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I want to buy the best version of Der Golem on DVD.
The R1 Kino is out of the question, even though the picture quality is good, since it doesn't have German intertitles.

So the other options are the Eureka and the Transit Films (German) DVDs. The former is according to Gary at the Beaver a NTSC-to-PAL transfer that is not ideal. I don't know if the German DVD is any better, but judging from one intelligent review at amazon.de it has significant faults. Can anyone say anything about these (or other) releases?

Tried to quote myself to anwer tommasso & lost the whole thing. Going to reconstruct.

I doubt Denti, that you're going to get the original German intertitles on the Golem because the restoration the Kino & MOC came from was a kitchen sink project from a bunch of different sources for gaps, but the primary source was an english MoMa print. I know an italian was used for the tinting matrix.

I mention this in cases where, say, an english speaking person (I'm one of them) resents the insertion of translated intertitles because they're new and break the spell of antiquity. I don't think any home video edition of the Golem has non-reconstructed intertitles, including the German.

Many dvd's get saluted for having original intertitles like FANTOMAS & TARTUFFE. Gary saluted MoC as having the better edition of Tartuffe because it had the "original German intertitles" which is not true. These are reconstructed intertitles, as the only surviving nitrate element of the film is an original release print for the US market held by the USA Library of Congress. So actually its the Kino which has the original, antique intertitles, and MOC has the pc generated, spellbreaker intertitles.

You're quite right about the intertitles of "Golem" and "Tartuffe", but although they are not the original German titles, they were reconstructed according to the censorship cards. That means: at least the words are original and not translated, and in many cases it is known how the original titles looked typographically, so they could easily be reconstructed. So even with those films I would prefer the German titles, even if not original in the strict sense.

Of course I also say this because German is my native language

Tommaso wrote:You're quite right about the intertitles of "Golem" and "Tartuffe", but although they are not the original German titles, they were reconstructed according to the censorship cards. That means: at least the words are original and not translated, and in many cases it is known how the original titles looked typographically, so they could easily be reconstructed. So even with those films I would prefer the German titles, even if not original in the strict sense.

Of course I also say this because German is my native language

schreck specifically wrote: I mention this in cases where, say, an english speaking person (I'm one of them) resents the insertion of translated intertitles because they're new and break the spell of antiquity.
I don't think any home video edition of the Golem has non-reconstructed intertitles, including the German

My god man, what are you doing? I predicated the whole discussion on the idea that the person is looking for era-intertitles that don't break the antique spell, which is the complaint most cineastes have. If they want the german, unless they're bilingual, it's because they want OLD INTERTITLES, as digital screens in crisp fonts break the spell.

It may well be that Denti, who lives in my state of NYC USA, knows German or, if he doesn't, makes it a project to translate all intertitles into english for himself. But mind you reconstituted intertitles aren't original intertitles, which is what I'm talking about.

And everybody knows that native language original scripts & censorship cards serve as reconstruction sources.

EDIT: I can think of a perfect example of what I mean, and I'd be curious to know if others feel the same--

THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC. A pristine original Danish print was found in a Norweigian loony bin, miraculously inna 80's. Some genius decided that since it was originally a french film, that the era intertitles should be amputated & kept a private pleasure of the restorers, whereby computer cards should constitute their translations... this rather than letting this fascinating nitrate artifact simply RUN from start to finish, and have their retransalations be an option onscreen. I want to see those darned intertitles, what they looked like!

I'm with Tommaso. But all this hasn't cleared anything up for me:
a) Does the Eureka have German intertitles? What's the quality of the picture like?

b) Does the Transit have German intertitles (I'm assuming it does), and what's its quality like?

Which is the one to go for if you feel strongly about having the titles in the original language, but also want the best possible image?

Univerum Film's Authorized Transit Classics release (no english subs I suspect)

And a look at the Eureka vs. a pd version.

As far as image is concerned, my sense is you'll avoid the preconversion issues by buying the Kino if the comparison analysis is correct. I don't know about the Transit edition, but if the original master floating around is NTSC then the Kino will be the only one without conversion issues. The Eureka looks far more edge enhanced & boosted than the Kino (I have the Kino, but not with me right now at work where I could throw it on for you).

As for the above, Dent, are you saying that your overriding concern is to have the original language intertitles, even if it means going with electronic intertitles discarding the original print's nitrate intertitles (a la TARTUFFE or JOAN)? That's an interesting take on the "intertitle controversy" (oh the controversy.. gasp.. flump).

My take is that when the nitrate has intertitles, those are the ones I want to see. A nitrate is a vintage artifact, a historical record not to be edited, which also breaks the spell of antiquity when watching. In a case of a "miraculous nitrate" say TARTUFFE or JOAN (sole surviving print which happens to be pristine and with complete, i e non-flash, intertitles), where, since the single print is not from director's-country-of-origin, the nitrate is snipped & edited for public viewing to make way for computer generated screens, to me (and I respect differences of opinion, this is my take) it's a desecration along the lines of

Finding an ancient scroll or a vase in Africa with a regional dialect's translation, say, of EXODUS from the Torah... and requesting that the vase itself have the dialect's EXODUS erased & replaced with the original Hebrew because this was the originating language of the source material on the vase... whereas to me that's putting a knife to history. I can always get a hardcopy of the original Torah in Hebrew. Acquiring a copy of the original script of Tartuffe, for example, shouldn't be too hard for comparison's sake.

Do you do your own translations? I know you're a prof Denti so it's entirely possible.

This was just posted today on Filmhistoriker.de:

NEWS GOLEM (1915) FRAGMENT FOUND

Heinrich (Henrik) Galeen's and Paul Wegener's original 1915 GOLEM is one of the most famous films considered lost. Now, a new fragment has surfaced in the holding of a private film collector in Uelzen, Germany. It is a short coloured 77 m piece showing some of the final scenes with Wegener in full Golem costume (and a dagger in his chest), Galeen, Lyda Salmonova and Carl Ebert.

The fragment was restored by the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv and, surprisingly, presented at the Opening Gala of the CineFest 2007. The restored piece also contains part of the as yet only known fragment of the film (the "bellow scene" with Wegener and Galeen) and has a length of 97 m. Additional 11 m are being restored later this year. And the best part is: the restored 4 mins piece shown at the CineFest can be found in the extras section of the CineFest DVD which also contains the complete 1930 Anny Ondra film DIE VOM RUMMELPLATZ and many more short films and extras. The DVD "Film im Herzen Europas" (Film in the Heart of Europe) can be ordered from Amazon.de