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Certainly if they could wrangle the rights to any one of his films they could get Scorsese to film an appreciation or even just buy out one of the ones he's already done and plaster his name all over the marketing. These films should be very easy to sell to even casual viewers (now to get them to go for a second serving is a whole other matter).

Stick Black God, White Devil and Antonio das Mortes together as a double feature, or paired releases. They're the two films with the highest international profile (for what it's worth!), there's the (slightly dubious, but what the hell) spaghetti western angle, and you can rope in Scorsese to wax crazily enthusiastic. That's probably the best chance Rocha would have if Criterion were bold enough to take the plunge.

GOOD NEWS! Versatil responds to questions by customers left on the Versatil site, and they wrote (again, had to translate it since I can't read Portuguese) but it said they are releasing Der Leone Have Sept Cabeças in the 2nd half (which obviously means this year) and it WILL BE THE RESTORED VERSION.

Maybe, since they have been putting out blu-rays, this could be the first Rocha blu-ray and still keep up with them being region-free.

Also, I don't know how old this is, but I have read that "Koch-Lorber films" will (I take it, "would of") be releasing Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol for the first time in the U.S. on dvd (same site shows Los Olvidados). Wonder what is with that now? On IMDB, the "distributors" for the U.S. says New Yorker Films.

zedz,

Thanks for all your insights on Rocha. As I'm sure you know, the research is quite exhausting.

I just finished 'Antonio das Mortes' and can't help but think how much young Fassbinder admired him.

Perhaps I missed it, but do you know if Pasolini and Rocha had any correspondence? As we hear from the narrator in the 'Idada da Terra' trailer(presumably Rocha), he calls Pasolini(deservingly) "The grand poet of Italian cinema."

Thanks in advance!

Terra em Transe getting a 50th anniversary screening in January at Lincoln Center.

Anyone seen this film/can comment or describe it?

There's a Rocha thread from years ago where I believe I went through all of his available films. This is a really interesting and impressive film, but I probably like it the least of his pre-exile features. He's a highly original filmmaker, so comparisons would likely be misleading.

Here's that wild Scorsese interview on Rocha: Part 1 Part 2

I've given up on finding the Brazilian discs for a reasonable price, are the Mr. Bongo discs worth picking up, especially given that no new/improved editions seem forthcoming?

They're well made/ presented if you are willing to deal with Bongo's shadiness.

I tagged Criterion and Kino’s Twitter accounts in a tweet asking whether Black God, White Devil and the rest of Rocha’s work would ever get a decent release. Kino responded, “We’ve been working on a Glauber Rocha project for several years but it’s been held up. Hope to have some news soon!” Sounds like we might be getting a Joachim Pedro de Andrade-esque complete works package on Blu-Ray soon. Having spent $75 a pop on three Rocha DVDs from Brazil several years ago and fallen in love with his work, I’m eager to finally see it with a proper restoration.

That would be most welcome. His filmography was restored and released on DVD in the 2000s by our best boutique label (Versátil), but his widescreen films were not anamorphic.

Hope it would include the films he did in Europe.

Been waiting for Versatil to release their dvd of Der Leone Have Sept Cabecas, for what, a decade now.

SpiderBaby wrote: Fri Mar 13, 2020 3:37 am Been waiting for Versatil to release their dvd of Der Leone Have Sept Cabecas, for what, a decade now.

They did in 2011, but it was a very limited release. I was lucky enough to obtain a copy when it was briefly available to buy online. It can still be found on Mercado Livre, though it's scalper prices.

Thanks, I've ran across that before, but always thought it was a boot. Didn't know they had a limited release. Guess I'll wait to see what Kino brings (assuming it's just the Brazilian films that I own already, but still great news on that front), and then decide to shell out for that price for the dvd.

Well alright. Hopefully a Blu-ray from Versátil, their earlier DVD from many years ago was great.

Wouldn’t say no to The Red Light Bandit. The DVD looked stunning and was fully English-friendly released in 2010 or 2011. O Cangaceiro also had a DVD in 2011 (I think) but looked terrible, although the extras were substantial. Both also from Versátil.

Very good news! Presumably this is part of the Cannes Classics selection which is yet to be announced officially.

Calvin wrote: Sat Apr 30, 2022 9:06 am A 4K restoration of Black God, White Devil will premiere in Cannes next month

The restoration looks pretty good. There's one more screening at the NYFF on Monday, October 10 at 5:45 pm. (Tickets are still available, but even if it switches to standby, you should be able to get in. Tonight's screening was "sold out," but there were actually a handful of prime seats available.

Calvin wrote: Sat Apr 30, 2022 9:06 am A 4K restoration of Black God, White Devil will premiere in Cannes next month

I watched recently the restoration through its French BD (though it looks the UK one looks very close to it), and I can't say I've been fully convinced by the restoration work. Many shots have been digitally filtered and have, in particular, a surprisingly varying amount of (and possibly type of) grain management. In a matter of a few minutes, you can get a perfectly natural shot, one with frozen grain, one with attenuated grain, and one with completely nuked grain. Most of the interior shots are the worst offenders as they have pretty much 0 grain left AND are showing what is very likely to be artificial sharpening on top of it.
It bemuses me as to what the logic can be on which shots got what type/amount of filtering, though the interior ones are kinda their own beast, but the exterior shots run quite a wide/wild gamut.

It's a shame because it's otherwise a gorgeous restoration, and it begs the question as to why such intrusive methods were deemed necessary/useful, as it only hurts the final result.

The sound track also has (at least on the French BD) one of the most clear-cut low-pass filter I've seen since quite some time (at roughly 7.5 kHz). Save for a few moments here and there, it looks like everything above 7.5 kHz has been clean cut with a pair of scissors.

tenia wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2024 9:47 pm

Calvin wrote: Sat Apr 30, 2022 9:06 am A 4K restoration of Black God, White Devil will premiere in Cannes next month

I watched recently the restoration through its French BD (though it looks the UK one looks very close to it), and I can't say I've been fully convinced by the restoration work. Many shots have been digitally filtered and have, in particular, a surprisingly varying amount of (and possibly type of) grain management. In a matter of a few minutes, you can get a perfectly natural shot, one with frozen grain, one with attenuated grain, and one with completely nuked grain. Most of the interior shots are the worst offenders as they have pretty much 0 grain left AND are showing what is very likely to be artificial sharpening on top of it.
It bemuses me as to what the logic can be on which shots got what type/amount of filtering, though the interior ones are kinda their own beast, but the exterior shots run quite a wide/wild gamut.

It's a shame because it's otherwise a gorgeous restoration, and it begs the question as to why such intrusive methods were deemed necessary/useful, as it only hurts the final result.

The sound track also has (at least on the French BD) one of the most clear-cut low-pass filter I've seen since quite some time (at roughly 7.5 kHz). Save for a few moments here and there, it looks like everything above 7.5 kHz has been clean cut with a pair of scissors.

If you have a few approximate time stamps, I can take a look at my Mawu / Radiance UK copy, which was encoded by FiM. I peeked into the BD when I got it but haven’t got a chance to see the full film yet and nothing struck me as visibly negative. Maybe I just missed the problematic moments. Regarding the low-pass filter - unbelievable that this keeps happening.

Saw the film in a theater and didn't notice what is being described, Tenia. It was a few months ago but I feel like the grain was pretty natural looking. At this point I tend to look for such things in screenings and would hope I would have noticed it.

You can see around the 5th minute the discrepancies between natural-looking shots and ones with frozen/attenuated grain, since it's alternating around this timecode, and then all along the movie's duration (at the 75th minute for instance, when it's finalizing the zoom on Corisco). There's also the interior shots (IIRC) around the 20th minute and later after the 80th minute. I'll try and post links to my upcoming caps, but I was told by multiple sources it's a gorgeous restoration and was disappointed to see how many shots weren't left alone. I just saw Le péril jeune, Gonza the spearman, Twilight and Chameleon Street, and have screened L'inconnu de Shandigor, Pour l'amour du ciel and Ces messieurs de la santé, it's always interesting to see if one sticks out of the bunch, and it's the Rocha.

Drucker, don't beat yourself, it's tougher to notice such filtering in theaters than on a disc, especially when we're not talking of a waxfest. I remember wondering if I was crazy when watching Flowers of Shanghai, and this one is very DNRed, so that gives an idea about where the threshold might be.

EDIT :
proper film-like texture (in amount and in behavior) :
https://testsblurayfr.files.wordpress.c ... ond-04.jpg
https://testsblurayfr.files.wordpress.c ... ond-07.jpg
https://testsblurayfr.files.wordpress.c ... ond-16.jpg

degrained interior shots :
https://testsblurayfr.files.wordpress.c ... ond-05.jpg
https://testsblurayfr.files.wordpress.c ... ond-09.jpg

follow-up shot degrained and sharpened :
https://testsblurayfr.files.wordpress.c ... ond-06.jpg

attenuated/frozen grain :
https://testsblurayfr.files.wordpress.c ... ond-11.jpg
https://testsblurayfr.files.wordpress.c ... ond-12.jpg
https://testsblurayfr.files.wordpress.c ... ond-13.jpg
https://testsblurayfr.files.wordpress.c ... ond-14.jpg

(I seem to recall this one looks fine on screencaps but in motion, the grain is completely frozen in place : https://testsblurayfr.files.wordpress.c ... ond-03.jpg)