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Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films



Janus Films opened American viewers’ eyes to the pleasures of Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, and François Truffaut at the height of their artistic powers. Celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of this world-renowned distribution company with Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films, an expansive collectors’ box set featuring fifty classic films on DVD and a lavishly illustrated hardcover book that tells the story of Janus Films through an essay by film historian Peter Cowie, a tribute from Martin Scorsese, and extensive, all-new notes on all fifty films, plus cast and credit listings and U.S. premiere information.

Disc Features

- Hardcover, linen-bound box set with 240-page, full-color book and 50 DVDs
- Dimensions: 12.5” x 12.75” x 3.5”
- Weight: 14 lbs.
- Format: NTSC
- Region: 1
- Each DVD features a pristine digital transfer of the film in its original language. Foreign-language films come with optional English subtitles; English-language films with English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing.

A 50-disc boxset?

lord jesus. if they put a book I want in a box of 50 criterion films I dont own, for a decent price, shit will meet pants.

Good God - 50 disc box set? Merry Christmas to me!

These 50 are surely already released (or soon to be) by the CC, so probably no surprises...

It'd be great if this Janus box included, say, a few exclusive copies of discs not intended for release until January or February. Unreleased classics everyone's gagging for like The Magician or An Autumn Afternoon or Sansho the Bailiff. That would be fucking dynamite. But I suspect, partly out of cynicism, partly out of looking at past sets ("Crime Wave", anyone?), they'll take it as an opportunity to shift a load of excess stock of discs that aren't selling that well.

Most likely in reference to this:

The 44th New York Film Festival
September 29 – October 15, 2006

This year the New York Film Festival Retrospective will be “50 Years of Janus Films.â€

That indeed looks like it... LE CRIME DE M. LANGE & SUMMER WITH MONIKA pretty soon then...

For the record, these are the titles from the Janus series not yet issued by Criterion. I'm sure we'd all be thrilled if these were here in the near future!

The Phantom Carriage
Zero de conduite
Le Crime de M Lange
Le Jour se leve
Miracle in Milan
The Earrings of Madame de. . .
Summer with Monika
Sansho the Bailiff
Death of a Cyclist
Fires on the Plain
The Organizer
W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism
Cria!

There are fewer than 50 films in the retrospective, so the reference in the newsletter must be to something different (and presumably Criterion specific). If it's a mega-box set, it would be useful to know how many Janus titles are already available on disc - exactly 50, a lot more, or a lot less? Any volunteers?

Actually, there are a few titles in that retrospective that could be revisited as well: presumably they'll be screening the full-length Kwaidan, and Cleo has been hinted at for revisiting, so reissues could also be a part of the plan.

Teshigahara boxset with Kôbô Abe's novel?

I say the novel is actually Louise de Vilmorin's The Earrings of Madame de.... I believe they may be introducing Ophuls this year.

Cinephrenic wrote:Teshigahara boxset with Kôbô Abe's novel?

I say the novel is actually Louise de Vilmorin's The Earrings of Madame de.... I believe they may be introducing Ophuls this year.

I'm assuming the book will be a '50 Years of Janus Films' coffee-table affair.

Shit I wonder if the boxset is Bunuel: Mexican Years?

zedz wrote:I'm assuming the book will be a '50 Years of Janus Films' coffee-table affair.

My point exactly, a monograph tie-in with the NYFF sans DVDs.

SncDthMnky wrote:lord jesus. if they put a book I want in a box of 50 criterion films I dont own, for a decent price, shit will meet pants.

A box of any 50 Criterion films is going to have an MSRP of at least $1,000. I can't imagine them doing this. Besides that, any jackass who is willing to buy a box set of 50 Criterion DVDs (and they all post on this forum), would probably already have at least half of them.

It's coming in October. Don't get your hopes up for more films to be released, the October slate's already been announced.

ONE BOOK, ONE BOX.

Pandora's Box

Hopefully this is the reason of the recent lack of releases per month. Who knows, maybe a big badassssssssss box set.

zedz wrote:I'm assuming the book will be a '50 Years of Janus Films' coffee-table affair.

In the mid-seventies, Janus published a series of books called Janus Films: The French Collection, Janus Films: The Classic Collection, Janus Films: The British Collection, and probably others. There are people selling copies of these long-out-of-print items at Amazon. One of the sellers describes his copy of Janus Films: The Classic Collection as:

an alphabetical compilation (with b&w photos, casts, credits and awards) of some 73 films made from 1919-1969 and distributed by Janus Films.

These were most likely distributed to exhibitors in hopes that they would rent films from the Janus catalog. I'm betting that the new book compiles all of these into one big coffee table-crushing motherfucker.

Cinephrenic wrote:Pandora's Box

I like the way you think. Why do you all think the book and the box have to do with the Janus Films 50 years fest.

This could be another code such as the swarming devils and i remember.

Fifty Films, One Box: Tora-San!

tavernier wrote:BTW, these films in the retro have yet to be released by CC:

The Phantom Carriage / Korkärlen - Victor Sjöstrom, Sweden, 1921
Zero for Conduct / Zéro de conduite – Jean Vigo, France, 1933
The Crime of Monsieur Lange / Le Crime de Monsieur Lange – Jean Renoir, France, 1935
Daybreak / Le Jour se lève – Marcel Carné, France, 1939
Miracle in Milan / Miracolo a Milano – Vittorio de Sica, Italy, 1951
The Earrings of Madame de... / Madame de... - Max Ophuls, France, 1953
Monika / Sommaren med Monika – Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1953
Sansho the Bailiff / Sanshô Dayû – Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan, 1954
Death of a Cyclist / Muerte de un ciclista – Juan Antonio Bardem, Spain, 1955
Fires on the Plain / Nobi – Kon Ichikawa, Japan, 1959
The Organizer / I Compagni – Mario Monicelli, Italy, 1963
W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism / W.R. – Misterije organizma – Dusan Makavejev, Yugoslavia, 1971
Cria! / Cría Cuervos – Carlos Saura, Spain, 1976

theres FOUR mice,

one mice = one unreleased film showing in the retro at NYC.

4 films, 1 book.

4 films will come from above so far unreleased list.

my ideal 4 would be:

The Phantom Carriage / Korkärlen - Victor Sjöstrom, Sweden, 1921
The Earrings of Madame de... / Madame de... - Max Ophuls, France, 1953
Sansho the Bailiff / Sanshô Dayû – Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan, 1954
Cria! / Cría Cuervos – Carlos Saura, Spain, 1976

I have no idea what Tora San is about, but I want to see them all.

anyways, i think the pandoras box prediction is most likely. any other way, its boring, and so far they've all been trickily worded.

It is perfectly reasonable to assume that a company of the cc's size will roll out the equivalent of an entire years new releases in 1 box featuring 50 previously unreleased films.

After I calmed down after the excitment of the announcement of a box coming in October, something about a 50 film box set didn't make sense. Criterion is a small company and I find it inconceivable they would be secretly toiling away on fifty releases (which equals at least two years worth of releases). And as someone else mentioned, the price alone would put it out of reach of most consumers, even die hard Criterion heads.

I think Godard's four films theory makes sense. I just can't wait to see what titles will be released!

Has anyone thought that it might just be a Wes Anderson boxset with Rushmore, Tenenbaums and Life Aquatic?