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On the letters page in the new Sight & Sound, Head of Content at the BFI, Jane Giles, confirms that...

...Peter Greenaway's film Goltzius and the Pelican will be released by the BFI later this year on DVD, via BFI Player and with event screenings in cinemas.

Wonderful news, but I hope "on DVD" was just a shorthand for "on DVD and Blu-ray"! :-"

I really hope for a bluray too - the DCP of this at last's December's EU Film Festival at the AFI Silver was simply stunning.

Hope they haven't forgotten about Draughtsman and the other early films.

Really good news in any case, especially as "Goltzius" is so much better than expected, or at least surprisingly accessible compared to "TLS" and "Nightwatching" (which I was only able to really understand after watching "Rembrandt's J'accuse"). But yes, "Prospero" is the film which most needs a definitive release from the BFI.

colinr0380 wrote:Wonderful news, but I hope "on DVD" was just a shorthand for "on DVD and Blu-ray"! :-"

I'm sure it was, in much the same way that I tell people that I'm a DVD producer even though my last four projects have all been BD exclusives. Since an existing HD master is undoubtedly available, it's hard to imagine the BFI going for DVD-only on a release like this.

There hasn't been any activity here for a while, but Axiom appear to have been chugging along well. I just pre-ordered Becoming Traviata (an opera documentary with French star Natalie Dessay) from them directly, as I'm curious if they will ship it out early. It also appears to have some extras and 5.1 sound, and as far as I can tell, the Cinema Guild release has only 2.0 sound and a trailer, so this should be a welcome edition.

Due in August.

^ yes...

but now it's somehow disappeared/removed ... dang it!

Zavvi has it up for preorder - which I ordered, just wondering what is going on now.

Just had a press release for this one from Axiom Films, in which it says they'll be handling the both the cinema and home entertainment releases.

antnield wrote:Just had a press release for this one from Axiom Films, in which it says they'll be handling the both the cinema and home entertainment releases.

Does anybody know how and/or why this happened? I like Axiom, but surely the BFI are more suited to a proper release of this film? I am concerned for the Blu-ray release, since Axiom have far less experience with the format.

Or do we think that the BFI will handle the Blu-ray production for Axiom?

Tommaso wrote:Really good news in any case, especially as "Goltzius" is so much better than expected, or at least surprisingly accessible compared to "TLS"

as much as i agree, i have to admit i enjoyed the tulse luper suitcases more than goltzius. this to me was like an art-video instalment rant/criticism whilst tulse luper was like a fun multimedia project (similar to a puzzle). like the falls for the video and internet generation.

and yes, i agree prospero needs a proper release, and so does baby of macon. i remember reading that greenaway intended those 2 films to be part of a trilogy- though the third film was never done.

McCrutchy wrote:Or do we think that the BFI will handle the Blu-ray production for Axiom?

Why? The BFI isn't an authoring house, and Axiom are more than capable of producing excellent Blu-rays.

Replying to smokes' post in the now locked "Goltzius" thread in the BFI section:

I enjoyed much of TLS, too, but in some way it's marred for me by the third part. Probably he just ran out of money, but the cheapness of the computer effects there was more than irritating, and even 'plotwise' it ran totally out of steam (not just compared to how inventive the first two parts were). But my "so much better than expected" came from the descriptions of the plot of "Goltzius" I had read before seeing the film, and the slight disappointment I still have concerning "Nightwatching".

The Scandinavian release of "Prospero" suffers from much too tight framing which destroys the careful compositions for me, but what's wrong with "Macon" from the same label? It looks pretty gorgeous even on SD, and I suppose the Blu must be mindblowing.

tommaso, i definitely agree that the third, and last part, of the tulse luper suitcases was much slower, and the change of actors for the main lead was a little jarring, but i always thought of it as greenaway's excuse to film in buildings he admired. i think i just admired the character so much that it didn't matter for me; an obvious personal taste on my part.

btw: does anyone know what happened with the tulse luper competition held on the official website?

i honestly cannot even remember nightwatching, because i disliked it so much- something very rare for me as he's a sort of obsession. baby of macon of released for free by kees kassender's production company on youtube and looks absolutely gorgeous (if anyone has comcast you can cast it to your television/monitor). i'd be curious if that copy is similar to the scandinavian one

"Nightwatching" grew a little for me after watching its "J'accuse" companion piece, not least because the conspiracy theory became much clearer. On its own, I found "Nightwatching" so confusing that in the end I began to get bored. Now I see it more as a fictionalised version of a 'documentary' which is probably entirely fictional, too. But I love "J'accuse", probably the most exciting art lecture you're likely to encounter. Even if it's most likely a parody on art lectures. Or does anyone think that Greenaway actually believes in his theory?

It might be worth watching his Nine Classic Paintings Revisited lecture at the University of Berkeley for that answer, as it details Nightwatching and Rembrandt's J'accuse as elements of the wider project of re-presenting some of the most famous paintings in their gallery contexts.

I'm as curious as everyone else as to whether this change is going to alter the prospects of a Blu release for Goltzius and the Pelican Company.

Tommaso wrote:Or does anyone think that Greenaway actually believes in his theory?

i don't know if he believes his own theories as much as he likes to spark debate. for greenaway, art is this great medium where he gets a lot of inspiration for his work so he sees most of this work as having many possibilities. i think for the night watch, a murder mystery is just one of the endless possibilities greenaway see's being communicated- and it might have to do with his own fascination with number theory and symmetry (where are the characters looking, how are the arranged, how many characters are present, how many aren't etc.)

i also think for a lot of great art (and artists) there is always a small part that's hidden or unavailable to the viewer- hence the theories and open interpretation to the work. in this case, greenaway may feel like he has stumbled on a big part of the puzzle.

btw: in italy, he did this great media presentation of the last supper that many art critics and church theologians considered one of the best things they'd ever seen. the project was called 'leonardo's last supper: a vision by peter greenaway'

smokes wrote:btw: in italy, he did this great media presentation of the last supper that many art critics and church theologians considered one of the best things they'd ever seen. the project was called 'leonardo's last supper: a vision by peter greenaway'

I've actually seen this, though not the one-off event with the original painting, but a later 're-play' in a museum in Milano, on a copy of the painting. But the effect was fantastic in any case. The combination of (spot)light(s) and music made you see and experience the very well-known painting in a totally new way, highlighting 'secret' relationships and possible allusions within the painting. Unfortunately I know far too little about painting to fully appreciate what he was doing in this case, but if art critics say that it was unique and amazing, very fine with me.

And very well if you regard "J'accuse" as 'genuine' at least in some way. I wasn't so sure about this, given that PG delights so much in taking theories and concepts ad absurdum, and the way many of his early works are spoofs of the documentary form. So I couldn't rule out the possibility that "J'accuse" was his most intricately conceived 'mockumentary'.

smokes wrote:and yes, i agree prospero needs a proper release, and so does baby of macon. i remember reading that greenaway intended those 2 films to be part of a trilogy- though the third film was never done.

He's spoken a little about the third film. It was going to be set during the Thirty Years' War and would've been about a guy trying to locate the human soul by dissecting corpses. The cast would've been mostly senior citizens and necrophilia was a major theme. IIRC it also had some unpronounceable title, though I can't remember what it was and I can't find it online. I think most of what I remember comes from an interview in the published script for The Baby of Macon, which I don't have on hand. Not surprisingly he didn't get the money to make it, particularly since Macon didn't do so hot commercially.

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:IIRC it also had some unpronounceable title, though I can't remember what it was and I can't find it online.

Augsbergenfeld, I suspect.

Yep, that's it. Not as unpronounceable as I thought, but not exactly the sort of thing that looks good on a marquee (plus it looks like Greenaway made the word up). He also planned to shoot it in black and white, so a) black-and-white movie, b) 65-and-over cast, c) necrophilia theme, d) the title is Augsbergenfeld. That's probably what you'd get if you wrote a computer program to devise the movie least likely to find backing. He tried to revive about ten years back with partial Russian state funding, but I'm not surprised that didn't work out either.

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:Yep, that's it. Not as unpronounceable as I thought, but not exactly the sort of thing that looks good on a marquee (plus it looks like Greenaway made the word up). He also planned to shoot it in black and white, so a) black-and-white movie, b) 65-and-over cast, c) necrophilia theme, d) the title is Augsbergenfeld. That's probably what you'd get if you wrote a computer program to devise the movie least likely to find backing. He tried to revive about ten years back with partial Russian state funding, but I'm not surprised that didn't work out either.

He might conceivably have managed it it The Baby of Mâcon hadn't been such a cataclysmic disaster - until then, he proudly (and, as far as I can see, accurately) boasted that only A Zed and Two Noughts had failed to turn a profit, and even that hadn't done too badly.

A brief review of Goltzius and the Pelican Company by Peter Bradshaw.

AX1 (formerly AXIOM) will be releasing ALICE IN THE CITIES on blu on December 11. If one checks their website an assumption can be made that more Wenders is to follow. I would expect THE GOALIE’S ANXIETY next year (something I expected Criterion to have released by now) but don’t expect the same 1971 soundtrack: it will be redubbed for contractural reasons.