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Except that New Yorker's A MAN ESCAPED is a PAL-NTSC transfer with resultant speedup... See review...

Just calculating that AU HASARD BALTHAZAR is hitting the CC about 7 months after a restored version was first released on DVD (R2/Nouveaux)... Time to do their own transfer & extra work...

On that basis, as PICKPOCKET, in a new restored print, is receiving a limited theatrical release in France and the UK and also DVD release (AE & MK2) in March/April, we should therefore expect PICKPOCKET in the CC in October or November... Again giving the the CC time to do extra work and their own transfer of the restored elements...

Speaking of Pickpocket (I know it's off topic...but) I picked up the R4 release - which contains a nice 50 minute doco, and the transfer is quite nice too. Nice grain, and good contrast levels. It could be slightly sharper and cleaner though - the area for improvement.

Like Balthazar, I'd probably be convinced to replace my copy with a possible CC though.

Can't wait to see the transfer for Balthazar - the R2 really is beautiful, so it would have to be something really special to better it.

True, but it was cheaper for me to get the local product - and worth it just to see the film...

Anyway, back to Balthazar...

Whatever...I'm still happy with it, but like I said originally, will replace it with a CC if it ever eventuates.

What's on the extra features & extra discs?

Judging by Pickpocket, I imagine the other two films will see similar release to those editions in R4.

As I already said, back to Balthazar...

Just got BALTHAZAR and watched it last night....gorgeous transfer! I haven't gotten to the extras yet, though....looking forward to it.

I also got the Nouveaux DVD of MOUCHETTE from amazon.uk yesterday, but haven't watched that yet.

Just got BALTHAZAR

The Criterion?! You lucky sod! Where did you get it from?

The BALTHAZAR extras are excellent....the Donald Richie interview is OK, 15 minutes long....but the hour-long episode from a French TV show about the film, including interviews with Godard, Duras and Bresson himself, is worth the price of the disc itself.

Criterion does it again!

Can anyone please tell me if this disc is actually single layer or not? It is listed as so here.

Can someone answer this spoiler:

Spoiler

Does the donkey really die at the end or is it fake?

Here's the Beaver review. Man,I'm glad I waited for the Criterion edition!

In answer to the question about the donkey, above:

Spoiler

No, the donkey did not die; he was drugged, and fell asleep.

Amatuerist, that answer made me laugh. It sounds like a reassuring mother.

JUST GOT MY HANDS ON THIS DVD TODAY!

I have to say...FLAWLESS. Crisp, clean. Even better, in my opinion, than Diary of a Country Priest restoration, although I never really liked that one.

Next up: PICKPOCKET? Let's hope Schrader hooks it up by the years end!

Saw this for the first time today. I was wondering if it could live up to the hype. I felt a demand that I should "feel" something when I watched it, or else I'd have missed a great experience that so many others get from it. But it was an effortless viewing for me. A beautiful film that you can be completely moved by without necessarily understanding why.

I think Donald Richie is a real bonus for this release. I'd definitely rather have this little video interview than a Peter Cowie commentary.

I agree, I thought the interview might be kind of lame, but it's not--I like the way it reveals Richie's vulnerability and sensitivity to the film. And he says more about Bresson's formal approach in a few minutes than Cowie does in over two hours.

(I must quibble with his one statement, however, when he says, "Bresson himself in his Notes on Cinematography [sic] has stated that his Catholicism is really something else; that it's not the sort of Catholicism that one would normally expect of a Catholic." While his sentiment may be true to some degree, I've read Notes on the Cinematographer several times and I have no idea what he's referring to.)

tartarlamb wrote:I was wondering if it could live up to the hype.

As if it was the new Batman movie. Jesus H. Christ, is nothing sacred?

As if it was the new Batman movie. Jesus H. Christ, is nothing sacred?

That's the hype I'm talking about. When people (critics and otherwise) go around calling a film as sacrosanct, it leaves those who haven't seen it with some very large expectations. Criterion's description of the film begins: "A profound masterpiece from one of the most revered filmmakers in the history of cinema..." That's a lot of hype, and quite an extravagant claim to live up to.

Anyway, about Richie's interview -- I enjoyed his obvious vulnerability, and the fact that he was at a loss for words, all the more because he's so articulate in his books and other contributions to Criterion. Knowing that he's extremely capable of brilliant and precise analysis, but was so emotionally befuddled when talking about Balthazar really drove home his point -- its a film better felt than understood.

Bresson would be proud of your last comment. At the Cannes press conference for L'Argent:

Journalist:
I didn't understand exactly why the wife of Yvon leaves him.

Bresson:
I didn't understand it either. [press laughter]
Nor did the woman. No one did. It's not a question of understanding, but a question of feeling, which is not exactly the same thing.

A parable about a State of Grace or an allegory for the current state of the Democratic Party? You decide.

tartarlamb wrote:That's the hype I'm talking about. When people (critics and otherwise) go around calling a film as sacrosanct, it leaves those who haven't seen it with some very large expectations. Criterion's description of the film begins: "A profound masterpiece from one of the most revered filmmakers in the history of cinema..." That's a lot of hype, and quite an extravagant claim to live up to.

That's a great way to approach movies. Very refreshing.

That's a great way to approach movies. Very refreshing.

Sorry, you've lost me. What do you mean that's a "great way to approach movies"? I assume you mean that is wrong to have expectations based on reviews and the way a film is promoted? Could you elaborate a bit, instead of being so superior and scoffing with vague, sarcastic one-liners?

Bresson would be proud of your last comment. At the Cannes press conference for L'Argent:

Journalist:
I didn't understand exactly why the wife of Yvon leaves him.

Bresson:
I didn't understand it either. [press laughter]
Nor did the woman. No one did. It's not a question of understanding, but a question of feeling, which is not exactly the same thing.

I can't remember who said it, perhaps it was Bresson, but some director was once asked what the point was with some character, to which the directors asked the interviewer, what is the point of your life (or something like that), to which the interview said, that he didn't knew, and then the director said, the same with my character. I just record them, who they are I don't know (or something like that).

That sounds like it could be Bresson, and even if it isn't it highlights a tendency in his work not necessarily to dispense with ordinary "movie psychology" but to resist "knowing" his characters as other filmmakers claim to know theirs.

His use of Balthazar is exemplary in this case. Moviemakers for Disney create "read-able" animals in their animated and (now abandoned) live-action films through codes of anthropomorphization, codes that Bresson ignores completely or (in a rare but delightful moment of satire) pokes fun at; cf the scene in which Balthazar "counts" for circus patrons.

All of which is the tip of the iceberg re the question of Why Bresson does these things. I am tempted to say that Bresson sees people as we might see animals, minus our temptation to "read" a neat, compact, movie-derived psychology into them. Put another way: Bresson sees humans as we see animals, provided we don't see animals as Disney documentarians do...

I think there's a general trend in Bresson's work that increasingly stresses the importance of economy and material. It seems like a more and more bleak and fatalistic view that all nature is material to be traded and used. There's a scene in A Gentle Woman where Dominique Sanda's character visits a Natural Science museum and is struck by the similarity in bone structures between man and animal -- and I think in this very material sense, Bresson saw man and animal as the same. Balthazar's suffering is an effective parallel to that of the other characters in the film because he, like the others, is subject to a morally depraved and spiritually dead world where everything is subject to its economic and material use (the way, say, Mary is traded off with the flip remark "...if you want her you'll have to pay," at Arnold's party).

I watched it again, and I was struck by the lack of spirituality in this film. Particularly after reading Quandt's essay, which brings up several good points about the ineffectiveness of faith in the film. I think it fits much better with films like A Gentle Woman or Lancelot of the Lake more than, say, a film like A Man Escaped (where faith is rewarded and suffering overcome).