Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection

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criterion10 · #451 Post by **criterion10** » Wed Jun 18, 2014 3:48 pm

Ah, okay. Just out of curiosity, and this may have already been stated before, but will the individual discs eventually released be identical to those in the box set, or are there other special features that were only allowed for a limited quantity?

MichaelB · #452 Post by **MichaelB** » Wed Jun 18, 2014 4:07 pm

As far as I'm aware the discs will be identical - I can certainly confirm that this is true of The Beast and Goto (since we're producing a separate edition for Kickstarter subscribers, although that in itself makes it overwhelmingly likely that there'll be a standalone edition at some point). The only difference will be that they'll come with standard Arrow booklets (typically 28-40 pages) instead of the box set's massive book.

foe · #453 Post by **foe** » Sun Jun 22, 2014 12:27 am

tenia wrote:Wow. Glad I already placed my pre order at Amazon some weeks ago now. It's nice to see such a difficult project getting so much faith in it from all side. I can only hope it means more projects of this kind will be able to see the light in a near future. It's very hopeful.

and my dream is as follows: Jerzy Skolimowski's first 4 new wave obscure classics on B-R format :-"
anyway, a fantastic news indeed, especially considering so many other great boxsets (Tati, Herzog, Grillet) are about to be released almost in the same time.

David M. · #454 Post by **David M.** » Sun Jun 22, 2014 2:17 am

criterion10 wrote:Ah, okay. Just out of curiosity, and this may have already been stated before, but will the individual discs eventually released be identical to those in the box set, or are there other special features that were only allowed for a limited quantity?

Not to speak for Arrow, but I doubt they would want to pay for separate glass masters and a separate round of AACS fees to change the disc contents.

MichaelB · #455 Post by **MichaelB** » Sun Jun 22, 2014 6:46 am

I can certainly confirm that the discs in the separate edition of The Beast will be identical in every way to their counterparts in the box.

But I can also confirm that the booklet will only have about a tenth of the words in the big box set book. In particular, the short story collection Anatomy of the Devil will remain exclusive to the box, as we only have publishing rights for a certain number of copies.

Anthony Thorne · Sun Jun 22, 2014 12:15 pm

Browsing through the Phibes booklet, I hope the large Borowczyk book doesn't suffer from the same slightly irritating layout quirk of the sturdy spine binding greatly affecting the visibility of some of the pictures. The Phibes book is beautifully produced but a few double-page layout spreads reduce Vincent Price to a couple of ears and an eye in one or two instances. I doubt I'm telling you anything you don't already know though, and it's a somewhat petty complaint given the deluxe feel of the overall package. (Also - if the binding of the booklet had been flimsier I know you'd be fielding complaints from others worrying about the spine eventually cracking, so perhaps it's damned if you do, damned if you don't). Perhaps two page spreads where the focus of the image isn't smack in the middle is the answer.

MichaelB · #457 Post by **MichaelB** » Sun Jun 22, 2014 2:00 pm

There are no double-page spreads in the Borowczyk book, and the designer was instructed upfront not to go right to the edge of the page (in either direction).

With 344 pages to conjure with, there was never any chance that the book would open flat, so we've consciously avoided the need.

Oh, and here are a few stats:

70,000 words approx (two more essays were added since the original document was compiled);
140 illustrations, most in full colour;
12 authors: Robert Benayoun, Daniel Bird, Walerian Borowczyk, Michael Brooke, Raymond Durgnat, Peter Graham, Craig Lapper, Patrice Leconte, Chris Newby, Philip Strick, David Thompson, James White.
5 sections: Camera Obscura (new essays), The Archives (republished essays, inc. previously untranslated material), Boro's Dictionary, The Restoration and Anatomy of the Devil.

I've only seen PDF proofs thus far, but it's looking amazing.

filmghost · #458 Post by **filmghost** » Sun Jun 22, 2014 8:13 pm

Is there any place where I can still buy this?

perkizitore · #459 Post by **perkizitore** » Sun Jun 22, 2014 10:54 pm

Only Moviemail has still copies available.

filmghost · #460 Post by **filmghost** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 9:00 am

Thanks!

Charles · #461 Post by **Charles** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:43 pm

How I wish I'd read about and educated myself on this release in time to acquire it directly from Arrow.

I'd given up on it when I saw this heads up late last night, and jumped to place an order. Thank you for that!

MichaelB · #462 Post by **MichaelB** » Mon Jun 23, 2014 2:10 pm

The BBFC has confirmed an 18 certificate for the Borowczyk box set, for "strong sex, sexual violence, explicit sexual images". Can't really argue with that.

Most importantly, it confirms that the longer cut of A Private Collection does not tip over into R18 territory, despite clearly containing unsimulated sexual material (albeit in the form of vintage photos rather than moving images).

Which is a huge relief as we're just about to irreversibly go to press with the book, and I was dreading either having to strip out all references to that cut at the last minute or (worse) having to drop the film after the book had gone to press!

antnield · #463 Post by **antnield** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 3:50 pm

Standalone releases confirmed for:

Goto, Isle of Love (August 18th)
Blanche (September 8th)
Theatre of Mr & Mrs Kabal (plus shorts) (September 8th)

MichaelB · #464 Post by **MichaelB** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 4:19 pm

No great surprise - as soon as the box sold out it was inevitable that Arrow would want to get the individual releases out sooner rather than later!

As with The Beast, the discs will be identical to the equivalents in the box: only the booklet will be sharply reduced in size.

rwaits · #465 Post by **rwaits** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 5:42 pm

Michael, apologies if this has been asked/answered previously (I'm sure it has), but will each film and special feature from the box ultimately be released separately? The only difference will be a considerable downscaling of the wonderful book for the individual booklets?

MichaelB · #466 Post by **MichaelB** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 6:44 pm

That's absolutely the case - four out of five separate releases have already been announced, and it would strain credulity to the limit to believe that they'd release Theatre of Mr & Mrs Kabal and not the far more commercially attractive Immoral Tales. So it's a very safe bet that that's on the cards too.

And as far as I'm aware, the discs will be identical - I can't see Arrow going to the expense of creating separate masters for the standalone releases.

BoxHead · #467 Post by **BoxHead** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 3:21 pm

Thanks for all the details.
Speaking of the longer cut of A Private Collection, would you know in which individual release it will be included ?

MichaelB · #468 Post by **MichaelB** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 8:43 am

Immoral Tales includes both cuts.

#469 Post by **swo17** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 1:37 pm

As indicated in the specs in the first post of the thread.

perkizitore · #470 Post by **perkizitore** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 2:19 pm

Is this going to be released in August now?

#471 Post by **swo17** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 2:37 pm

August 18th, as discussed earlier in the thread

MichaelB · #472 Post by **MichaelB** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 2:50 pm

perkizitore wrote:Is this going to be released in August now?

You're a Kickstarter backer, so you should have been directly emailed about this about a month ago. Did you not get this message on May 27th?

perkizitore · #473 Post by **perkizitore** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 3:23 pm

I have unsubscribed from all e-mails on Kickstarter, that is probably why I noticed the delay just now.

Dick Laurent · #474 Post by **Dick Laurent** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 12:22 pm

I should have followed this more closely, no money for the pre-order so was going to buy at release, with all the kickstarter stuff etc I was thinking they would have more copies available. I think I'm going to give up on things like these, always to late and paying trough my nose from sellers who buy this just to flip it later at double the price (I saw plenty of people on forums in the last hour while searching who have no idea what they are buying). I'm pretty sad about all of this, my own fault I guess, I just find it weird you have to buy things 2 months in advance. I've noticed this with other hobbies as wel lately, if you don't jump on the kickstarter, bad luck. I will stop ranting now

MichaelB · #475 Post by **MichaelB** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 12:52 pm

If it makes you feel any better, while you've missed out on a chunk of the big book, you haven't (necessarily) missed out on any of the discs - because a by-product of the box selling out was that Arrow decided to greenlight all five features as separate releases, which was by no means certain even a fortnight ago. And the discs will be identical to those featured in the box - I can now confirm that this is certain.

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