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I've just checked my booklet and it runs as follows:

New digital transfer of Tarkovsky's original cut, including graphic shots which were censored from U.S. releases

The running time in that old catalogue is quoted as 91 minutes.

Would it be correct to assume that many of the other releases in different regions since the 1999 catalogue have been of this same version?

Can anyone comment on the quality of MK2's Kinoshita discs, released earlier this year? This reviewhas vaguely encouraging things to say about the MK2 edition of Carmen Comes Home, but consumer information is otherwise scarce.

The competing, unrestored, cheaper Panorama DVD of Carmen Comes Home is of middling quality, with unstable colors, although it has the benefit of optional English titles, absent on the MK2. Someone in the U.S. or U.K. should properly restore both Carmen films (with Carmen's Pure Love) and release them as a very entertaining double-disc set.

Has anyone here got the Henri Cartier-Bresson double-disc set? I'll probably get it anyway, but I was curious as to whether it has English subs or not.

ltfontaine wrote:The competing, unrestored, cheaper Panorama DVD of Carmen Comes Home is of middling quality, with unstable colors, although it has the benefit of optional English titles, absent on the MK2. Someone in the U.S. or U.K. should properly restore both Carmen films (with Carmen's Pure Love) and release them as a very entertaining double-disc set.

I found the first Carmen film funny enough on the first viewing -- but a bit tedious on re-watching. I found the second one a bit annoying even on first watching -- too much visual gimmickry and not enough genuine imagination. Takamine, as always, is a treasure that almost redeems Kinoshita's films.

(Haven't seen the MK2 releases).

Rsdio wrote:Has anyone here got the Henri Cartier-Bresson double-disc set? I'll probably get it anyway, but I was curious as to whether it has English subs or not.

wait, you mean to tell me there's another Bresson?

Michael Kerpan wrote:I found the first Carmen film funny enough on the first viewing -- but a bit tedious on re-watching. I found the second one a bit annoying even on first watching -- too much visual gimmickry and not enough genuine imagination. Takamine, as always, is a treasure that almost redeems Kinoshita's films.

I agree that the first film is more engaging than the sequel, but find the first one, especially, most charming, along the lines of Hawks films like Ball of Fire or Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It's a pleasure to see Japanese comedies from this period, all too rare on DVD, especially ones that are so pungently satirical of westernizing tensions in postwar Japan. And yes, Takamine is a firecracker in this film, most fetching and quite distinct in style from her more serious roles with which we are better acquainted in the West. In fact, apart from Hanging by a Thread (1957) and My Hobo (1963), I think the Carmen films are the only comedies of her career. (I don't count Tokyo Chorus, the tone of which doesn't strike me as comic, although it is sometimes described as such.)

Rsdio wrote:Has anyone here got the Henri Cartier-Bresson double-disc set? I'll probably get it anyway, but I was curious as to whether it has English subs or not.

I just received the set today. Spot checking several but not all of the films, there are a couple where the original language is English. The rest are in French with English subtitles. My initial impression is that this looks like a fascinating set.

Hi! Can someone enlighten me what films are in this Laurel and Hardy Collection? Thanks very much

Does anyone have any info on MK2, i.e. who their licensing deals are with in the UK and their general business interests, basically anything that is not on their website.

Thanks!

FSimeoni wrote:who their licensing deals are with in the UK

Arrow (Mon oncle d'Amérique), Soda Pictures (Hôtel du Nord) and Artificial Eye (loads) have released mk2 ports, and possibly Tartan. Would there be anyone else?

The Chaplin boxset released through WB. I know about AE also, but thanks for the others. I was wondering whether they give anyone exclusivity; since the Chaplin box is old I thought it may have gone to AE afterwards though with the Arrow and Soda releases it looks like that isn't the case. Thanks for the info.

Hi all, I´m thinking about getting the Von Stroheim coffret from amazon but I do not know french so I have a few questions. I was hoping, or rather assuming, that the original intertitles are still there and that the french subtitles are removable but what about the extra material, are there any english subtitles for them? Are there even any extras? I currently only own one Mk2 Release and thats Chaplins "The great dictator" and I´m very pleased with that one.

Google-translated review of the MK2 box. This seems to suggest that the films themselves are definitely English-friendly, but the description of the (extensive) extras isn't detailed enough to be sure.

Assuming the long documentary is the 1979 US/UK co-production The Man You Loved To Hate (a safe bet, as it was broadcast on British television in late December 1979, so it probably wouldn't have made its French debut until the 80s), it was certainly in English originally, and I'd assume a label as fastidious as MK2 would favour subtitles over a French voiceover, but I can't be certain.

Thanks Michael. That seals the deal. I'll buy it just for the films and any extra I can understand will be a bonus

The Stroheim box looks almost identical to the US Kino releases, including the shortening of the documentary for copyright reasons. (The uncut version, which I recorded off a Channel 4 broadcast in the 1980s, has clips from Greed and other films that are reduced to stills in Kino's version.)

That explains the ten-minute discrepancy (80 mins in that review, 90 mins BBC2 broadcast slot), which is why I wasn't sure whether it was the same documentary.

Jonathan S wrote:The Stroheim box looks almost identical to the US Kino releases, including the shortening of the documentary for copyright reasons. (The uncut version, which I recorded off a Channel 4 broadcast in the 1980s, has clips from Greed and other films that are reduced to stills in Kino's version.)

I would be heavy hand when I was working at Kino. The film was made before the VHS age and clip rights were never secured for video. Rather than go back and try to license every clip from the studios for something that would sell hundreds of copies, Pat approved the idea of me going back and replacing the clips. It was actually fairly good work for the video editing possibilities back then. As for the "banned" outtakes from Queen Kelly, that was actually a reel of film salvaged from the flood back in the 1930s that Swanson had kept in her collection. It also had clips from Indiscreet. In that reel were a few minutes of footage I was able to use for the 1985 version. The African footage came from Janice Allen and the Swanson introduction came from a 2" quad found at the WNET archives -- that was the hardest thing to restore.

Dennis D
Milestone F&V

I did think the re-editing of the documentary was well done, especially for that time - I was just surprised to find it cut when I'd been so used to watching my complete off-air tape. I expect Warner and similar companies would have demanded hefty license fees and it seems to be increasingly the norm even for companies like Criterion to remove clips that would have to be licensed, and usually with nothing so subtle as replacement stills. When I've been able to compare an old broadcast with a re-edited version, I often find that non-copyright material shot for the documentary (such as speech laid over the clips) has been hacked out too, not always necessarily.

I'm actually quite jealous that you were even able to use stills, as when my Laurel & Hardy book was published in 1995, my publisher (Cassell, now Continuum) demanded that I secure and if necessary pay for copyright permission to include stills from these 1920s & 30s films, despite the fact everyone else seemed to publish L&H stills without permission. When the then copyright holder of the films was approached, they of course demanded an exorbitant figure (basically my entire advance royalties) so the book was published without any stills and, unsurprisingly, was a commercial flop.

I talked to someone who had published film books in the UK in the 1960s & 70s, who told me that then movie companies would be only too willing to allow free publication of - and even supply - film stills, as they saw it as useful promotion of works they owned. But all that seems to have changed, at least in my experience. I've also noticed this in the production of new documentaries by the BBC and similar. Up to around the 1990s, if one was made about a particular Hollywood director, you could expect to see extensive clips from films made at different studios. Now they usually rely on quick snatches from trailers (presumably PD) with maybe just one or two genuine, longer extracts.

I remember being struck by the way that Jonathan Ross's Aki Kaurismäki documentary from the early 1990s featured clips from all of Kaurismäki's features up to then (including titles never distributed in Britain at that point), whereas most similar TV profiles were and are hamstrung by rights clearance issues.

Ironically, the version included as an extra on one of Artificial Eye's Kaurismäki volumes removes every trace of I Hired a Contract Killer - which, ironically, the original documentary was partly made to help promote! But it turned out to be a decidedly minor Kaurismäki film, and the loss of those clips didn't hurt the documentary at all. In fact, if anything, it's better in the shorter, tighter cut.

Review and screencaptures for the new MK2 blu-ray of Jules et Jim. It is sourced from the new 50th Anniversary restoration. From what I've heard the flipped-image scene has been fixed.

Those caps look better than the time I saw it in 35mm. The contrast is really lovely.

andyli wrote:Review and screencaptures for the new MK2 blu-ray of Jules et Jim. It is sourced from the new 50th Anniversary restoration. From what I've heard the flipped-image scene has been fixed.

Is it still misogynist claptrap?

On the other end, Le dernier métro release is absolutely dreadful.

I see nothing about subtitles. I assume the Jules et Jim disc has none.

Hotel du Nord (Marcel Carné, 1938) - November 4th

Hotel du Nord was recently restored with the support of the CNC. 2K image restoration (from a 4K scan of the image nitrate negative) done by Digimage Classics. Earlier this summer, the restoration was introduced in the Classics section of the Cannes Film Festival.