domino harvey wrote:Thank God for Second Run! Now if only someone would rescue Daisies...
The Facets
Daisies isn't at all bad - a decent transfer with burned-in subs, but they are at least white and in sync. So there's not a lot for Second Run to improve on, aside from making them optional.
As for
Valerie, I'm only a contributor so all this is second-hand, but here's what I know about the DVD:
I haven't seen the transfer yet, but I understand that it will either be the one featured on the Czech DVD or possibly a more recent one even than that. Even if it's the former, it's still going to be miles better than the Facets or Redemption editions (
comparison). 4:3 is the correct aspect ratio - this was almost universal in Czech cinema at the time, aside from rare big-budget Scope efforts like
Marketa Lazarová.
I believe the Jaroslava Schallerová interview is the one that's on the Czech DVD, only with English subtitles. It's a rather sweet piece: very much in schoolgirl reminiscence mode, with lots of stuff about sneaking off to the auditions behind her parents' back, meeting her first boyfriend on the set and nearly getting burned to death during the pyre scene.
There are two other interviews on that DVD (with actor Jan Klusák and film historian Pavel Taussig), but I drew heavily on both of them, so you're not missing anything significant - I'm guessing that the very brief Klusák piece was filmed as a by-product of an interview for a different DVD, as he clearly doesn't like either the film or its director very much! He was originally down to compose the music as well, but he hated the shoot so much that he changed his mind - and in my piece I argue that this was a good thing, since Luboš Fišer's music turned out to be absolutely perfect, and I'm not sure Klusák's typically dissonant, modernist style would have fitted quite as well.
I haven't seen the edited version of my contribution, so I can only confirm that I filmed roughly 15-20 minutes of material, and then left it with them. Hopefully they'll cut in clips and stills so you don't have to put up with looking at me all the time. It's more anecdotal than analytical, because I'm guessing that the Peter Hames essay will be the other way round - based on his other Second Run booklet essays, I'm assuming it will draw very heavily on the section on Valerie in 'The Czechoslovak New Wave'.
As for the content, I provide background on original author Vítězslav Nezval (one of the founders of Czech Surrealism) and the film's two main creative contributors (Jaromil Jireš and Ester Krumbachová), describe the troubled shoot and the surrounding political context, the film's reception in Czechoslovakia (both by the authorities and the public) and internationally, and its acknowledged influence on Angela Carter in general and
The Company of Wolves in particular. I also squeezed in a bit about Murnau's
Nosferatu (which Nezval saw, and became obsessed by, shortly before writing the novel) and why
Valerie isn't considered a Surrealist film despite its origins. Whether all of that ends up in the final edit is anyone's guess, though!
)
