L'Inhumaine (Marcel L'Herbier) coming from Flicker Alley

[McCrutchy]

Flicker Alley have just announced Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine (1924) for release on Blu-ray, from a new 4K restoration. Release Date: February 23rd, 2016.

Featuring two new scores, including one from the Alloy Orchestra.

Originally Posted by Flicker Alley

“On leaving the theatre one has the impression of having witnessed the birth of a new art.” - Adolf Loos

Flicker Alley and Lobster Films are proud to present this groundbreaking landmark of artistic collaboration and avant-garde design, newly-restored with two original scores from Aidje Tafial and the Alloy Orchestra, in its North American Blu-ray premiere.

Released to intense controversy in 1924 for its cinematic and technical innovations, L’Inhumaine (The Inhuman Woman) is a visual tour-de-force; a fantastical, science-fiction melodrama; and a momentous collaboration of legendary figures from the avant-garde movement. Directed by Marcel L’Herbier (L’Argent, Feu Mathias Pascal) and starring the famous French opera singer Georgette Leblanc – who helped produce the film along with L’Herbier’s company, Cinégraphic – L’Inhumaine is most notable for the style of filmmaking. In L’Herbier’s words, it represents a “miscellany of modern art,” bringing together some of the greatest artists from the time period, including painter Fernand Léger, architect Robert Mallet-Stevens, glassmaker René Lalique, fashion designer Paul Poiret, and directors Alberto Cavalcanti and Claude Autant-Lara, among others, to create a collaborative cinematic experience.

Leblanc plays the “Inhuman Woman” of the title, Claire Lescot, who lives on the outskirts of Paris, where she draws important men to her like moths to a flame. At her luxurious parties, she basks in the amorous attentions of her many admirers while always remaining aloof. When it appears she is the reason for a young devotee’s suicide, however, her fans desert her. The filming of the concert where she’s raucously booed is a renowned piece of cinema history: L’Herbier invited more than 2,000 people from the arts and fashionable society to attend the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and play the part of the unruly audience. Among the attendees were Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Erik Satie, René Clair, James Joyce, and Ezra Pound (although none are actually visible).

For this brand-new restoration, Lobster Films – with the support of Marie-Ange L’Herbier (the director’s daughter), the French CNC, SACEM and Maison Hermès – utilized the original nitrate negative, scanned at a pristine 4K resolution, and restored the original tints for the first time since the film’s release. The Blu-ray features two audacious new scores, one from percussionist Aidje Tafial and the other by the Alloy Orchestra. With optional English subtitles to the original French intertitles, Flicker Alley and Lobster Films are proud to present L’Inhumaine in an edition that does justice to the dazzling beauty of L’Herbier’s landmark vision.

Bonus Materials Include:

“Behind the Scenes of L’Inhumaine”: A 15-minute featurette about the original production and making of L’Inhumaine.
“About the Recording of Aidje Tafial’s Music”: An exclusive look into the creation of the original score.
A booklet featuring rare, behind-the-scenes photographs and information about the film.

[McCrutchy]

Note: Those who pre-order from Flicker Alley in the next 24 hours will receive free shipping on their pre-order of L'Inumaine, in addition to the discounted pre-order price of $29.95 (25% off).

[Knaldskalle]

Direct 4K scan from the original nitrate negative!? Scary - and awesome, that could lead to some really good picture quality if the negative is in a good state (but that's a big IF given that it's more than 90 years old). I hope this will mean more L'Herbier is in the works - L'Argent, perhaps?.

But an MSRP of $39.95 is steep. They ask the same for Dziga Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera, but that set at least includes a handful of other movies. The extras here don't seem as compelling and I'm wary of "modern scores" (especially a percussion score) after what FWMS pulled with Variete.

I'm definitely intrigued, but I think I will wait for reviews and see if I can't find it substantially cheaper than MSRP.

[John_Drake]

I think that <30USD shipped is reasonable and placed my order.

Years ago I bought the laserdisc in Japan which was based upon a restoration in the late 90s by the Cinemateque and thought it looked brilliant.

That version ran a full 12 minutes longer than Flicker Alley's so I am curious as to what might account for the discrepancy.

[Knaldskalle]

Originally Posted by John_Drake

That version ran a full 12 minutes longer than Flicker Alley's so I am curious as to what might account for the discrepancy.

Purely a guess: Framerate? If Flicker Alley runs at 24 fps and is 122 minutes, a version with 22 fps would run 133 minutes. That's pretty close to the discrepancy you report. That is of course assuming that it's not a question of cut scenes (but if it really is the original nitrate negative it should be uncut, shouldn't it?).

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by Knaldskalle

But an MSRP of $39.95 is steep. They ask the same for Dziga Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera, but that set at least includes a handful of other movies. The extras here don't seem as compelling and I'm wary of "modern scores" (especially a percussion score) after what FWMS pulled with Variete.

I'm definitely intrigued, but I think I will wait for reviews and see if I can't find it substantially cheaper than MSRP.

Bear in mind that this is a new 4K scan of a "standard" silent film, that is, one of the 99% of silent films that are not well known by film fans at large. Assuming that Flicker Alley present the film with good encoding, and the scores in lossless audio (and happily, the last few Flicker Alley Blu-rays have been done this way), then $29.95 shipped probably needs to be considered a reasonable price for this kind of release.

In any event, I doubt you will get it much cheaper anywhere else in the first place. Particularly as Amazon and other retailers generally sell Flicker Alley titles for more than $25 each.

[McCrutchy]

Hey guys,

Just a heads up for Friday morning, according to Flicker Alley the free shipping offer on this title is good until today at 6:00 PM Eastern / 3:00 PM Pacific.

[drbikeshorts]

I have the Flicker Alley edition of Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera and the amazing score from the Alloy Orchestra.
They'll definitely be getting my money for this one, as well

[nissling]

I've got the French BD and I must agree regarding the encoding. In fact I'd say it's so problematic at times that I almost consider the edition being defective. With a decent Blu-Ray edition you shouldn't be able to see any macroblocking even at relatively close distances to a big screen, but when I can see it clearly on a 50" display barely six feet away then it's some serious issues.

If it wouldn't have been for this serious issue, I would've considered the Blu-Ray to be superb. Restoration is excellent and I really enjoyed the Alloy Orchestra soundtrack. The film itself was excellent as well. It's not that I'm ungrateful to their work, it's more that I cannot ignore an issue if I see it and I sure do.

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by nissling

I've got the French BD and I must agree regarding the encoding. In fact I'd say it's so problematic at times that I almost consider the edition being defective. With a decent Blu-Ray edition you shouldn't be able to see any macroblocking even at relatively close distances to a big screen, but when I can see it clearly on a 50" display barely six feet away then it's some serious issues.

If it wouldn't have been for this serious issue, I would've considered the Blu-Ray to be superb. Restoration is excellent and I really enjoyed the Alloy Orchestra soundtrack. The film itself was excellent as well. It's not that I'm ungrateful to their work, it's more that I cannot ignore an issue if I see it and I sure do.

I have the French copy as well and am now wondering if I should return it? It wasn't very cheap and while I admit I can often overlook some issues others deem detrimental to their viewing experience, this one does, as you say, sound serious.

Does anyone have a clue on if there might be a recall on this title or is it just so esoteric that we will have to live with what they've released? I know FA has limited resources and will probably not re-release it anytime soon, but what about Lobster in France? Have they ever done a recall?

[nissling]

Well if you can see the issues, like me, that's one thing. If you cannot I envy you. There's probably no chance to get a replacement for a niche Blu-Ray like this although I would appreciate it for sure.

It seems like the Flicker Alley release of Man With a Movie Camera have the very same issue. Down below are two screenshots linked from DVDBeaver that clearly points out the issue, the compression in shadow detail is just plain awful. Looks almost like a Youtube video or something, not what you'd expect from a Blu-Ray with a retail of $35. Judging from these screenshots I'd say this is clearly worse than L'Inhumaine.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film5/blu-r...1_blu-ray_.jpg
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film5/blu-r...5_blu-ray_.jpg

I'm not regretting buying the BFI edition for peanuts by comparison.

[javi92]

Unfortunately, this isn't the first Flicker Alley release to have macroblocking issues. I love the titles they put out, but I generally wait and see if a UK label will release them because their encoding hasn't been as good as it should - especially given the prices of their releases. I would love to support them more, but I think they need to crack down on whoever does their disc authoring.

[tenia]

The good thing with the French releases from Lobster is that they're usually relatively cheap (even more so when comparing to the US FA sets, which I think are quite expensive as a whole).

On the specific Vertov and Bowers French discs, their visual limitation is that the brightness seems too elevated. Everytime you have a dark flat area, it contains huge macroblocks akin to what can be seen on the left side of L'inhumaine cap #20. With deeper dark areas, it's likely the macroblocks would have disappeared into a 0 0 0 RGB value.

I held on buying L'inhumaine specifically because I was wondering if it would also have such issues (having been burnt twice already), and seeing Svet's caps, it sadly reminds me a lot of that concern.

[Knaldskalle]

Man, this is such a bummer. I've been longing to see this movie for a while, but macroblocking is one of those things where seen it can't be unseen (for me at least).

Fortunately, the screencaps don't look too too terrible (it seems mostly confined to blacks/near blacks), I've seen much worse.

I take it the Lobster version comes with English "soutitres"?

Does anyone know if there's a third edition in the works somewhere (UK, Germany... Outer Mongolia)? I'd love to see MoC or BFI tackle this one.

[nissling]

Originally Posted by Knaldskalle

Fortunately, the screencaps don't look too too terrible (it seems mostly confined to blacks/near blacks), I've seen much worse.

The macroblocking is very "patchy" or "flamelike" (how ironic) if I say so. For a couple of frames the grain is very intact, then blocky, then intact, then blocky again etc. This is especially noticable in scenes with a red tint.

Originally Posted by Knaldskalle

I take it the Lobster version comes with English "soutitres"?

Yes. In fact I think it's the very same disc. Menus and technical specifications are all identical.

[billyearle]

bummer, I only have a 42", but I sit close. Anyone think a guy with a pathetic little screen like mine could watch this without the encode errors being distracting?
like others, I'm gonna wait a bit and see if a UK release may come (as long as it's not by the guys that did that horrible 8 1/2 encode).
Shame, the review makes me really wanna see this film asap.

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by billyearle

bummer, I only have a 42", but I sit close. Anyone think a guy with a pathetic little screen like mine could watch this without the encode errors being distracting?
like others, I'm gonna wait a bit and see if a UK release may come (as long as it's not by the guys that did that horrible 8 1/2 encode).
Shame, the review makes me really wanna see this film asap.

I sampled my French disc last night and can confirm the anomalies. They are too distracting for me so I've arranged to return it for a full refund and will continue to hope for an improved release, perhaps from the UK or Germany, or a remastered one from Lobster. The scenes I sampled make the film look spectacular, but I can't get past the issues delineated in this thread. I'm actually pretty forgiving of such things at times unless they are prominently overt and these are for me, unfortunately.

[billyearle]

Thanks for your thoughts Prof. A lot of the time I thankfully don't notice compression artifacts (42"), but I guess I'll hold off a while and see if BFI or someone does this any better. Were any of the other Flicker Alley or similar US releases later picked up by BFI or Eureka region free? If so, I have more hope of seeing a UK release.