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zedz wrote: Neither. See Divorce Italian Style and Harakiri for recent examples of airy, spacious 2-disc sets.

yes i agree with this. there have been a number of somewhat "spacious" 2 disc sets recently.

godardslave wrote:

zedz wrote: Neither. See Divorce Italian Style and Harakiri for recent examples of airy, spacious 2-disc sets.

yes i agree with this. there have been a number of somewhat "spacious" 2 disc sets recently.

I was glad to get Harakiri for its original list price at amazon (around $21), and they honoured it.

I would have been happy to pay the full price though, the film is worth it.

I was hoping to get Shoot the Piano Player for xmas, but I think I'll have to wait... so many discs to buy...

daniel p wrote:Does anyone know when this will be available for pre-order everywhere? I'm talking amazon, dvdplanet and dvdpacific in particular.
Same goes for Forbidden games.

I preordered it from DVD Empire a few days ago. They also have a listing for Forbidden Games.

First review is up and so far is great.

Here: DVD Talk

And here's what the beaver says.

wow this was so boring. i love everything else of truffaut (save for a couple of ones i've yet to see) but this film was just way too short. the back story on edouard just jumps right out and seems out of place and the ending is completely unsympathetic.

also this is far from pastiche as the time out review says, truffaut is obviously a fan of these genres but should have stuck with just one or made it at least another 20 minutes longer.

great film - in my book Truffaut's best... The CC package is superb, esp. the relaxed and incisive 2 handed commentary by Annette Insdorf & Peter Brunette...This a key movie of the French New Wave, and it's exhilarating to see a fearless and inspired Truffaut freely and unselfconsciously use a full range of moods and techniques, empathy and irony, wit, romance and tragedy - before he became fixated with the controlling methods of Alfred Hitchcock, which I believe had a lasting detrimental effect on his work... A fascinating study of a man who withdraws from the world emotionally, because he cannot love, and when he does it kills the thing he loves, a la Oscar Wilde, not once but twice...

every time I watch this or 400 Blows I'm always impressed with Richard Kanayan. Anyone know what happened to him? Did he become a singer? Fall off the face of the earth?

Can anyone tell me anything about the Georges Delerue audio essay? I'd like to know how extensive it is and how good it is.

AMB wrote:Can anyone tell me anything about the Georges Delerue audio essay? I'd like to know how extensive it is and how good it is.

I like the audio essay but it is only really an "intro" essay. As far as I can tell, someone wrote an essay and they then supplied visuals to go along with the essay. It doesn't go too in depth into analyzing the music, but then given how it was made and the space provided I'm not sure if they wanted it to happen.

And this could just be me, but when I watch a foreign film, time that would normally be spent listening to the score is spent reading the subtitles. I kind of wish Criterion would start releasing the soundtracks to their films with the discs, or at least put tracks on the DVD. But until then the audio essay is a nice complement.

JusteLeblanc wrote: I kind of wish Criterion would start releasing the soundtracks to their films with the discs, or at least put tracks on the DVD.

Like an isolated score? Or something like the feature on Young Torless?

colinr0380 wrote:

JusteLeblanc wrote: I kind of wish Criterion would start releasing the soundtracks to their films with the discs, or at least put tracks on the DVD.

Like an isolated score? Or something like the feature on Young Torless?

An isolated score. They might have done this already, I'm not sure. I've only seen about half the films in the collection.

JusteLeblanc wrote:An isolated score. They might have done this already, I'm not sure. I've only seen about half the films in the collection.

Night and Fog, Hiroshima mon Amour, Down by Law, and Short Cuts have isolated scores. I'd love if they did it more often, though.

solaris72 wrote:

JusteLeblanc wrote:An isolated score. They might have done this already, I'm not sure. I've only seen about half the films in the collection.

Night and Fog, Hiroshima mon Amour, Down by Law, and Short Cuts have isolated scores. I'd love if they did it more often, though.

IIRC, so does Notorious and Straw Dogs. (Or at least isolated music and effects tracks.)

tryavna wrote:

solaris72 wrote:

JusteLeblanc wrote:An isolated score. They might have done this already, I'm not sure. I've only seen about half the films in the collection.

Night and Fog, Hiroshima mon Amour, Down by Law, and Short Cuts have isolated scores. I'd love if they did it more often, though.

IIRC, so does Notorious and Straw Dogs. (Or at least isolated music and effects tracks.)

And In the Mood for Love, I think.

oh sweet jesus...by some act of galactic bad karma, I had this sitting in line right after Ashes and Diamonds for commentary listening. I couldn't listen to the one on A&D because I couldn't stand Insdorf's voice...imagine my chagrin to discover her here as well. In my book she ranks up there with Marian Keane as someone who I simply can't listen to commentary by.

This is an amazing set. The transfer is excellent; Dyaliscope films often look at little soft to me, but Shoot the Piano Player looks fantastic.

Rich, what is it about Marian Keane that you don't like; is it just her voice or her style of analysis? I found the commentary to be quite good.

Shoot the Piano Player is one of the tightest films of the Nouvelle Vague, with wonderful performances and a beautiful score by Georges Delerue.

The extras are pretty comprehensive. The booklet is beautiful, too. A fine package.

richast2 wrote:oh sweet jesus...by some act of galactic bad karma, I had this sitting in line right after Ashes and Diamonds for commentary listening. I couldn't listen to the one on A&D because I couldn't stand Insdorf's voice...imagine my chagrin to discover her here as well. In my book she ranks up there with Marian Keane as someone who I simply can't listen to commentary by.

I've had the same trouble with Insdorf for over ten years now. Her background and personal relationship with Truffaut (and Kieslowski) certainly qualifies her to have some involvement with his releases. But her voice and manner grate the nerves no end. Especially when I know she is sitting there in those horrific neck-high blouses that her friends and family have been laughing at since '78.

Gordon McMurphy wrote:Rich, what is it about Marian Keane that you don't like; is it just her voice or her style of analysis?

I don't know Rich's reasons, but I personally find Keane's commentaries exhausting to listen to -- despite the fact that some of her analysis is quite sharp. (I think her commentary for 39 Steps is very good.) Partly, I think it's due to her monotone delivery; she never gives me the impression that she's enjoying the movie she's talking about. But I also think that she gets caught up in academic jargon from time to time -- her track for Spellbound was difficult for me to follow. (I'd have preferred to read it, I think.)

Brunette is a fairly decent writer, but the man should be prohibited from doing commentaries. His commentary on Blow-Up is awful and widely reviled. His supposed insights on Shoot the Piano Player are only marginally better. I had the impression that Insdorf may have been rolling her eyes when he made some of his comments/observations.

Hello,

I would like to know if Shoot The Piano Player is zone ALL or zone 1 encoded. Thanks.

This might be my favorite french film, not better than 400 Blows, but different and in a good way. The way it styled humor with heartbreak and disaster. Charlie/Edward just couldnt seem to get out of the mess that was his life. Things just kept happening that he had little to no control over, which ultimately led to him killing his co-worker at the bar accidentally.
And the piano music, and in particular Bobby Lapointe's "Framboise" really fit. Maybe it's just me, but I think that French cinema, in particular their classics are the best of any country, although Hollywood is clearly to American film as Paris is the French cinema.

For anybody in the Austin, TX area, The Paramount Theatre is showing a double feature of Made in USA and Shoot the Piano Player tonight and tomorrow.

Just saw this for the first time, and I must say, I didn't find it as "incredible" as I was led to believe everything Truffaut does would be. It was certainly an enjoyable film, and I thought the building bleakness of the film was rather interesting, but I clearly missed something, as I found it enjoyable but average.

Eh, with the exception of his children movies I think that's really the case of all his movies. He doesn't (in my experience) have any tried and true stinkers, but he generally comes across more enjoyable and light than any of his contemporaries.