've missed this, but Pat Collins' SILENCE is only listed on DVD at Amazon (not that I buy discs from there anymore). Hoping there will be a Blu!

Just DVD unfortunately. If only the BFI would make its P&A funds available for small scale projects like making Blu-rays, the money spent would have a lasting legacy rather than just being frittered away on vast advertising stunts, the main beneficiary of which are the media outlets, not the film-watching public.

Frustrating. I'll still buy the DVD, though.

Maybe an online petition to support boutique labels might help.

I suppose Kickstarter appeals would be out of the question to raise money for BDs?

Just had to chime in to confirm that the transfer of In the Fog is a thing of wonder. It's just eye-poppingly gorgeous.

The extra short on the disc (Letter) is a smeary, atmospheric memory piece that's like nothing else I've seen by the director. More in the line of Sokhurov, actually. It's lovely and mysterious (and SD) and a great addition to the disc. Now I need to get that documentary set.

I can also thoroughly recommend the Loznitsa documentaries disc.

zedz wrote:Just had to chime in to confirm that the transfer of In the Fog is a thing of wonder. It's just eye-poppingly gorgeous.

My copy looks like there's a slight acid lemony wash over the daytime scenes. Is that the desired look or should I get checked for cataracts?

I didn't notice anything about the image that differed from what I saw theatrically, but I was just skimming the feature.

New Wave have acquired Norte, the End of History. Kickstarter for a blu?

When they tweeted about a new lengthy acquisition I had my fingers crossed for Norte. They'd have my pledge for a Blu kickstarter, but I'm hoping it's already a foregone conclusion.

What's the difference between the film version of 'Mysteries of Lisbon' & the mini-series version apart from the running time? Is there anything in either version that's not in the other? I'm wondering as I won the Film version on New wave's Facebook page.

From Adrian Martin:

"Basically, the difference between the versions is that he dropped one whole episode (No 4, I think) from the overall structure - because (as his producer said when I saw the 6 hour version) he did not want to shorten everything, he thought it better to make one long, decisive cut."

That episode is about an hour or so long. Martin also considers this cut episode to be perhaps the best thing Ruíz ever directed.

shaky wrote:From Adrian Martin:

"Basically, the difference between the versions is that he dropped one whole episode (No 4, I think) from the overall structure - because (as his producer said when I saw the 6 hour version) he did not want to shorten everything, he thought it better to make one long, decisive cut."

That episode is about an hour or so long. Martin also considers this cut episode to be perhaps the best thing Ruíz ever directed.

What extras does the UK DVD have & is it worth keeping the DVD when it does arrive whilst getting a subtitled version of the Mini-Series?

shaky wrote:From Adrian Martin:

"Basically, the difference between the versions is that he dropped one whole episode (No 4, I think) from the overall structure - because (as his producer said when I saw the 6 hour version) he did not want to shorten everything, he thought it better to make one long, decisive cut."

That episode is about an hour or so long. Martin also considers this cut episode to be perhaps the best thing Ruíz ever directed.

There's a bit more to it than that, as there's a substantial scene in the theatrical version that doesn't appear in the TV version. It conveys (in a completely different way) important information that would otherwise be missing.

I think that calling the elided episode "the best thing Ruiz ever directed" is sheer hyperbole. It's as good as the rest of the series, but hardly stands out as especially wondrous (or even especially different) - and that really sells an incredible career painfully short. The theatrical-only scene (Pedro wanders into Father Dinis' inner sanctum) is pretty damn amazing, however.

I'd wager that 'Kickstarter for a Blu' would work every time for New Wave Films.

Is it possible for one company to own the rights to a film version (ie. shorter version) of a TV series & another one to own the TV series rights?