Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection

[jsteffe]

Brilliant work Michael and Daniel, this has far exceeded what I expected when I preordered. I'm liking this Kickstarter campaign more than the one for Manos.

Regarding the latter, I personally learned a valuable lesson about professionalism and trust. From here on out, I will only donate to Kickstarter campaigns by people I already know and trust by experience. Arguably, that lesson was worth the price of the Manos Blu-ray that I will probably never receive.

This Borowczyk set, in contrast, is shaping up to be far better than I could have expected, as you have already noted, Grand Wazoo. A true labor of perversion!

[MichaelB]

Holy Smoke is wonderful - it's ten minutes long (!), almost entirely cut-out animation, and so dementedly surreal that it's easy to forget that it's a commercial for Imperial Tobacco. Borowczyk is very much in Les Astronautes mode - in other words, you'd probably guess that it was Terry Gilliam's Python-era style if you approached it unforewarned (not least because it's in English and the uncredited actors all have decidedly Pythonesque vocal inflections).

It may not have been conceived as un film de Walerian Borowczyk (in fact, he's not even credited, although it's obviously his work), but I'm more than happy to regard it as a bonus short.

In fact, how many shorts are in the package now? I'm losing count!

(We promised fourteen in the Kickstarter, but there's also the newly-discovered The Beast short, plus Holy Smoke, plus possibly two more commercials, plus alternative cuts of A Private Collection and The Beast - is that twenty?)

[MichaelB]

James White on restoring Goto.

(or, if you were a Kickstarter backer, what your money was spent on!)

[Drucker]

Great to see you guys had so much luck restoring this (1.66 framing and the good shape of audio). Karma from Boro's spirit, surely.

[MichaelB]

Great to see you guys had so much luck restoring this (1.66 framing and the good shape of audio). Karma from Boro's spirit, surely.

And of course a major bonus of the main restoration going so smoothly is that we were able to afford to make 2K scans of all the other shorts. How much actual restoration they receive remains to be seen, but at the very least they'll all be presented in native HD (including things like the short-film version of The Beast, which turned up in the same 35mm package).

As for the Goto restoration, I've only seen a low-bitrate MPEG-1 file so far, but even that made it clear that it's a giant step forward from previous video versions. The fine detail will look incredible in 1080p.

[David M.]

It looks absolutely beautiful in a way I normally associated with negative scans.

[ola t]

May I ask a question about one thing in James White's article that confuses me? It's the bit about how the vertical scratch on the 1st-gen positive fortuitously ended up outside the picture area thanks to the intended ratio being 1.66:1. I would have thought the left and right edges of the picture area used would be in the same positions no matter whether the intended aspect ratio is 1.33:1, 1.66:1 or 1.85:1. Is that not the case? This diagram on Wikipedia seems to show all formats having the same width (but different heights), as it were -- is the diagram over-simplified? Apologies if I've misunderstood something and/or not explained myself very well. Just trying to understand how this works...

[knives]

If the native size of the film used was 1.85 (or thereabouts) which wasn't uncommon for 35mm than a shortening against the sides would have been used for 1.66. That said another possible answer though probably less likely is that the scratch was on the area that would have been covered by the projecting camera and thus not seen by audiences.

[MichaelB]

In case you're concerned that you might be losing part of the picture compared with previous releases, here are framegrab comparisons between the Nouveaux disc and the new Arrow restoration - as you can see, they're both framed at 1.66:1, but the Arrow actually reveals a small but clearly noticeable amount of additional material on all four sides.




(NB: The framegrab from the restoration is from a low-bitrate low-resolution timecoded MPEG-1 file, and is not indicative of the final quality. Although even at this resolution you can still see clear improvements - the Nouveaux picture looks noticeably muddier, presumably a reflection as much of inferior source materials as the fact that it's an older transfer.)

[ola t]

Thanks for posting that, looks great. I wasn't so much concerned as curious -- that part of White's piece just seems to be missing a piece of information to make it completely understandable. If the prints are matted to 1.75 or something, that would explain it. (Thanks Knives.)

[CSM126]

I have zero experience with Borowczyk (other than the Cinema Snob review of The Beast), but preordered this set on a blind buy due to the enthusiasm of this board. Watching this set grow via this thread makes me very happy I did, because this looks like an amazing release. Cannot wait to hold this in my hands and dive in.

[MichaelB]

May I ask a question about one thing in James White's article that confuses me? It's the bit about how the vertical scratch on the 1st-gen positive fortuitously ended up outside the picture area thanks to the intended ratio being 1.66:1. I would have thought the left and right edges of the picture area used would be in the same positions no matter whether the intended aspect ratio is 1.33:1, 1.66:1 or 1.85:1. Is that not the case? This diagram on Wikipedia seems to show all formats having the same width (but different heights), as it were -- is the diagram over-simplified? Apologies if I've misunderstood something and/or not explained myself very well. Just trying to understand how this works...

James's answer is that all three 35mm elements were masked to approximately 1.78:1, and so could be cropped either to 1.66:1 (at the sides) or 1.85:1 (at the top and bottom), although 1.66:1 is unquestionably Borowczyk's preferred ratio.

This is one of the very handy things about having his regular producer Dominique Ségrétin (née Duvergé) on board: we can easily check aspect ratio issues with an unimpeachable authority. She also approved our opening-up of Theatre of Mr & Mrs Kabal to 1.37:1 - this was clearly the correct aspect ratio compositionally, but it was originally released in 1.66:1, presumably for pragmatic logistical reasons.

[EddieLarkin]

Presumably all of the pre-Mr & Mrs Kabal shorts are 1.37:1 also? It's no surprise to me that an animated film, especially one done in the style of Theatre of Mr & Mrs Kabal, is 1.37:1 despite being released wide.

Out of interest, will the other 3 features be 1.66:1 as well, or 1.75:1/1.85:1?

[MichaelB]

Off the top of my head, all the features will be 1.66:1 apart from the Kabal film.

And the shorts are coming in a mixture of aspect ratios, although you can guarantee that they'll be correct - in all cases we were working from original 35mm materials and had Dominique on hand to advise us.

[MichaelB]

Why I Love The Theatre of Mr & Mrs Kabal by Daniel Bird.

[antnield]

Walerian Borowczyk: five essential films by Michael Brooke.

[MichaelB]

Daniel Bird and Ian Christie (plus Terry Gilliam, briefly) discuss Borowczyk on Radio 4's The Film Programme - it starts at 15:27.

(Although if you listen from the start there's a rather good interview with Christiane Kubrick as the opening item.)

[MichaelB]

Walerian Borowczyk: The Motion Demon - a new feature for Electric Sheep by Daniel Bird.

At his best, Borowczyk made films as if he had invented cinema. At his worst, he filmed like a Martian who had fallen through time and space to make clandestine documentaries about human mating rituals. In many ways, Borowczyk was ahead of his time (his later work deserves to be taken as seriously as, for example, Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac or the films of Catherine Breillat). He was by far the most interesting Polish filmmaker of his generation, and his best films – the shorts of the 1960s and the features from the early 1970s – rank alongside the best of Bresson (in terms of rigour) and Buñuel.

[colinr0380]

Daniel Bird and Ian Christie (plus Terry Gilliam, briefly) discuss Borowczyk on Radio 4's The Film Programme - it starts at 15:27.

(Although if you listen from the start there's a rather good interview with Christiane Kubrick as the opening item.)

I do think it is ironically amusing that after Francine Stock managed to avoid having to deal with Nymphomaniac on its UK release (which was disappointing as I was hoping for the usual LvT rant), that she was faced with The Beast! Though she seemed oddly fixated on Emmanuelle 5!

[MichaelB]

Though she seemed oddly fixated on Emmanuelle 5!

I suspect this might have been because it's the only Borowczyk film that's natively in radio-friendly English.

[GaryC]

And the shorts are coming in a mixture of aspect ratios, although you can guarantee that they'll be correct - in all cases we were working from original 35mm materials and had Dominique on hand to advise us.

FWIW Diptych was shown in 1.37:1 at the BFI Southbank this evening, and looked like it was a digital projection. (The Margin was a 35mm print, shown at 1.66:1.)

[MichaelB]

It was from a DCP created from James White's 2K restoration. The version on Arrow's Blu-ray will look all but identical.

In fact, one of the reasons that the BFI retrospective was viable in the first place was that all these digital restorations were now available.

[PAW]

James's answer is that all three 35mm elements were masked to approximately 1.78:1, and so could be cropped either to 1.66:1 (at the sides) or 1.85:1 (at the top and bottom), although 1.66:1 is unquestionably Borowczyk's preferred ratio.

I'm still confused about this; normally 1.66:1 and 1.85:1 have the same width and 1.85:1 is just more cropped vertically. In fact, standard projection plates for 1.66:1 and 1.85:1 both have a width of .825"., so I'm not sure if it would have even been possible to mask more of the sides off when projecting a print. Or is the area of the frame that has been cropped just what would be masked in projection for any aspect ratio?

[Dr. Face Head]

With regard to securing Docteur Jekyll et les femmes, I vaguely understand that you would be required to purchase all rights to the entire catalog of that rights-holder. So of course the problem is obvious - cost, and the useless "other films" you'd be left standing around with. However, have you ever given any thought to the idea of partnering with another company, or several companies from very different backgrounds and who serve different niche markets in order to present a package to this company "together" as a group? This would allow you to satisfy the needs of the demanding producer, and also allow you to cherry pick what you're interested in. It could be a way to obtain proper leverage to secure this film for the actual Borowczyk fans. I say this because my vantage point on this (albeit from a distance - and uninformed as to the innermost mechanics of private negotiating around the subject) shows a vague image of a greedy producer who is aware that everyone and their mother wants a crack at Jeckyll, yet also knows all too well they have to "off-load" the dreck of their canon for a few pennies too - and they are using (abusing?) this opportunity to do so. Let's say they have three animated features, a few "bla" comedies, typical run of the mill random production company output - well, someone has still got to be interested in putting that shit out in this day and age of blue ray and DVD inundation. Perhaps a quick look at the other titles, a little research into who puts that sort of shit out, and a basic proposition may be extremely effective in getting the ball rolling.

[zedz]

I can only imagine that approach being viable in extremely unusual and artificial circumstances.

My assumption was that the catalogue in question (which I know nothing about) is unwieldy and has negligible commercial value, but has been ridiculously overvalued by the rightsholder. I mean, I think "everyone and their mother wants a crack at Jekyll" is a vast overstatement - just look at how much interest various labels have had in far better known and far more accessible Borowczyk titles in the fifteen years before Arrow came to the party. And if the catalogue in question comprises, say, twenty titles, I would lay odds that the asking price isn't "a reasonable price for the Borowczyk times two" but closer to "a reasonable price for the Borowczyk times twenty." The very fact that somebody is interested in one of the films might have convinced the rightsholder that he's sitting on a goldmine, when the fact of the matter is that even the jewel in the crown is a film with very limited commercial prospects, much as a handful of fanatics over here might want to see it.

And the other side of the coin is that paying way over the odds for the rights of a single film can end up skewing the market, and suddenly you'll have other sales agents trying on the same "all or nothing" approach (more limited versions of which are already all too common - "You want to show off my glorious phoenix? Well, first you need to look after a few of my lame ducks") or expecting to be able to negotiate extortionate fees for in-demand titles. And this isn't even an especially in-demand title.