criterionforum.org

I nearly fell of my chair as I discovered this edition on DVD from a company called Looser Than Loose. It claims

The film has been transfered from first generation PAL video and our quality assessment based on a scale of 1 - 10 (10 being optimal) would be 9+. The digital encoding for this disc has been applied using an HQ Mpeg-2 codec with low compression.

The general description:

L'Argent

Directed by Marcel L'Herbier

This much sought after 1928 French feature film is presented here on three discs with a minimal amount of video compression. We have taken great pains to ensure that the film is run at the correct speed based upon the original edits and pacing (in this case just shy of 24 frames-per-second).
Taken from the novel by Émile Zola, L'Argent is the story of a young aviator and his wife who fall under the control of an evil, manipulative banker. The story is set in Paris and is played out against fantastically elaborate sets. The camera work and lighting are at times breathtaking. L'Argent is a big budget feature made at the height of silent film artistry.

This film has been one of my most sought after impossibilities... now it seems someone has gotten hold of a solid genuine digibeta and encoded it to NTSC. As far as I can discern there is still no "name release" of this masterpiece (usually ranked right alongside Dreyer's PASSION & Gance's NAPOLEON as an obsolute equal in terms of French silent masterpieces)anywhere in the world.. but the idea that someone either taped it off of French TV or got hold of a still unused digibeta of the restoration is cause for scrambling. Anyone familiar with this company, or, I daresay, this specific release?

Also features the sublime ALCOVER from the great early Gremillon LA PETIT LISE.

HerrSchreck wrote:This film has been one of my most sought after impossibilities... now it seems someone has gotten hold of a solid genuine digibeta and encoded it to NTSC.

I never heard of this company, I'm afraid. Much as a release of this film anywhere is exciting, I'd be careful and not expect too much. "First generation PAL video" seems not necessarily to be a digibeta, but sounds rather like a normal 'first generation' PAL video recording (either from TV or from an old legitimate VHS release, if there ever was one). Spreading this 156 min. film over three dvd-rs also seems somewhat annoying in a time when double-layered dvd-rs are available. I don't want to foulmouth this company in any way, and it seems they cared for a good encoding, but I somehow have a feeling it won't quite live up to what you perhaps hope for. No words about subs, either. I also hope someone else could tell us something more.

Well, they do have a video sample on the site... not great quality, but that looks to have to do more with the rip than the source.

There was some discussion about this edition a year ago in the Silent Film thread.

I've seen a 1-DVD bootleg of L'Argent which is from the same source: it has the same "h éduc" logo at top left and the same flickering VHS artifacts along the bottom. Quality is fairly poor, more like a 5- than a 9+, even allowing for additional compression. I'm sceptical about it being sourced from a "first generation PAL video", if by that they mean a commercial VHS release. It looks like a transfer from a VHS recording of a French TV broadcast that appears to been recorded from analogue satellite in bad weather (you can see the telltale streaking that gets quite bad at times in the second half of the film).

Intertitles in French. No subtitles. The music is Greatest Hits of Ravel and Debussy. Sample below.

Terribly awful.

L'Argent still awaits a proper release.

What you all need to track down is this beautiful print of L'Herbier's early silent L'Homme du large (1920) that was broadcast on Arte some time ago. It is based on Balzac's short story Un drame au bord de la mer (when will we finally get to see Jean Epstein's L'Auberge rouge from 1923?) and features Charles Boyer in an early role. Our friend Didier Dumonteil writes very affectionatley about it on the imdb.

The LARGENT looks lousy and the LHOMME look wonderful.

It's absolutely sick that the French have not put this LARGENT restoration out.

O well. At least there are tv boots circulating.