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I haven't seen this mentioned yet... Robert Beeson and Pam Engel (formerly of Artificial Eye) are expanding their company's presence in the DVD market with some exciting releases! Straub and Huillet's Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, Sicilia! and Une Visite au Louvre coming in October apparently.

I've been very impressed with the New Wave releases I've seen so far - essentially, Pam and Robert seem to be carrying on almost as though they'd never left Artificial Eye in the first place.

And they've been in the business as long as anyone I know, most of the really old guard like Charles and Kitty Cooper (Contemporary), Ken Rive (Gala) and Stan Hart (various) having shuffled off this mortal coil a few years back. When you've survived that long, it's usually because you know what you're doing.

Fantastic news that New Wave Films will be screening Kore-eda's Still Walking. I'm hoping that this may be just a taste and they will add Distance, Hana and Maborosi to their forthcoming DVD releases.

Awesome Welles wrote:Straub and Huillet's Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, Sicilia! and Une Visite au Louvre coming in October apparently.

Woah, yes please. Amazing. This means SUBS for Sicilia! and ...Louvre!

Not necessarily, if Danièle Huillet is involved - remember her somewhat minimalist subtitles on Edition Filmmuseum's Class Relations? My long-forgotten O-level German had the biggest workout it's had in decades!

MichaelB wrote:Not necessarily, if Danièle Huillet is involved - remember her somewhat minimalist subtitles on Edition Filmmuseum's Class Relations? My long-forgotten O-level German had the biggest workout it's had in decades!

I read Amerika beforehand and watched it without subs, so actually have no idea what they're like! I should do the same for when I see Sicilia! again too - Conversations... is on my shelf (next to some Pavese of course)...

MichaelB wrote:Not necessarily, if Danièle Huillet is involved - remember her somewhat minimalist subtitles on Edition Filmmuseum's Class Relations? My long-forgotten O-level German had the biggest workout it's had in decades!

Was involved unless it is set in stone that she wanted the subs to remain the same as on the Edition Filmmuseum's DVD. Is it possible new subs would be commissioned by New Wave Films?

MichaelB wrote:Not necessarily...

Yes, I thought that in the case of Louvre they explicitly didn't want subtitles because it would involve imposing text on the paintings. Certainly there were none on the print screened at Tate Modern a while back, although the fact that the whole thing is looped twice allows one to pick up a bit more fragmented French the second time.

The purist/leftist/ascetic principles of S&H are admirable and ridiculous at the same time - in one old interview (must have read this on the web), Straub dismisses almost all modern cinema as 'fascist', including Rossellini and Fassbinder, directors with whom he was supposed to have some sort of kinship.

foggy eyes wrote:

MichaelB wrote:Not necessarily, if Danièle Huillet is involved - remember her somewhat minimalist subtitles on Edition Filmmuseum's Class Relations? My long-forgotten O-level German had the biggest workout it's had in decades!

I read Amerika beforehand and watched it without subs, so actually have no idea what they're like!

If I remember rightly, they give a barebones precis of what's being said for the benefit of those who don't understand German at all, but very substantial chunks are left untranslated. I was initially baffled as to why a disc that was so outstanding in every other department would be so lacking in that one, until I discovered that this was at Huillet's specific request.

I can sympathise with her up to a point, but given that these were optional subtitles (i.e. a quite different situation from a celluloid print) it seems to me that her main rationale for their sketchiness was pretty sketchy itself.

MichaelB wrote:I can sympathise with her up to a point, but given that these were optional subtitles (i.e. a quite different situation from a celluloid print) it seems to me that her main rationale for their sketchiness was pretty sketchy itself.

Probably something about not pandering to imperialist monoglots, or some Adorno-ite notion of untranslatability.

Une Visite au Louvre will have English subtitles (obvioulsy optional). It's taken some time to get them done, thus delaying the issue of the DVDs but they are now finished.

Gropius wrote:Yes, I thought that in the case of Louvre they explicitly didn't want subtitles because it would involve imposing text on the paintings. Certainly there were none on the print screened at Tate Modern a while back, although the fact that the whole thing is looped twice allows one to pick up a bit more fragmented French the second time.

It isn't looped twice - there are two different versions of the film using different takes, at least for the exterior shots of the Louvre, which are slightly longer in one version and in which you can see different passersby. It would be nice if both versions were to be included on the DVD, but it looks as if it'll only have one, as does the Editions Montparnasse disc, I believe.

DVD Times on Sleep Furiously

I'm thrilled with this label's releases so far, from a selection perspective - I don't own any yet so I can't speak to things like transfer quality. My copy of Sleep Furiously is on its way from Amazon UK, however, and I've pre-ordered 35 Rhums as well. I will certainly be getting the Straub-Huillet films as well when they're released. Great work!

DVD Times on 35 Shots of Rum

For those wondering about the Straub and Huillet films this October, its been pushed back. Oh and for those curious about The Headless Woman DVD its also in the enquiry.

Thanks for your enquiry.
The Straub-Huillet double DVD has been delayed for assorted reasons. The elements are now all in place and the new date is Jan 25 2010. It takes a long time to get the DVD up onto the retail websites.
Headless Woman should be released in the cinema Feb or March, so the DVD would be roughly 4 months after the cinema release, so June/July next year.
Best regards,
Robert Beeson

I got my copy of New Wave's 35 Shots of Rum. It looks great, but I can't get my DVD player to turn on the subtitles (which ARE there -- and can be seen when watching this on my PC).

Very Ozu-esque -- in a non-imitative way. I do think that

Spoiler

the retired co-worker's suicide

isn't Ozu-esque and isn't particularly necessary (too needlessly melodramatic).

Michael Kerpan wrote:I got my copy of New Wave's 35 Shots of Rum. It looks great, but I can't get my DVD player to turn on the subtitles (which ARE there -- and can be seen when watching this on my PC).

When I watched this last night on my Oppo, the subtitles defaulted to "off" but came on when I toggled them.

I have an Oppo DVD player -- and I tried to toggle the subs on in three different ways -- with no luck. ;~{

I'm having the subtitle problem as well on my BluRay Momitsu-knockoff (the Curtis Mathis CMMBX130 with flashed Momitsu BDP899 firmware). I can toggle subtitles, but they don't appear. On my older Philips DVP5990, I get an 'operation prohibited' style icon when I try to toggle subtitles (audio too) and they don't show up when I enable them from the menu. I will have to opt instead for playing on my computer, which I fortunately do have running into another input on my TV (although my computer's drive is set to region 1, so I'll have to do some more finagling there... I hate Apple's optical drives).

Maybe New Wave Films will do a replacement run? I hate the thought of what is from all appearances really a wonderful new label having that kind of unplanned financial cost, but I'm guessing a lot of people will be affected by this (although neither DVD Times nor DVD Outsider seemed to have a problem).

Anyway, I'm mere minutes into my first viewing of the film, so I should get back to it! I really hate it when people post things mid-viewing, but it's a bit of an unusual circumstance.

Edit: One more update. The subtitle option on the main menu seems to be inverted. If you select subtitles off, then play the film, they appear (confirmed on my computer and also my Momitsu). And now back to the film (whose first 8 or so minutes I already know very well...)

I wonder if the sound options are also "seemingly" inverted?

So, what do you want to see on the set-up _after_ your subtitle selection -- "on" bolded or "off" bolded?

Off should be bolded in white (at least, on my three players). I didn't look into the sound option, I listen on headphones mostly and it sounded okay to me on what I thought was the 2.0 track - I think that part is working correctly.

As for their Straub&Huillet release, the page seems to be up now.

A note on accessing subtitles on New Wave discs.