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I imagine that the Criterion will probably trump the Belgian version, but I personally wouldn't sell my set. Who knows if the other films will be made available?

As for the price, I paid 44,99 € too. Hell, if you can get $300 I'd say go for it man! Also, to the guy that scratched his disc, I work for TLA Video and we own a badass disc repair machine. I can take it in for you...

Did this go out of print or something? Why on earth would someone pay $300 for a copy? Anyone dumb enough to do that surely isn't going to be able to handle playing back an R2 PAL disc anyway...

I cherish my set but if I could squeeze $300 out of it (I think I paid around $70 from the late, great Xploited Cinema) it would be pretty hard to resist. Maybe everyone on here should just start listing their R2-exclusive stuff for absurd prices on Amazon and see what happens

Oedipax wrote:Did this go out of print or something? Why on earth would someone pay $300 for a copy? Anyone dumb enough to do that surely isn't going to be able to handle playing back an R2 PAL disc anyway...

I cherish my set but if I could squeeze $300 out of it (I think I paid around $70 from the late, great Xploited Cinema) it would be pretty hard to resist. Maybe everyone on here should just start listing their R2-exclusive stuff for absurd prices on Amazon and see what happens

I've been posting R2 and out of print R1 stuff on Amazon for years and have never failed to get top dollar...the Image Red Desert and Human Condition are my all-time $$$ winners, with the French Nightwatching not far behind.

I just picked up the Belgian set and will post it on Amazon ASAP.

What about a release of Gehr, and Snow stuff!? How I wish Criterion would give us more experimental stuff.

bearcuborg wrote:What about a release of [...] Snow stuff!?

Not going to happen, I'm afraid. Snow has stuck to his guns about film as film, and won't license any of the 16mm works for commercial DVD release - his feelings toward the format are quite clear in his great fuck-you to digital cinema, WVLNT (available from LUX). There are sort-of-exceptions, however: DVDs of his films have been produced for (strictly) institutional use, and Rameau's Nephew by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen & Presents are available on VHS from Re:Voir.

JD is a structural film? Who knew? :-k

Loved it. That is all. Crowd was a bit fussy though.

royalton wrote:Crowd was a bit fussy though.

My first Akerman was "Toute une nuit". Behind me was sitting a couple with its 12 year old son. They were giggling throughout the whole film untill the woman said "This must be the worst film I have ever seen.". But they did not leave.
I was to confused and enraged to ask, why they came to the screening in the first place.

I was shocked at how UNfussy the Film Forum crowd was for this. I went twice (yeah I'm a glutton for punishment). To some degree I view this as a black comedy but there was minimal sniggering or chortling. Other than the baby scene, which is HIlarious. And only one or two walkouts.

I saw it at Film Forum yesterday, and there was extremely loud construction going on next door. Did anyone else experience this when they saw it there? It was possibly the worst movie to watch with that kind of distraction.

I did go to one daytime screening with the construction but for some reason that enhanced the experience for me. I sort of thought of it as JDs neighbor doing some reno, which would drive anyone over the edge.

Actually, that thought occurred to me too. I also wondered if people thought it was part of the film, as generally people will complain at Film Forum if something is wrong, and I didn't see anyone get up.

There's already all that ambient elevator noise in JD, so, to me, a bit of pounding seemed tolerable. The sound design is one of the best aspects of the film.

I forgot all about "crowds" - which sounds like a joke, but whenever I vision myself watching this in a theater (which I will be in a couple of weeks) I think of it being completely empty. Unlikely, but what a blessing that would be! I just hope everyone else that attends knows what to expect. The crowd at my Ashes of Time viewing was pretty restless, and there's action and camera movements in that movie. Oh well, l'll just hope for the best.

It actually did attract crowds at Film Forum. It's the ARTHOUSE SMASH OF THE YEAR!!!!

Barmy wrote:JD is a structural film? Who knew?

Anyone who's familiar with the critical reception knows that the comparison of certain aspects of Dielman to structural film was made since its release in 75. The great Manny Farber was the first and most articulate commentator on this point:

A marginal life away from the progressing mainstream, with all the traditional forms and strictures, is chronicled with a static wide-angled lens, using structural traits first found in Warhol’s fixed-frame film (early Sixties) and developed in other repetitive films (Ernie Gehr, Michael Snow, et al.) in which the space becomes spiritualized and proliferates ideas. The Dielman film –in which the spectator peculiarly becomes a coolly curious voyeur and jurist watching a case history– is often a breathtaking, crisp, and luminous example of shallow-boxed framing” (Negative Space, p. 342).

He's full of bologna, and being way too simplistic. I am quite familiar with Snow, Warhol, etc. JD has nothing in common with their work. It is not in the least bit repetitive--in fact the lack of repetition is the whole point of the film. And does Oliveira's reliance on fixed frame make him structuralist? No.

Barmy wrote:JD has nothing in common with their work. It is not in the least bit repetitive--in fact the lack of repetition is the whole point of the film.

You have seen the film right?

I sort-of-agree with Barmy, but would suggest that it is not so much a "lack" but a sustained application of variation (difference) that disrupts the process of repetition. Depending on which way you look at it, this does (almost) become "the whole point". Hong's Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors is a bit like this too. I'm also uncomfortable pinning the film down as a strictly structuralist exercise - like, say, Snow's La Région Centrale, there's something elusive about JD that resists easy consideration or categorisation in formal or ideological terms...

golgothicon wrote:

royalton wrote:Crowd was a bit fussy though.

My first Akerman was "Toute une nuit". Behind me was sitting a couple with its 12 year old son. They were giggling throughout the whole film untill the woman said "This must be the worst film I have ever seen.". But they did not leave.
I was to confused and enraged to ask, why they came to the screening in the first place.

Ha. I saw Solaris @ the PFA a few years ago. A group of Berkeley kids sat behind me thinking they were about to see the Clooney remake. Imagine their horror. Yet they opted not to leave and chose to spend the film snickering and being bored.

Never connected J.D. w/ structuralist film. Don't know if I totally buy the argument but I'm open. Was weaned on Snow & Gehr, maybe I'm just too stubborn to accept the connection. Wavelength does have a sort of narrative.

Also, Bay Area people, Wavelength & ..Centrale are showing tonight (I think) at the CCA campus in SF as part of a Paul McCarthy curated thing. I can't make it and showing both back to back sounds kind of intense but hey. Their screening room kind of sucks but hopefully they can keep their act together.

The last print I showed of Wavelength a few months ago from Film-maker's was nice and new but actually printed damaged. Dumb. Sent them a note with the return but didn't hear back.

Anyway, I wish Criterion would just replicate that Belgian Ackerman set. Stick J.D. on Criterion, sure, then maybe plop the rest onto an Eclipse box.

Dadapass wrote:It will be playing at Film Forum January 23-29.

I see its playing in the Dublin Film Festival later this month, along with 'Le Captive', and I think one or two other Akerman films.
I have the Akerman box-set, although I haven't gotten around to watching 'Jeanne Dielman' yet

Yojimbo wrote:I have the Akerman box-set, although I haven't gotten around to watching 'Jeanne Dielman' yet

Save your first viewing for the theatre! There's a couple of screenings in London in March too, hopefully of this new print. Has it screened with an interval at Film Forum?

Le Captive is her only other film that I particularly like. But this imdb'er begs to differ:

I'm currently studying Proust, and so looked forward to this. I figured the other review HAD to be wrong about how bad this was. But they weren't! I love slow, ponderous French movies. But this one absolutely killed me, bludgeoned me with a big fat dull fence post and left me by the side of one of the many long roads I'd watched the actors drive interminably and wordlessly down. I finally had to watch it on fast forward, because NOTHING HAPPENS time and time and time again for minutes at a stretch. I don't envy a director/scriptwriter who takes Proust on, because so much of the richness of his characters and stories is interior. But, God! You've got to at least TRY to convey those depths by something other than static shots of actors doing and saying nothing. Boo. Hiss. Just awful.

Barmy wrote:Le Captive is her only other film that I particularly like. But this imdb'er begs to differ:

I'm currently studying Proust, and so looked forward to this. I figured the other review HAD to be wrong about how bad this was. But they weren't! I love slow, ponderous French movies. But this one absolutely killed me, bludgeoned me with a big fat dull fence post and left me by the side of one of the many long roads I'd watched the actors drive interminably and wordlessly down. I finally had to watch it on fast forward, because NOTHING HAPPENS time and time and time again for minutes at a stretch. I don't envy a director/scriptwriter who takes Proust on, because so much of the richness of his characters and stories is interior. But, God! You've got to at least TRY to convey those depths by something other than static shots of actors doing and saying nothing. Boo. Hiss. Just awful.

I enjoyed it also: so much that I bought the DVD
Having read Proust I thought it was a good representation of what Proust is about.
I suspect that IMDber is 'of tender years'