criterionforum.org

Saturnome wrote:I wish there was a neat topic for Victor Sjöström where I could ask this, but I'll post it here I guess : Is there any detailed account about why he left film directing? Was making talkies that bad? Or how he went back to it one last time in the United Kingdom (Under the Red Robe, 1937) ?

There are no details known. Basically it's a combination of different factors. His favorite film The Wind was held back for over a year and released with added sound effects and not very successful, while the following films were bread and butter works for the increasingly tightly controlled MGM factory. His Swedish friends left Hollywood in the wake of sound or even before and he himself apparently had great difficulties to adjust to sound, his first US-talkie as well as the following Swedish talkie are quite bad. Apparently he had earned enough money to be financially comfortable, wasn't the youngest, didn't like being a studio hack and said goodbye. Maybe he had some hopes for a successful Swedish career, but his talkie there flopped horribly and he found himself out of demand.
He played theater, acted in films and then Korda contacted him in 1935 for a film about Christ in which he invested some energy before the project was cancelled. Korda offered him the swashbuckler as a compensation, but it wasn't a thrilling experience, he described the result as elegant nonsense. And that was his directorial career in films.
You shouldn't forget that he is the only director who made great silents at the very beginning of feature film production (Ingeborg Holm in 1913) and at the end (The Wind in 1928). Maybe sound was one more cumbersome step with which he wasn't willing to bother too much.

Saturnome wrote:I wish there was a neat topic for Victor Sjöström where I could ask this, but I'll post it here I guess : Is there any detailed account about why he left film directing? Was making talkies that bad? Or how he went back to it one last time in the United Kingdom (Under the Red Robe, 1937) ?

Your question got me searching Swedish sites on the internet. This site has a 31 minute talk Sjöström did for swedish radio in 1938 where he mainly talks about working as a director in Hollywood. He starts by saying he often forgets when working as an actor how much hard work it is being a director. The Hollywood experience he describes mostly as long conferences with "experts". Endless re-writes of manuscripts and a feeling that every minute matters when directing, because time costs a lot of money. He says it has become very difficult to make films with artistic merit.

The Swedish Bergman site has a page about Sjöström. It says he visited Stiller's death bed in Stockholm, and this was one of the things that led him to moving back to Sweden.

After doing one unsuccesful sound film Markurells i Wadköping (1931) in Sweden, he went back to acting, mostly on stage. Already in 1931 he had the main lead in a Swedish production of Der Hauptmann von Köpenick (sorce).

Sounds to me like he was tired of directing, and being back in Sweden he had no problem getting work as an actor.

Thanks for the fascinating and detailed answers! I couldn't ask for better.

Just a heads up to any of you all that use Spotify : The Maddi Bye score for the film that is featured on the Blu-ray and DVD is available to stream.

Anyone else have playback issues with their disc? Mine is stuttering around the halfway point - wondering if this is unique to my disc?

heartthesilence - I recently discovered my disc does the same. I watched the film a couple of years ago with no problem, but recently watched it with the alternate score and the film froze to a stop about three quarters in. I watched it on my PS3 and thought maybe I should try another console? I wonder now if it may be a common issue.

What's the exact timecode?

When I get home tonight, I'll check the timecode - FWIW, I did physically inspect the disc and there was no browning, nor was the code pressed into the hub one of the ones associated with the whole "browning" debacle from last year.

The stalling happens when you skip to chapter 10 which is at 1:11:28. It's really bad.

Probably not super helpful, but I just checked my copy and don't find anything errant.

All's well on my copy. Oppo BDP-93.

Mine played fine on my Sony.

Still, if it's just a minority (just me and one other consumer by this sampling) that wouldn't rule out a manufacturing defect, would it? Just a minor one rather than a major one. Anyway, I already emailed Criterion for a replacement but they haven't gotten back to me.

Tested this on my PS4, works fine.

hearthesilence - I checked my disc. Same exact place. Around 1:11:28.

Might be a good idea to correlate the disc number on the underside.

Presumably that is the layer change, as it's the most common place for a defect to appear. It can't hurt to swap disc numbers, but I doubt this is some systemic flaw - there are presumably small amounts of bad discs for just about every movie in existence, and there just happen to be two users of this forum who have bad discs for The Phantom Carriage. Hopefully Criterion will replace them for you quickly and that will be that.

No problem. On the inner ring, on the substrate: IFPI L323

On the inner, clear plastic part of the hub: IFPI OWXI

IFPIL323 & IFPI OWXT, as well as BVDL-241440B1

All right, I'm going to email a follow-up to Mulvaney. He hasn't been responsive.

Finally got a response asking me to double check 1) the firmware and 2) that the disc isn't dirty.

(Forgot to mention, my main unit is an Oppo BDP-93 that is updated, and the disc is spotless.)

If none of this works, I need to send the disc in with a copy of the email, the timecode where this is happening, and the list of players I've tried this on - if they find that it's defective, they would send a replacement.

Is it really even possible that the firmware being not being updated could make a disc that once played back no longer playable? I've experienced the opposite, but I'm always so skeptical when I'm asked to check if a firmware problem is why a disc won't play.

Just checked my disc and no problem. I did notice that the time code is a chapter transition from 9 to 10.

This same problem happened with Walkabout, so it probably is a problem that has developed with a batch of discs, not a player issue.