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Yojimbo wrote:Hopefully it will screen at my local art house
And perhaps it might be accompanied by a Tarr season.

Artificial Eye are releasing it in the UK at some point soon. Not sure about Ireland, do Artificial Eye normally release the same titles in Ireland?

Duncan Hopper wrote:Artificial Eye are releasing it in the UK at some point soon. Not sure about Ireland, do Artificial Eye normally release the same titles in Ireland?

Is that a cinema or DVD release?

Cinema, which I assume will be followed by a DVD and hopefully a Blu [-o<

Duncan Hopper wrote:Cinema, which I assume will be followed by a DVD and hopefully a Blu [-o<

I think my local art-house is part of a European art-house circuit; I haven't been in a while so I must get back on their mailing-list.
I don't think they've previously screened any Tarr so I'm hopeful that if they do get his latest they'll screen a season, which they tend to do with important directors

Its showing twice at the FNC in Montreal in the next two weeks... I got my ticket today!

The Leeds Film Festival next month is showing both The Turin Horse and Satantango. Very much looking forward to those!

Now you're all beginning to make me feel jealous.
I must try and find out from my art-house whether they've any Tarr plans

I completely missed the boat. And it looks like Mr. Tarr may never come this way again.

Yeah, I'm wondering if I should've gone. I was in no shape to see a movie, and it would've been embarrassing to have dozed off during the film (which I'm pretty sure would've happened - I spent the whole day napping uncontrollably), but it would've been great to see Tarr at that free forum beforehand. Forgot it was a beautiful day too - Tarr cracked a joke while introducing his film, "Why are you inside? It's beautiful outside."

Just saw it!!!! What a beautiful film!

This is coming to my city soon, but it's going to be projected digitally instead of 35mm. I'm almost irritated enough by this to not go, but I won't have any other opportunity to see it in a cinema so I suppose I might as well.

I don't know whether there was a digital interpos made during the post-production stage, but if there was - and there would have been with the vast majority of films these days - you're effectively watching a digital image even if the projected medium is 35mm.

Of course, it does rather depend on how good the digital projection is - I was horrified to read in another thread that some cinemas think that projecting a DVD constitutes "digital projection", which is true only in the most literal sense. As far as I'm concerned, anything less than a proper 2K DCP is unacceptable - even Blu-ray looks surprisingly unsatisfactory when blown up to a cinema-sized screen.

MichaelB wrote:I don't know whether there was a digital interpos made during the post-production stage, but if there was - and there would have been with the vast majority of films these days - you're effectively watching a digital image even if the projected medium is 35mm.

Of course, it does rather depend on how good the digital projection is - I was horrified to read in another thread that some cinemas think that projecting a DVD constitutes "digital projection", which is true only in the most literal sense. As far as I'm concerned, anything less than a proper 2K DCP is unacceptable - even Blu-ray looks surprisingly unsatisfactory when blown up to a cinema-sized screen.

Its not impossible that Turin Horse was edited in film since the is only 30 shots in the films. It shouldn't be long and boring to edit

And yes some art-house theater shom their films on dvd and blu-ray but consider that a way less expensive for the distributor ($25.00 for a Digital copy intstead of $2500 for a film copy as they often can't manage to pay the copy with their profits. (60 to 30% of the ticket price))

Hail_Cesar wrote:And yes some art-house theater shom their films on dvd and blu-ray but consider that a way less expensive for the distributor ($25.00 for a Digital copy intstead of $2500 for a film copy as they often can't manage to pay the copy with their profits. (60 to 30% of the ticket price))

Indeed not. I remember when I worked in arthouse distribution back in the days when everything was on celluloid, and we woke up one Monday morning to discover that we had a surprise smash hit on our hands.

You might think that that would be cause for raucous celebration, but in fact it involved making complex calculations as to how many more prints we should order to meet demand (at, as you say, four figures apiece) versus how much money we could realistically recoup from each rental to pay for them. And the decision had to be made more or less that same morning, because we'd have to be able to confirm to other venues whether or not we'd be able to meet demand.

In the end, the number in circulation rose from 6 to 25 - any more than that, and there was a real possibility of having a hit on paper (as far as the headline gross figures were concerned) that didn't actually break even.

Not that that's an issue for any of Béla Tarr's rightsholders - I imagine the number of prints of each of his titles that Artificial Eye has struck for the UK market is in the very low single figures!

MichaelB wrote:I don't know whether there was a digital interpos made during the post-production stage, but if there was - and there would have been with the vast majority of films these days - you're effectively watching a digital image even if the projected medium is 35mm.

Of course, it does rather depend on how good the digital projection is - I was horrified to read in another thread that some cinemas think that projecting a DVD constitutes "digital projection", which is true only in the most literal sense. As far as I'm concerned, anything less than a proper 2K DCP is unacceptable - even Blu-ray looks surprisingly unsatisfactory when blown up to a cinema-sized screen.

I'd be very surprised if Tarr let this happen, judging by his comments at the pre-screening talk at NYFF. He argues that people who do not shoot (and have their films projected) on 35mm should not be called "filmmakers," an argument that is at least semantically true. But he seems to abhor any digital processes and I would think would avoid them as a rule (though I can't remember what the intertitles looked like, perhaps they were created digitally). Ironically enough, I spotted two botched reel changes at the NYFF screening...

And I don't know if I fully agree with your ideas on projection. I can't endorse DVD being projected, not only because of quality but also because it's not a secure projection format. I've been to film festivals before that have projected off of DVD and the disc had an error in the middle of a film. Obviously similar problems could happen with blu-ray as well, but I've never experienced this with a projected blu-ray yet (knock on wood).
But to say that anything less than 2K DCP is "unacceptable" is a pretty misinformed/elitist opinion, I think. How many films distribute through DCP? How many films are encoded at 2K or above? How many theaters have the facilities for this kind of equipment? I think the average in the US for converting to DCP (projector, server, HD switcher and digital sound) is about $100,000. It's simply not an option for a lot of places, especially with declining ticket sales due to VOD, piracy, and home theater systems.

//tangent

I agree with those who said earlier that this film was an "endurance test." It was more grueling an experience for me than viewing either Werckmeister Harmonies or Satantango, though it was the final film I saw after about 10 screenings in 2.5 days.

Well you know, if you're going to show sub2K footage what's the point? The theatre might as well send an email saying this movie is nice - buy it on blu-ray or DVD like we did. You'll save money, the distributers will make more money, and such badly run theatre will probably lose less money. And if you have clue it'll also look better.

I guess there's no point in arguing this on a DVD-nerd messageboard, but if you've spent any time in a projection booth or non-mainstream theater, you'll know that:

A) There are plenty of things screened that are not commercially available on blu-ray or DVD
B) There are filmmakers who make the aesthetic or practical decision to distribute their work theatrically on DVD, blu-ray or (non-DCP) digital files, not to mention DigiBeta, DV-Cam, HD-Cam and so on.
C) The projector (and projectionist!) has just as great an amount to do with good projection than the screening format. I'd rather have a 1080p image and projector with good masking and a bright bulb as opposed to how some mainstream theaters run bulbs at half-power (for economic purposes) and cut off the sides or top of the image.

I'm not talking about projecting something like Citizen Kane or The Turin Horse from a DVD here, but you can't make a blanket statement that everything should be 2K DCP (or higher) because many things that are distributed digitally are not available in this format. It just seems like a misinformed statement to me. Have we "advanced" so much since HD has been introduced that these formats are now "unacceptable"? Please...

](*,)

I'd say thanks for being patronising, but I hate that kind of sarcasm.

A) duh B) duh C) duh. And I'm reasonably fine with HD-CAM. But it's safe to say we were not talking about native SD films (or approximate), but of movies filmed in a reasonably high resolution; this is a thread for The Turin Horse.

Sorry, that was a little over the top... I was back from seeing a horribly projected-on-DVD film, a below-averaged projected-on-35mm film, as well as running a good 35mm print and decent HD-Cam print. I'm very sensitive to bad projection myself, but I got taken aback by the blanket statements being made in this thread.

Since I am somewhat new to this forum, is there any threads or sections devoted to theatrical projection or programming? These are two of my big interests and I haven't seen much centralized talk about them.

Yep. I think the part of the problem in discussing such things is the profusion of digital sources, it blurs the connotations.

Not that I'm aware of, which is frustrating - it's a topic that's picked at in innumerous threads (example: this).

htshell wrote:I'm not talking about projecting something like Citizen Kane or The Turin Horse from a DVD here, but you can't make a blanket statement that everything should be 2K DCP (or higher) because many things that are distributed digitally are not available in this format. It just seems like a misinformed statement to me. Have we "advanced" so much since HD has been introduced that these formats are now "unacceptable"? Please...

Sorry if I wasn't clear - by "unacceptable", I mean the practice of advertising something as a "digital projection" (which to me implies 2K DCP or better) and then screening a DVD.

I completely agree that even a DVD can look surprisingly effective when blown up to the big screen - but I'd be extremely miffed if I paid normal cinema rates for a "digital projection" and ended up watching a far lower-resolution image than I was expecting. Elsewhere on these forums there's an anecdote by someone who paid to see a "digital projection" of Barry Lyndon that turned out to be the old non-anamorphic DVD!

On the other hand, if the wording was "DVD projection" or "Blu-ray projection", that's fine. And of course if the material originated on SD video, that's equally fine - I'd prefer a Digibeta to a DVD source, but there's obviously no point in upscaling it.

Thanks for clearing that up. I DO agree with your point that one of the most important things about theatrical screenings is that they should be transparent in regards to the formats used. I was definitely miffed when I paid full-price to see the restored Metropolis a few years ago which was shown on a DVD.

MichaelB wrote:I don't know whether there was a digital interpos made during the post-production stage, but if there was - and there would have been with the vast majority of films these days - you're effectively watching a digital image even if the projected medium is 35mm.

Of course, it does rather depend on how good the digital projection is ...

I saw Horse at the NYFF and it clearly would be a disservice to the texture of the film to screen it digitally. And there is a HUGE difference between even the best digital projection and 35mm. This is patently obvious to any NYFF viewer--the ratio there now seems to be 66%/34% 35/digital and the 35s ALWAYS look much better..

Saw the film last night in Leeds, the first Tarr I've seen on the big screen. Quite an experience all around really, from the typically staggering opening shot to the shellshocked faces of the audience as they left. I got the impression that there weren't many in attendance who knew what they were letting themselves in for.. One guy I know who I spoke to afterwards looked at me in absolute disbelief when I mentioned his other films, as if to say "You knew what to expect and you STILL put yourself through this?" I did notice a couple of walk-outs too, there may have been more on the balcony above. Still, I think it's some sort of comfort to know that even those who hated the film are likely to never forget it.

Rsdio wrote:Saw the film last night in Leeds, the first Tarr I've seen on the big screen. Quite an experience all around really, from the typically staggering opening shot to the shellshocked faces of the audience as they left. I got the impression that there weren't many in attendance who knew what they were letting themselves in for.. One guy I know who I spoke to afterwards looked at me in absolute disbelief when I mentioned his other films, as if to say "You knew what to expect and you STILL put yourself through this?" I did notice a couple of walk-outs too, there may have been more on the balcony above. Still, I think it's some sort of comfort to know that even those who hated the film are likely to never forget it.

I think its important to know how many days there are during the film or you always expect the film to be over and then there is another 20-40 minutes to go... When I saw it I though it was only 2h but it was way longer than I expected (still I wasn't bothered since it was great...)

About the ending:

Spoiler

I felt that the film should have ended at the end of day 5 in complete obscurity with the voice over... I must say I was a bit disappointed by the fact they showed the 2 people after there were no light (even though it was a great scene). I liked the fact at the end of the day 5 that the narrator was kind of reading a text written like a script that explained it was the end of the world and that Tarr just put no light at all and read the text because the end of the world is impossible to show...