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twicebilled wrote:Am I wrong in believing that subtitling everything would lead you to rereading the same lines over and over for 9 hours?

Well, no - because if you read the linked article, the suggestion is that what's being said by the interviewee and what's being translated by the interpreter are often subtly and sometimes seriously divergent.

I'm sure some information is lost with the translator translating himself, but I would assume who ever is translating for the release is making the whole of the information available.

OK, you definitely didn't read the article. That might be a good idea before progressing further.

MichaelB wrote:OK, you definitely didn't read the article. That might be a good idea before progressing further.

The article has no citation to any of the actual interviews with people claiming edits to their interviews or bad translations apart for Steve's example of a poor translation. My comment was with Criterion (or any other publisher) translating and reducing a wall of text to summing up what both parties are saying in the subtitle. Sorry if my comment was confusing, but I did read the article. If the argument is about how Lantzmann manipulates the interviewees that should already be apparent in his tactics of using hidden cameras.

The manipulation cited is in interview tactics and those of translation. Why would the use (or in this case non-use) of hidden camera be relevant?

knives wrote:The manipulation cited is in interview tactics and those of translation. Why would the use (or in this case non-use) of hidden camera be relevant?

I was only attempting to ask a question that isn't information already lost in the subtitling of film because of space and what you can read in the amount of time during speech. I thought it might be absurd to think the film would have full translation of the interviews. That was all I was asking.

Anglophone viewers interested in a more complete translation could always refer to this. A caveat though: the text is that of the French translators, not the direct speech of the original interview subjects.

Subtitles are always a gross simplification of the actual spoken dialogue. There's only so much text you can fit on screen in so much time.

I thank you for that link though it poses the question of if it includes the disparity between the Polish speakers and translator.

My Shoah blu-ray arrived today, and as promised, I've compared the title and credit sequences to those on the Masters of Cinema DVD.

First, the running time of the MoC is actually 542m 29s by my count -- it's easy to miss that for some reason the end titles on First Era, Part Two have been authored as a separate title. So if we multiply *that* by 25/24, we get an expected running time for the blu of 565m 5s. Since the blu runs 567m 36s (Beaver's figures are correct, except they've mixed up the running times of the two Parts of the Second Era), we need to account for approximately 2 1/2 minutes. Here's what I found...

• The blu has ~50 seconds' worth of wacky C animation, other company logos, restoration credits, etc. at the start of First Era, Part One.
• The end credits on First Era, Part Two are ~20 seconds longer on the blu. (Probably the same text, but very obviously recreated digitally, as all scrolling text on the Criterion has been. I think they just run slower.)
• The opening titles on Second Era, Part One are about 10 seconds longer.
• Finally, at the end of Second Era, Part Two, there are an additional ~40 seconds of credits for Criterion staff, restoration credits reprised, etc.

50s + 20s + 10s + 40s is two minutes, which still leaves a half-minute discrepancy. So maybe the film on the blu is a different cut that runs 30 seconds longer? No! The thing is, we shouldn't have multiplied by 25/24 in the first place, because blu-rays don't actually run at 24 fps, they run at 23.976 fps. When a film is nine hours long, that makes a difference of... yes... half a minute! \:D/

Of course, people who own the MoC may still want to get the Criterion for the three additional Lanzmann films...

Matt wrote:Anglophone viewers ... could always refer to this.

Wow. The negative reviews for that book are certainly something. I didn't come away with an anti-Polish slant. Does anyone else get this from SHOAH?

I doubt it illuminates the disparity knives refers to. I have a feeling it's a transcript of the film.

Lanzmann's introduction to the book discusses translation (see below). So perhaps it is just a transcription of the subtitles. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up!

ola t wrote:50s + 20s + 10s + 40s is two minutes, which still leaves a half-minute discrepancy. So maybe the film on the blu is a different cut that runs 30 seconds longer? No! The thing is, we shouldn't have multiplied by 25/24 in the first place, because blu-rays don't actually run at 24 fps, they run at 23.976 fps. When a film is nine hours long, that makes a difference of... yes... half a minute! \:D/

Of course, people who own the MoC may still want to get the Criterion for the three additional Lanzmann films...

Thanks for all the figurework, ola t. Now that I know it's the same as my MoC DVD, I'll be getting it for the blu-ray upgrade. The 3 additional films are an added incentive, of course.

BTW, I take your point about 23.976 fps, and my Oppo 93 does in fact show this frame rate on most BDs. Every now and again, though, one crops up that displays as 24.000 fps. Perhaps the player is just reading an incorrect code on the disc, rather than determining the actual frame rate?

I find very few things in life as satisifying as when math works out.

Paul Moran wrote:BTW, I take your point about 23.976 fps, and my Oppo 93 does in fact show this frame rate on most BDs. Every now and again, though, one crops up that displays as 24.000 fps. Perhaps the player is just reading an incorrect code on the disc, rather than determining the actual frame rate?

24.000 fps is also a valid option. Many territories that do not have a history with NTSC, such as Hong Kong and European countries, sometimes don't bother with the fraction, and encode their film-sourced video at 24.000 fps.

While searching for a trailer to try and get my girlfriend interested in watching this, I stumbled across this

That music just screams "holocaust".

jindianajonz wrote:I find very few things in life as satisifying as when math works out.

There's a queasy irony in the fact that a conversation about SHOAH has degenerated into talk of specs and statistics...

By the way, that Youtube video... man... that's fucked.

ptatler wrote:a conversation about SHOAH has degenerated into talk of specs and statistics.

"degenerated"? (Also, "statistics"?)

I'm kidding. Poor word choice.

OK, sorry for being touchy.

Hi,
I bought the 3 disc set the other day, and much to my surprise, disc 1 will not load. Disc 2 and 3 are fine. I thought I had a bad disc, and returned the set, got another one, and the same thing is happening. It's puzzling that disc one of different sets will NOT play, and it's irritating me. I have a Sony BD player that is awesome, up to date firmware-wise, and never had an issue with discs not loading. I literally never had this issue with this player with any disc, ever. Is anyone else having such an issue? I hate to bail on the BR and get the DVD, though that wouldn't be the end of the world, but I can't imagine what the issue is other than a manufacturing issue that may just affect some players, not others. That said...it DOES play the other 2 discs? Anyone?

After reading your comment, I popped the first disc of Shoah into my Blu-ray player last night and it loaded--if by that term you mean I was able to see the whole menu. I played the trailer--I'm not ready to commit to the 9.5 hours yet--and it worked fine. I'm sorry I forgot to check the brand I have, but that's probably no use to you anyway.

Film Comment's first podcast is a discussion between J. Hoberman and Joshua Oppenheimer on Shoah.

So, I watched the first part of this tonight (First Era, Part One). The film is undeniably an incredible and important achievement, though at the same time, it is a really difficult experience. Obviously, part of this is due to the graphic nature of the material, but simultaneously, hearing interview after interview does become tiresome after a while.

I understand that Lanzmann wanted to include as much material as possible, but I can't help but wonder if Shoah would have made even more of an impact if the film was significantly shorter.

Regardless, I'll be splitting this one over the course of a few days, so that should help make it more palatable. Though, as it stands, I feel as though Shoah is not best experience as a traditional film, but more so as an artifact or a documentation that should be absorbed differently for each individual.

criterion10 wrote:I understand that Lanzmann wanted to include as much material as possible, but I can't help but wonder if Shoah would have made even more of an impact if the film was significantly shorter.

I don't think so. The length of the film is an appropriate response to the magnitude of the horror it documents.

And the sad thing is it still only touches a small portion of it.

If humankind really and truly contemplated and understood the enormity of what transpired we'd never leave our beds