Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films

[hammock]

Just to um... get back on topic, how many people invested in 50 Years, and of those who did, is it worth investing in the book alone? The whole box isn't worthwhile for me because I have a lot of the titles and I'm a bit of an extras hound, but I'm pretty seriously considering the book by itself. Thing is though, even in college I never would have spent $65 on a book, and I was hoping more people would weigh in. How extensive is the information/lavish are the photos? Is it something you'd find yourself going back to repeatedly?

I did buy it just to see what it was all about and my intension was to re-sell it with a loss. Problem is I can't let go of it now even though I already own all the movies (except unreleased ones of course) and all 3 Janus Films catalogues that could make it up for the book to some extend. I'm attracted to pretty things (the ones who know my wife can vouch for that) but there is no way this book can be justified if you already own most of the movies - just buy the book. As an investment I would think you will loose money, but then again, I did see people buying a sealed Salo with stickers for $1,000 so why not buy a lovely book with 50 excellent movies for $600? The reason why no one posted anything about the content of the book so far might be that no one got to read it yet. In case someone did read it - reviews please!

[jorencain]

I did. Check the bottom of page 8. The short version: buy the book!

[tryavna]

Thing is though, even in college I never would have spent $65 on a book

Did you never take a biology or chemistry course? I remember my bio textbook costing around $75 or so, and that was over 10 years ago.

[domino harvey]

my Biology book cost $120 and contained no pictures of Tishiro Mifune.

[Mr Sausage]

Thing is though, even in college I never would have spent $65 on a book

Did you never take a biology or chemistry course? I remember my bio textbook costing around $75 or so, and that was over 10 years ago.

Hell, most anthologies for English survey courses cost around sixty - eighty dollars. No Mifune there, either.

[arsonfilms]

Thing is though, even in college I never would have spent $65 on a book

Did you never take a biology or chemistry course? I remember my bio textbook costing around $75 or so, and that was over 10 years ago.

Hell, most anthologies for English survey courses cost around sixty - eighty dollars. No Mifune there, either.

In college I went out of my way to buy everything used, if I bought it at all. There was certainly required reading that would have cost me in excess of $100, but I always made due with an earlier edition that cost me $10. Worked my way through and graduated Summa Cum Laude entirely debt free. I couldn't have done that paying full price.

I suppose what I'm interested in the most is whether 50 Years has reference value, or if's the sort of thing you flip through casually while sitting by the coffee table, waiting for guests to arrive. The decriptions from the website and forum members makes it sound wonderful, but a more in-depth review of the content would be of great use to me, if anyone has the time.

[hammock]

OK guys - no more complaining. Deep Discount DVD is having a 20% off campaign that works with this box set making it $475.91 shipped. Here is the information you need and I personally checked it with the code SUPERSALE a minute ago and it worked...

Any one of them should work from 10 - 18 November for a 20% discount.

DVDTALK
USATODAY
NYTIMES
SUPERSALE
DDDCD
DD1110
DVDPRICESEARCH
LATIMES
ESPN
YAHOO
JIM
WGN
XM



and here is a screendump of how the design of all the menus look:

[MikeATF]

Ordered the book and a shirt, and I got a FREE Janus mug and button.

WOOHOO!

[HerrSchreck]

ANyone else find it slightly amusing they palmed these old transfers off for a big ol price, spiffed up with a nifty book-- and then immediately superceded some of those unrealeased film's transfers with twinkling new releases on CC (PANDORA, FIRES...)?

Now we know why they don't announce their schedule very far in advance.

[Matt]

According to Michael Carver on DVDTalk, the box is now "out of print." I assume this just means that now that Xmas is over, it will only be available through the Janus online store. At least until next Xmas. At that price, it's not exactly the kind of thing retailers want sitting on a shelf waiting to be bought.

[toiletduck!]

There's a copy sitting in the Facets Videotheque. I've been known to stop in just to look at it if I'm in the neighborhood.

-Toilet Dcuk

[a.khan]

Does anyone know if I can pick up ONLY the book at an online retailer that ships to US post boxes (the CC Store, unfortunately, does not)? Thanks!

[kinjitsu]

DVD Beaver review of Le Jour se lève(from the Essential Art House)

[sherlockjr]

So when can we expect this?

[kinjitsu]

So when can we expect this?

1.) CERTAINTIES: [Titles that has been officially indicated under way for DVD issue by Criterion]

LE JOUR SE LÈVE (Marcel Carné, 1939, France) - Although technically released through Criterion's store as part of the "Essential Arthouse: 50 Years of Janus Film" box/book set, this is yet to receive a spine number.

[Nihonophile]

"Only the direction, by Marcel Carne, seems less than it could be; there's a lack of imagination and suppleness in the images that pulls the film down."- Dave Kehr quote from beaver review

I agree with him, this film mostly has the performances going for it. The roughest stretch for me was the opening moments that featured a plodding Seven Samurai-esque title theme score set to Gabin's down cast eyes. When an over acting blind man appeared he did not help the situation. Anyone else seen this have a more positive reaction?

[kinjitsu]

A reappraisal of the film at Stylus.

[Kinsayder]

DVD Beaver review (from the Essential Art House)

What a horrible transfer. The French Studio Canal (which has optional English subs) is a little better:

Essential Art House:

Studio Canal:


All that the Janus/Criterion pictureboxing seems to do is cover up the parts of the frame that they've cropped!

[Jeff]

A new line of films from the Essential Art House collection will be sold individually and in six-packs beginning this fall.

Here is the full text of the press release Criterion sent me:

June 17, 2008

Essential Art House – September 2008 releases

This fall, Janus Films and the Criterion Collection introduce a new line: Essential Art House, indispensable cinema classics in simple, affordable editions. For Volume 1, we’re pleased to select six of the greatest films from around the world, from directors Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Roman Polanski, Peter Brook, Jean Cocteau, and Jean Renoir. All will be available separately, or in one box set. For the devoted cinephile, these are the must-own fundamentals; for the novice film-lover, this is precisely where to begin.

Happy viewing!

Title: Grand Illusion
CAT: EAH002
UPC: 7-15515-03262-9
ISBN: 978-1-60465-074-7
SRP: $19.95
Prebook: 8/5/08
Street date: 9/9/08

Jean Renoir’s pacifist masterpiece stars Jean Gabin as a French World War I POW held by Erich Von Stroheim’s German captain. One of the greatest antiwar films ever made, as well as a rousing prison-escape adventure, Grand Illusion is an exemplar of the 1930s poetic realist movement.

Info
• Directed by Jean Renoir (The Rules of the Game, The River, The Golden Coach)
• Starring Jean Gabin (La bête humaine, Pépé le moko, Touchez pas au grisbi)

Title: Beauty and the Beast
CAT: EAH003
UPC: 7-15515-03272-8
ISBN: 978-1-60465-075-4
SRP: $19.95
Prebook: 8/5/08
Street date: 9/9/08

Jean Cocteau reinvented the fairy tale for the cinema with this enchanting, exquisitely realized version of Mme. Leprince de Beaumont’s fantasy romance. With all manner of unparalleled visual effects and photographic tricks, Cocteau makes the spellbinding tale of transformative love both ethereal and tangible, and his indelible images still haunt the cinema like no other.

Info
• Directed by Jean Cocteau (Blood of a Poet, Orpheus, Testament of Orpheus)

Title: Rashomon
CAT: EAH004
UPC: 7-15515-03252-0
ISBN: 978-1-60465-073-0
SRP: $19.95
Prebook: 8/5/08
Street date: 9/9/08

The murder of a man and the rape of his wife in a forest grove—seem from four different perspectives. Toshiro Mifune explodes as the feral bandit who may or may not be guilty of these crimes in Akira Kurosawa’s meditation on the nature of “truth”—a classic, humane allegory that transformed narrative cinema as we know it and turned its director into an international sensation.

Info
• Directed by Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, High and Low, Ran)
• Starring Toshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo)

Title: Wild Strawberries
CAT: EAH005
UPC: 7-15515-03242-1
ISBN: 978-1-60465-072-3
SRP: $19.95
Prebook: 8/5/08
Street date: 9/9/08

Weaving a tapestry of memory and dreams, Ingmar Bergman delves into the past of aged professor Isak Borg, en route to receive an award from his alma mater for a life he no longer understands. Following directly on the heels of his international breakthrough The Seventh Seal, the alternately warm and nightmarish Wild Strawberries cemented Bergman as the leading art-house visionary of his era.

Info
• Directed by Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal, Cries and Whispers, Fanny and Alexander)

Title: Knife in the Water
CAT: EAH006
UPC: 7-15515-03232-2
ISBN: 978-1-60465-071-6
SRP: $19.95
Prebook: 8/5/08
Street date: 9/9/08

A husband, a wife, a stranger, a knife: Roman Polanski sets them all adrift on a weekend filled with simmering resentments and gut-churning suspense in his seminal psychological thriller, still one of the greatest feature debuts in film history. With Knife in the Water, Polanski revealed his delight in exploring sexual and class boundaries with ruthless precision.

Info
• Directed by Roman Polanski (Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, The Pianist)

Title: Lord of the Flies
CAT: EAH007
UPC: 7-15515-03222-3
ISBN: 978-1-60465-070-9
SRP: $19.95
Prebook: 8/5/08
Street date: 9/9/08

Under the direction of Peter Brook, William Golding’s classic fable, about a swarm of young boys who, without adult supervision, devolve into chaos after crash-landing on a remote island during wartime, becomes an unforgettable work of cinematic horror. Shot with almost verité camera work, Lord of the Flies takes a radical approach to Golding’s metaphor, grounding it in a terrifying reality.

Info
• Directed by Peter Brook (The Beggar’s Opera, Marat/Sade)

OR BUY ALL SIX FILMS IN BOX SET:

Title: Essential Art House: Volume 1
CAT: EAH001
UPC: 7-15515-03192-9
ISBN: 978-1-60465-064-8
SRP: $99.95
Prebook: 8/5/08
Street date: 9/9/08

“The Janus Films icon—the black-and-white image, the lettering, the two faces on the seemingly ancient coin—meant that you were going to see something special, something new, something completely different from anything you’d ever seen before.”
—Martin Scorsese

[zedz]

This seems to be individual releases of discs from the big Janus box (these titles were all included, right?). If so, no big news, but nice of them, I suppose.

[tavernier]

What's sad is that Lord of the Flies might be the top seller out of these.

[Jeff]

This seems to be individual releases of discs from the big Janus box (these titles were all included, right?). If so, no big news, but nice of them, I suppose.

You're right, zedz. I've seen early cover art for these (which I'm sure will be online soon), and they are indeed replicating the look of the big set, so I've merged the threads accordingly.

These will be fine for academic use, and their $15 street price will probably catch the attention of a few curious burgeoning cinephiles who aren't ready to shell out full Criterion prices yet.

[Tom Hagen]

It will also serve a niche of consumers who are cinephiles, but may be weary of making a financial commitment to deluxe package of a film that they would otherwise enjoy having at hand on their shelves. Likewise, with Netflix, public libraries, etc., it is pretty easy to go through a set of CC supplements, gleam information from them in a single viewing, and have no need or desire to revisit the supplements in a later viewing. In this set of titles for example, I would have little desire to go through the Rashomon supplements again. However, given the film's place in the pantheon, I would like to own a copy, especially one with a high-quality print. I can get a copy of a film that I want to own for half of the price of the CC title, while still giving me roughly the same marginal utility. I will be perfectly happy to keep my CC special editions of Wild Strawberries and Knife in the Water, but now I have a choice about what tier I feel comfortable investing in on films that I don't own.

I would have bought the Essential Art House box but for 1) the hefty price matching the set's hefty size and 2) my disinclination to double dip on titles that I already had or was planning on buying from the main CC label (and of course, 3) the reportedly idiotic packaging). This adds another layer of consumer choice, and in my opinion, is the news of the month.

[justeleblanc]

Seriously, at what point can we say Criterion is just re-releasing Jaws every five years?

[fdm]

Seriously, at what point can we say Criterion is just re-releasing Jaws every five years?

Dunno, but a bit disappointed they aren't yet releasing the few titles that were unique to the box.