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Still not quite as bad though as watching The Amazing Race.

Sloper wrote:I'm mystified by the adulation heaped on the Alloy score, which is one of the most irritating scores I've ever heard - I could only bear about fifteen minutes of it before starting again with In the Nursery, who for my money did a great job (this was on the old BFI release; don't know if it's available on any other edition).

I actually liked the Alloy score when I first heard it on the old BFI version; it gave the film quite a lot of 'drive'; but I completely agree with you (and have said it before): the ITN score is simply sublime and reveals the utopian/transcendental aspect of the film like no other score ever did, including Nyman's, which is allright, but nothing special.

As that old BFI disc is close to unwatchable: both Nyman and ITN plus a third score by Walter Cee are available on the German arte/absolut medien disc, which for me is the one to own, all things considered. It also has a fantastic documentary on Vertov (86 mins.), though unsubbed.

Tommaso wrote:the ITN score is simply sublime and reveals the utopian/transcendental aspect of the film like no other score ever did

This reminds me that I missed (*weeps*) the opportunity to see them perform live alongside The Passion of Joan of Arc about a year ago in some cathedral up north. I just literally couldn't go, but I'd love to hear what they make of the film; maybe it'll get a DVD release some day.

Sloper, thanks for the link.

It was indeed the Alloy Orchestra score that I heard in my doc history class a few years ago, and it was the score that made me love the film so much. It's affect reminded me of Carmine Coppola's for "Napoleon", how the score felt as equally powerful as the visuals. Or, close it, anyway. I was still new the world of film outside of mulitplexes, and the score made a 4-hour silent film not only bearable, but enjoyable. (Glad I took the chance to see "Napoleon" in the theater, because I've never seen the chance again.)

I agree with Tommaso, that the Alloy score has a great drive to it. And while the ITN score seems unavailable in R1 (?), I think I'll go with Image's disc.

Sloper wrote:This reminds me that I missed (*weeps*) the opportunity to see them perform live alongside The Passion of Joan of Arc about a year ago in some cathedral up north. I just literally couldn't go, but I'd love to hear what they make of the film; maybe it'll get a DVD release some day.

Oh yes, that would be gorgeous; and it isn't unlikely, because "Jeanne" isn't out on dvd in the UK as far as I know. Curiously, the only ITN soundtrack that works well without the images is "Man with a movie camera", the others played only on cd tend to be a letdown, though I haven't heard the "Joan of Arc" cd yet. But with the images: wow!; this goes especially for "Hindle Wakes" and "Electric Edwardians", of course. But I recently got a bootleg of "A Page of Madness" which had some annoying 70s style soundtrack, so I decided to let the ITN version play along with it, which worked perfectly and almost without any synchronization problems. Another marvellous experience; they have a mysterious knack for enhancing the mood and the beauty of the images without the music ever drawing too much attention to itself. Which reminds me that it is completely beyond me why no company ever released that seminal Japanese silent even though apparently a restored version exists. Should be a no-brainer for Kino, with or without ITN.

Tommaso wrote:Oh yes, that would be gorgeous; and it isn't unlikely, because "Jeanne" isn't out on dvd in the UK as far as I know. Curiously, the only ITN soundtrack that works well without the images is "Man with a movie camera", the others played only on cd tend to be a letdown, though I haven't heard the "Joan of Arc" cd yet. But with the images: wow!; this goes especially for "Hindle Wakes" and "Electric Edwardians", of course.

Not to veer off course, but the ITN score for the Image release of Hindle Wakes is one of the most beautiful scores I've heard adapted to a silent film. Like Tommaso mentions, it seems to mesh with the images of that fine film perfectly.

Kino is now blogging.

Bret Wood at Kino, who produces most of their best releases, has been blogging for awhile now too.

Yeah, I've been following Wood's blog (at least until his last post in March). I'm not crazy about the Psychopathia Sexualis, although I love Hell's Highway.

I really enjoyed his blog entry on Tarkovsky's Sacrifice.

Kino are releasing Marlene in October.

tojoed wrote:Kino are releasing Marlene in October.

I wonder if this might mean they will be releasing some films starring La Dietrich. Anyone have any insight into the possibility?

tojoed wrote:Kino are releasing Marlene in October.

God, when I read that I thought it was that unspeakable abomination of a Vilsmaier film with Katja Flint as Marlene and Armin Rohde as Emil Jannings. Good to see it's not; but has anyone seen that Schell film and would recommend it?

Saw it once some time ago (on TCM?). I remember it being emtertaining in an odd way as Dietrich (who refused to appear on Camera) was determined to preserve all the Dietrich Myth & Schell was trying to obtain accurate biography.
The Myth is that BLAU ENGEL was her first film & she insists to that. Schell shows her a still from CAFE ELECTRIC (or something) and she says, "No, that's not me."

Marlene indeed has a major role in "Café Elektric" (good film, btw), and imdb lists about 15 or so pre-"Engel" films with her, none of which I've seen. I suppose in most cases these were truly minor appearances only.

Kino woule do well to release Elektric along with this-- a very good film indeed.

I think it's kind of admirable (albeit sad) when an actress has the strength to draw the line and say "I'm done; no more mountains of makeup and flesh pulled back to my ears.. I'm no longer young, and will not degrade myself trying to keep looking that way."

The plight that faces actresses that were major erotic symbols in their youth is indeed sad-- don't know whether its a curse or a blessing to be such an icon. Actors age and become "distinguished"... poor actresses just become haggish, and the parts dry up like a desert waste.

One of the more interesting things I've read (or heard - I can't recall, but I think it was a Vanity Fair piece) about Dietrich came from her daughter, Maria Rivera. She claimed that MD was not at all vain about her looks or depressed about growing older (apparently when at home she didn't bother much "fixing herself up") but retired from performing when she could no longer sustain the illusion of glamour she felt others expected of her.
And what pains she went through to create that illusion in later years. She used surgical steel hooks on elastic to pull her facial skin tight ... Owch!

HarryLong wrote:And what pains she went through to create that illusion in later years. She used surgical steel hooks on elastic to pull her facial skin tight ... Owch!

Things like these make it clear to me why I always preferred Garbo to Dietrich
Simply call it a day and disappear (well, more or less).

Just like grand ol' Setsuko. Call it finished and bow out-- which she did when Ozu passed. Certainly he was very kind to her, giving her parts in her latter films with him where men where creaming in their dry goods over her and talking about how she's more beautiful than the young girls around her (she was still beautiful indeed, but it all seems a touch contrived here and there).

HerrSchreck wrote:Kino woule do well to release Elektric along with this-- a very good film indeed.
I think it's kind of admirable (albeit sad) when an actress has the strength to draw the line and say "I'm done; no more mountains of makeup and flesh pulled back to my ears.. I'm no longer young, and will not degrade myself trying to keep looking that way."

I thought about this when watching Andrzej Wajda's new film Sweet Rush last night - it co-stars two elder stateswoman of Polish cinema, Krystyna Janda and Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieślak, and what's great about them is that they're not pretending to be anything other than what they are: women in their late fifties who aren't bothering to conceal their wrinkles. In fact, I was quite startled to find that Jankowska-Cieślak was more or less the same age as Janda when I looked her dates up just now, as she comes across as rather older in the films I've seen her in.

Which seems to me to be equally admirable - they haven't locked themselves away to let us live with the memories, but instead they're tacitly admitting that they're no longer going to play glamorous roles, but might as well take advantage of potentially more challenging character parts.

Now the following is something I've never seen before.

I just received The Quare Fellow today (ordered it pursuant to that nifty $9.95 sale over at Kino). The movie is supposed to have a 1.33:1 AR, but the credit sequences have a thick black border surrounding the film image, the resulting film image is clearly wider than it is taller. As soon as the credits end, the film image zooms in until it is displayed as I've traditionally seen a movie with 1.33:1 AR displayed on a widescreen tv set. Now I've seen DVDs before where the credit sequences of the movie are somewhat differently scaled (primarily older Hollywood movies), but I've never seen one where the image visually zooms in until the top and bottom black bands disappear or where the credit sequences were so obviously differently scaled from the rest of the film.

EDIT: IMDB shows this is supposed to have an AR of 1.37:1...a strange AR I've never heard of (not to mean it doesn't exist).

Tribe wrote:IMDB shows this is supposed to have an AR of 1.37:1...a strange AR I've never heard of (not to mean it doesn't exist).

1.37 = Academy

fiddlesticks wrote:

Tribe wrote:IMDB shows this is supposed to have an AR of 1.37:1...a strange AR I've never heard of (not to mean it doesn't exist).

1.37 = Academy

I always thought 1.33:1 was Academy, until now...but you're right.

I haven't seen the disc, but this should probably be 1.66:1, and it sounds like that might be what the credits are matted to.

Usually those old transfers with the windowboxed credits shift to the zoomed/pan & scanned 1.33 image with an abrupt cut, but I vaguely remember seeing a few where it's accomplished with a telecine zoom instead. Ridiculous; it's like, here's a couple of minutes of how this movie should look, and now here's a demo of how were going to fuck up the rest of it for you.

Aside from The Quare Fellow situation (and Perkins, while I was watching the credits of that the thought did cross my mind why the things shouldn't be 1.66:1, so thanks for the explanation), I also ordered from the same Kino sale Isaac Julien's documentary Derek. It's a fascinating documentary on Jarman's life and work and the transfer looks fantastic to me. I couldn't find anything wrong with how the film looked...so kudos to Kino on that one. That Kino sale is still going on...so ya can't go wrong at $9.95.

I'm more than a little surprised Kino would present a film in this manner. The source was obviously a prepared-for-TV version with that zoom-in.