804 A Brighter Summer Day

[jsteffe]

The Freer/Gallery newsletter notes BSD (as well as Hou's A City of Sadness, which screened earlier today) are being presented in "newly restored prints." Could this suggest that issues involving the planned Criterion DVD release are resolved?

Not necessarily. The new print of CITY OF SADNESS was struck by the Taiwanese government; the film still doesn't have a theatrical distributor in the U.S., the last I heard. Many films that show in a museum/cinematheque setting don't have domestic distribution and thus don't receive a broader theatrical or home video release. The same is probably true of the new print of A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, unless the rights conflict has been resolved and someone like Janus/Criterion has picked it up.

Still, it's great to hear that Edward Yang's masterpiece is available in a new print, and we can always hope for Criterion editions in the future.

[CrazedCollector]

I pray Criterion deems this important enough to release on Blu. I wouldn't hesitate to pay a WB-style outrageous price for it.

I suspect it has less to do with the importance of the film and more to do with the quality of what they'd be able to put out. So far Criterion has gotten top marks for all (or mostly all) of their Blu-ray releases, and I think they'd hate to spoil that run with a sub-par master/transfer or unfortunate source materials, even if it was the best they could do under the circumstances.

I wonder how their Blu-ray titles have been selling in relation to each other.

Hoping for a double-Yang month at some point - the newly confirmed A Brighter Summer Day, plus Yi Yi as a surprise, on Blu. And I've only heard some hate for their transfer of Howards End (looked fine to me, but what would I know).

[hearthesilence]

Heads up - the Brooklyn Academy of Music is screening the recent restoration on Friday, Nov. 19 at 7 pm.

[tavernier]

BAM's press release on the restored print:

The restoration used the original 35mm camera and sound negatives provided by the Edward Yang Estate and preserved at the Central Motion Pictures Corporation in Taipei. Due to the deterioration of the original camera negative an intermediate of the film printed at the time was also used.

[Perkins Cobb]

Someone please twist Kent Jones's arm for details on Criterion's plans for this and the other WCF titles. He was evasive about it on Dave Kehr's blog, before he quit posting there altogether.

[inneyp]

I finally caved and watched the only copy of this film I could find.

I absolutely loved it- despite the fact that it looked like this:



If anything seeing the movie has only made me long even more for the new print.

[AALFW]

If anything seeing the movie has only made me long even more for the new print.

I saw the new print at BAM this past November, and it is phenomenally improved from the image you posted (honestly, looked like it was made yesterday!) Absolutely worth Criterion's time for a Blu-ray transfer in its new state. Waiting for this amazing title's announcement any month now...

[perkizitore]

Saw it at LFF this October, the print was magnificent and the 4 hours passed quicker than usual.

[nolanoe]

Is this even likely for 2011??

[Peacock]

If they have/can sort out the rights for the Elvis song. I keep thinking the WCF box will finally come out in Nov. I'm sure Criterion will be disappointed if they have to sit on a completed boxset for over a year.

[Hopscotch]

Is this even likely for 2011??

The bigger question at this point is whether it's even likely for 2012, no? Hopefully one of the illegible words on that note card everyone's been scrutinizing is "Yang."

[denti alligator]

If they have/can sort out the rights for the Elvis song. I keep thinking the WCF box will finally come out in Nov. I'm sure Criterion will be disappointed if they have to sit on a completed boxset for over a year.

What rights issues are these?

[Peacock]

If they have/can sort out the rights for the Elvis song. I keep thinking the WCF box will finally come out in Nov. I'm sure Criterion will be disappointed if they have to sit on a completed boxset for over a year.

What rights issues are these?

I can't find the post, pretty sure it's in the Forthcoming thread, but a couple of people have said there were problems with the rights to the Elvis song used in the film - perhaps they have the theatrical rights but not home video?

They were working on the WCF boxset early in the year, and Criterion said on Facebook in reply to a comment that they were very sorry but that there was a holdup with the set, and not on their end.

Coupled with the reports about rights problems for ABSD, I'm guessing they were including this title in the boxset, hence the delay.

If no one else knows the posts I'm referring to i'll go hunt them down myself.

[Hopscotch]

We'd love to [comment on release plans for this set]. Unfortunately the hang-up is not on our end. We're still committed to bringing these out as soon as possible.

No specifics in that post.

[Perkins Cobb]

The Yang estate has issues (the retrospective after Yang's death only played a few venues because of print availability and/or the prices they were asking, and then Yang's sister died unexpectedly). Plus there's Jonathan Rosenbaum's claim that the Taiwanese mafia financed some of the films ... so there could be a culprit other than Elvis here.

[matrixschmatrix]

Oh, Rosenbaum blames everything on the Taiwanese mafia

[domino harvey]

Oh, Rosenbaum blames everything on the Taiwanese mafia

His four-star Down With Love raving makes sense now:


"Mr. Rosenbaum, Renée Zellweger plus Ewan McGregor plus mocking cinema heritage equals big subversive laughs, understand?"

[whaleallright]

Taiwanese sources (folks close to Hou and Yang) have affirmed that some of the production companies that financed the post-New Wave films like Brighter Summer Day and City of Sadness were indeed using laundered triad money. I think the problem is not just rights issues but accessing good elements--I'm told that it's been hard to find prints of City of Sadness that don't have the English and Chinese subtitles burnt in. Clearly such prints existed at one point, since they would have been the basis for the Chinese and Japanese DVDs.

[Michael Kerpan]

I don't believe the Japanese DVD of City of Sadness has burnt-in English or Chinese subtitles. Some of Hou's early quasi-musicals may have this problem, however. (Moving further afield, Ishmael Bernal's extraordinary Himala may only exist in dual hard-subbed (English and Japanese) form).

[Hopscotch]

I think the problem is not just rights issues but accessing good elements

Apologies if this is all rehashing, but I have a vague recollection of reading somewhere (correct me if I'm wrong) that, in the case of BSD, the issue was with the elements not for the entire film -- which were bad yes but still serviceable -- but for a very brief stretch of it. I also recall seeing this quasi-confirmed by the recollections of someone who attended a screening of the restoration and said that, yes, a few scenes were still muddy. So it's possible that Criterion is busy making small improvements to WCF's restoration. It would be unfortunate though and might explain the delay if said improvements are contingent on access to materials that for whatever reason are currently unavailable. (This could be what's meant by "not on our end.") If that's the case and the release is postponed indefinitely, I'd rather see an imperfect restoration released in the near future, as surely anything is preferable to what's in circulation now. [/contribution of dubious value]

[nolanoe]

Well, the Terrorizers is also out now, all nice and dandy. I can't see what else could hold them up, aside of Elvis and those restorations...

Taiwanese cinema is really a tread, I hope stuff is being figured out...

[inneyp]

It's been awhile since I've seen the film, so I may be mistaken, but to my knowledge the big Elvis song used is "Are you lonesome tonight?". If I'm remembering correctly the version by Elvis is never played- merely a cover by the band in the movie. If this is the case rights should not be an issue as the song is not originally by Elvis and resides in the public domain.

[Peacock]

It's been awhile since I've seen the film, so I may be mistaken, but to my knowledge the big Elvis song used is "Are you lonesome tonight?". If I'm remembering correctly the version by Elvis is never played- merely a cover by the band in the movie. If this is the case rights should not be an issue as the song is not originally by Elvis and resides in the public domain.

I had a look around online and the only mention I could find of a rights problem being related to the Elvis song, was by myself on this thread; so begrudgingly i'll retract that statement.

Begrudgingly because, I haven't seen the film, and am sure I had read that somewhere on here, but possibly it was Criterion on facebook in the early days of their fan page, mentioning that music rights for the film were tricky or something? Seeing as I'm the only person though who 'remembers' this, I guess you should take it with a big lump of salt.

[Tom Amolad]

The Elvis recording is indeed played -- Xiao Si'r's sister listens to a tape repeatedly to transcribe it, and the title of the film reflects her difficulty determining whether the word "bright" is followed an "-er" or an intake of breath.

[chrisandy]

Not sure if this helps or not, but I recently emailed World Cinema Foundation about the film and this is what they told me (I saw that it was playing at a retrospective of Yang's in NY in the fall):

Unfortunately, as far as I know there are no immediate plans for a wider release of A BRIGHER SUMMER DAY. The World Cinema Foundation is merely the restoring party with regards to this title - we do not own the licensing rights.

But rest assured, there is considerable interest in distributing this film. Its my belief that this title will eventually be released in North America but I don’t have any specific information as to when. Sorry about that...