criterionforum.org

Titles that we are sure or pretty sure about being released still haven't been confirmed.

Forthcoming Criterion List (No Speculation!) (3rd list)

There hasn't been any scuttlebutt on those much-anticipated in a long time.

But I understand the anxiety, after the single-disc releases of the Monterey Pop box, which isn't a bad thing, but in light of so many[/i] Janus, Rialto and Wellspring titles waiting in the wings and there's the Playtime, Seven Samurai and other remastered 2-discs at the forefront of our minds, it does make it seem like we aren't getting what we expect, as of late. Not that I'm disappoined with Criterion so far this year, quite the contrary, in fact.

All good things come to thems that wait...

I agree--I'm happy with the 06 slate so far--it seems I'm one of the few who is really excited about Gallows.

Its just that Spirit of the Beehive is one of those films that is such an obvious choice for the collection, and is probably at the top of most fans wish lists. I do remember reading the article on that release--although its certainly encouraging news, I just get the feeling that we may be waiting on this one for a while.

Amazon.UK has the region 2 dvd of the movie at 60% off the regular price. I have it and the picture looks great so if you have a multi region dvd player that plays PAL dvd's i would pick it up. DVD BEAVER has a review of this dvd on their web site.

Village Voice's Michael Atkinson reviews the film as of 26 January 2006:

Spanish master Víctor Erice graduated from film school in the early 1960s, and has since earned a living writing criticism, directing television, and filming commercials. He has made only three features in the last 33 years, debuting with The Spirit of the Beehive in 1973, and taking roughly a decade between movies thereafter. Apparently his compulsions apply more to perfection than process. In the U.S. Erice has always been a negligible figure, but in the U.K. Beehive and 1992's Quince Tree of the Sun are routinely remembered as two of the greatest films ever made. In any case, Beehive remains arguably the finest and most beautifully wrought first film of the European '70s, a mysterious crucible as elusive, concrete, and visually primal as anything by Herzog, Straub, Olmi, or Denis. But it is also an unashamedly symbol-drunk piece of work; as if shopworking with folklore that doesn't exist, Erice insists through his visuals that everything, even the vast, furrowed Castilian plains themselves, signifies emotional intangibles. Set in post–Civil War 1940, the movie dreamily documents a rural village's quotidian, but does it so elliptically that, as is the vogue in recent Asian cinema, half the story and all of the backstory must be sought at the movie's fringes, between its scenes, and in its silent ruminations.

The connections among Beehive's central family—two ebony-eyed young sisters Ana and Isabel (Ana Torrent and Isabel Tellería), a distracted, love-letter-writing mother (Teresa Gimpera), an older, beekeeping father (Latin cinema vet Fernando Fernán Gómez)—aren't even apparent until deep in the film. Instead, precedence is given to the overbearing call-and-answer between earth and sky, and to the arrival in town of a traveling projectionist and an old, dubbed copy of James Whale's
Frankenstein (1931). For the girls, the film's fierce oddness, experienced in a cinema-poor context, is electric, but it rhymes with the world as they see it—stretching away from them in every direction, rife with unclear connections, treacherously inhabited by images that belie their own meaning. Mushrooms, family snapshots (clues to Mom's forlornness), the motivations of grown-ups, a dead body, the movie image itself: Everything disguises its true nature, and Erice's implicit idea, that childhood is a process by which we understand the lies of life, is nearly as harrowing as the scale of the landscape in contrast to its pint-sized heroines.

Naturally, the phobic scene in Frankenstein when the monster confronts a flower-picking girl by the pond continuously haunts Ana's worldview—in the crayon-drawn opening credits, in her dreams, and when a wounded fugitive with large feet appears in an abandoned barn. Shot in an unforgettably jaundiced twilight (the cinematographer, Luis Cuadrado, was reportedly going blind during the shoot, and killed himself in 1980), Beehive is a graceful and potent lyric on children's vulnerable hunger, but it's also a sublime study on cinema's poetic capacity to reflect and hypercharge reality. Virtually everything about it is iconic, from Erice's perspective-assault imagery to Torrent herself, who with just two appearances ( Beehive and Carlos Saura's Cría Cuervos) became a new cineastic generation's totem of fearless innocence.

atcolomb wrote:Amazon.UK has the region 2 dvd of the movie at 60% off the regular price. I have it and the picture looks great so if you have a multi region dvd player that plays PAL dvd's i would pick it up. DVD BEAVER has a review of this dvd on their web site.

The review is here.

This movie would be perfect for a Criterion release and there is talk that it might happen someday....

Spencers link is broken. This one is working.

New 35mm print? Janus Films? I'd bet Spirit gets a spine within a year. Hopefully this'll show in other cities as well.

Some guys should check this out more often.

Looking at Matt's Criterion list i noticed that the 49th PARALLEL might be released by them. I have the Criterion laserdisc, the MGM dvd, and a copy i recorded of a TCM broadcast. All had losts of damage on the image so i hope Criterion finds a great print or will have to do alot of digital clean up!

atcolomb wrote:Looking at Matt's Criterion list i noticed that the 49th PARALLEL might be released by them.

That's been there for ages so don't hold your breath.

Kinjitsu wrote:

atcolomb wrote:Looking at Matt's Criterion list i noticed that the 49th PARALLEL might be released by them.

That's been there for ages so don't hold your breath.

Is it safe to assume that these hit some snag? The original report from the AMMI talk strongly hinted that both this and A Canterbury Tale would be out in the first half of 2005, but since then not a murmur.

A.O. Scott reviews the new print of Spirit of the Beehive in the NYTimes

This link says "Dr. Linda Ehrlich, associate professor at Case and author of the book An Open Window: The Cinema of Victor Erice" is doing the commentary on the DVD release but doesn't specifically cite Criterion as releasing it.

Someone from DVD Talk pointed this out and I thought I'd share the info.

It's gotta be Facets then...

How good are Facets dvd releases?......

atcolomb wrote:How good are Facets dvd releases?......

Nobody makes a better DVD than Facets. They are truly the cream of the crop and highly sought after.

peerpee wrote:It's gotta be Facets then...

Nick, forgive me my ignorance, but why does Linda Ehrlich point to Facets? ...or did I miss something?
At least I hope, that your conclusion proves to be wrong. I don't care which label will release this gem, but pleeeeeezzzze not Facets! #-o

Anthony wrote:

atcolomb wrote:How good are Facets dvd releases?......

Nobody makes a better DVD than Facets. They are truly the cream of the crop and highly sought after.

Hint

Anthony is pulling your leg.

I have reached the point where I will buy a Facets release only if I am utterly desperate. and even then -- maybe not.

Calm down guys. THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE has always been a Janus title. IMDB

If this is a Janus release then it might be released by Criterion and there was talk on Criterion Forums that it might be released by them. I hope so because of their high standards

Michael Kerpan wrote:I have reached the point where I will buy a Facets release only if I am utterly desperate. and even then -- maybe not.

I've passed this point long ago. Whenever I read the list of their upcoming releases I could ](*,)

atcolomb wrote:there was talk on Criterion Forums that it might be released by them.

Really? Where can I find this discussion?

I do not remember where but it was about a month or two ago and it could have been this site or the Criterionforum.com site. I think it was about future Criterion releases.