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Facets have announced the release of Bela Tarr's Almanac of Fall on 27 June 2006: http://www.facets.org/asticat?function= ... m=/DV86940. Will it be a transfer by Tarr himself, I wonder, or something rather worse?

I'm certain Facets will hand the job of the transfer to their best monkeys as they have done in the past for their Tarr releases.

Nihonophile wrote:I'm certain Facets will hand the job of the transfer to their best monkeys as they have done in the past for their Tarr releases.

I actually think Facets saves their best monkeys for other things....Tarr gets the worst monkeys, as DAMNATION proves and, I'm sure, ALMANAC OF FALL will too.

Can't wait to see their "special edition" of SATANTANGO.... #-o

Slant's review of the Facets release of Damnation has been posted:

The black-and-white transfer on Damnation is superior to the other films in the Bela Tarr collection, but some of the whites are really glaring and the print flaws are painfully evident. The soundtrack is unfortunately tinny.

Facets also plan to release Tarr's Almanac of Fall in June: http://www.facets.org/asticat?function= ... m=/DV86940. Is this, I wonder, one of Tarr's transfers or somthing worse?

Here's an e-mail I received from Facets' publicist regarding the Tarr DVDs:

You know Tarr personally supervised and approved the print and the transfer of Damnation? As he did with Werckmeister Harmonies...

Whatever criticism one can level at Tarr the filmmaker...the print and
transfer on those films is really good...in the case of Damnation..excellent.

I always wonder when people concentrate on those aspects of our films
without discussing anything else...I watched the Damnation disc again...and it is pretty crystal clear.

Werckmeister? It is a bit dark..BUT SO IS THE FILM version... Damnation...I saw the check disc and the final...it looked beautiful in both..I have spoken to and corresponded with people who do transfers for a living and with actual filmmakers..

So there you have it....

tavernier wrote:Werckmeister? It is a bit dark..BUT SO IS THE FILM version... Damnation...I saw the check disc and the final...it looked beautiful in both..I have spoken to and corresponded with people who do transfers for a living and with actual filmmakers..

Is it me, or does this little packet of glory seem like something I might find over at .com?

-Toilet Dcuk

EDIT: Not tossing another useless post on simply to repeat myself, but the one below also seems extremely childish in composition for a damn publicist. A little indicative of what I expect from Facets, and this from a Chicagoan. Then again... it's just me.

toiletduck! wrote:

tavernier wrote:Werckmeister? It is a bit dark..BUT SO IS THE FILM version... Damnation...I saw the check disc and the final...it looked beautiful in both..I have spoken to and corresponded with people who do transfers for a living and with actual filmmakers..

Is it me, or does this little packet of glory seem like something I might find over at .com?

-Toilet Dcuk

It's you.

More from Facets' publicist/apologist:

There HAVE been titles released by (and certainly distributed by) Facets
that look like crap. seriously..I have seen them...I questioned this when I
got here (in December). And what I was told is..."we feel strongly about
getting these titles out...and sometimes the source material is far beneath
what you would find for a mainstream hollywood film".

You can argue about this too--whether it is a good idea...but they go to
great lengths to make the titles as good as possible. IN March several
titles..three...(waiting for the moon, capricious summer and somewhere in
europe)were held from release because of MINOR transfer problems.... These titles all look pretty good...

So when someone questions the titles that were transfered under the auspices of the director of the films I slap myself on the forehead.

tavernier wrote:More from Facets' publicist/apologist:

I slap myself on the forehead.

=> #-o

Can I get in line to slap him/her?

Barmy wrote:Can I get in line to slap him/her?

It's "Him"....the line has formed outside of Facets' Chicago offices, and right now it's up to the Empire State Building.

If/when DVD Beaver does a comparison between the AE (or the Blaq Out, for that matter) release of Werckmeister and the Facets travesty, someone should be kind enough to forward it to this ridiculous publicist.

But that would be like a slap in the face!

tavernier wrote:More from Facets' publicist/apologist:

There HAVE been titles released by (and certainly distributed by) Facets
that look like crap. seriously..I have seen them...I questioned this when I
got here (in December). And what I was told is..."we feel strongly about
getting these titles out...and sometimes the source material is far beneath
what you would find for a mainstream hollywood film".

You can argue about this too--whether it is a good idea...but they go to
great lengths to make the titles as good as possible. IN March several
titles..three...(waiting for the moon, capricious summer and somewhere in
europe)were held from release because of MINOR transfer problems.... These titles all look pretty good...

So when someone questions the titles that were transfered under the auspices of the director of the films I slap myself on the forehead.

Ahhh...so they address...MINOR...transfer problems. Now...if they would only address the...MAJOR...transfer problems rife in their so-called products.

Not R1, but a question concerning Artificial Eye's WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES/DAMNATION. A copy is for sale locally...but...how can I tell if it is the original or the revised pressing, based on the jacket copy?

jonah.77 wrote:Not R1, but a question concerning Artificial Eye's WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES/DAMNATION. A copy is for sale locally...but...how can I tell if it is the original or the revised pressing, based on the jacket copy?

I have copies of both the original and the revised packages. I can find no obvious way of telling which is which from the covers alone.

Uh-oh....

I got this from the Facets publicist/apologist today:

Coming in September, Satantango, Bela Tarr's 7 ½ hour masterpiece.

Start praying, everybody.

tavernier wrote:Uh-oh....

I got this from the Facets publicist/apologist today:

Coming in September, Satantango, Bela Tarr's 7 ½ hour masterpiece.

Start praying, everybody.

spread over two single layer discs no doubt

Still can't be worse than the bootlegs most of us have made do with to date....

backstreetsbackalright wrote:Still can't be worse than the bootlegs most of us have made do with to date....

I wouldn't put it past Facets to outdo your bootlegs for shittiness.

tavernier wrote:

backstreetsbackalright wrote:Still can't be worse than the bootlegs most of us have made do with to date....

I wouldn't put it past Facets to outdo your bootlegs for shittiness.

What surpirses me in all this is Tarr's silence. I'd be livid by now.

--
Jan Bielawski

JanPB wrote:

tavernier wrote:

backstreetsbackalright wrote:Still can't be worse than the bootlegs most of us have made do with to date....

I wouldn't put it past Facets to outdo your bootlegs for shittiness.

What surpirses me in all this is Tarr's silence. I'd be livid by now.

--
Jan Bielawski

Read several posts back: Facets says that these are approved by Tarr himself.

tavernier wrote:

JanPB wrote:

tavernier wrote:
I wouldn't put it past Facets to outdo your bootlegs for shittiness.

What surpirses me in all this is Tarr's silence. I'd be livid by now.

--
Jan Bielawski

Read several posts back: Facets says that these are approved by Tarr himself.

What I meant was: having approved them and then seeing the results, I'd be enraged now.

--
Jan Bielawski

tavernier wrote:Uh-oh....

I got this from the Facets publicist/apologist today:

Coming in September, Satantango, Bela Tarr's 7 ½ hour masterpiece.

Start praying, everybody.

Facets' DVD set of Sátántangó is up for pre-order at Laser's Edge. The specs list 435 minutes on 3 DVDs. The running time per IMDb is 450 minutes; 4% PAL speedup equals 432 minutes, so (surprise, surprise) this is almost certainly a PAL-to-NTSC transfer. FWIW, the SRP is $79.99.

Hurry up, Artificial Eye...