The Criterion Collection

[Shane Rollins]

Originally Posted by DimitriL

I think this is a fascinating situation, because they're dealing with multiple APPROVED sources that may be completely contradictory in terms of their timing. It's honestly really gratifying to hear that, because really, there was no reason that they had to take anything as a reference beyond the most recent director-approved grade. It actually undercuts them a little because they're forfeiting a possible "director approved" label on the video transfer, but I think it means they're really thinking about what the film was supposed to look like in the first place.

Of course, there will be some people who scream that, hey, this didn't look like Friedkin's version, and this didn't look the old video versions, and it doesn't look how I remembered the film looking in the theater, uh, 50 years ago. Maybe it's just a no-win situation. But I appreciate the care nonetheless.

My philosophy is "filmmakers' intentions within reason". For Sorcerer specifically, this means:

1. What was the film intended to look like in 1977? What did he shoot, edit, and put together in 1977? "We wanted to do X, but the technology wasn't available, but now in 2013 I can play in my sandbox, and look at all we can do..." doesn't count. If a reference print was created in 1977, and if that still exists and is usable (not CRI), that might be a good place to look. Then again, this film is one of the most notable bombs in history (released against this little-known indie film, most have never heard of it, I think it was called Star Wars), so that might've caused some issues in the "preserve it now so we're not fighting to preserve it later" game.

2. If the revisionist version must be included, include the original too. I'll die on my hill saying that most truly don't hate edited versions of films so much as they hate having the original film ripped away from them. No edit, be it The Exorcist with its CGI inserts, The French Connection with its awful color timing, The Good The Bad And The Ugly with its intentional piss-washed appearance, Star Wars with its myriad edits, T2 and True Lies with their awful mix of DNR and a cyan wash, or even THX-1138 with its...how do I say this..."robotic arm"...would be nearly as hated as it is, if the original versions were all available.

Now the "filmmakers' intent within reason" criteria varies by title, but in this case, it should be fairly doable. Friedkin's orders, assuming Criterion obeys them, and this whole CRI mess, are really the only two worries right now. The KL discs and Cruising turned out perfectly, so I'm willing to give Criterion the benefit of the doubt here.

If The French Connection happens, and Sorcerer turns out like it should, I'll once again give Criterion the benefit of the doubt.

And once again, I'll say for whoever may be reading this, if someone does the original 1973 theatrical cut of The Exorcist, with the original color timing, with the original mono soundtrack, with the original aspect ratio, with the original Saul Bass logos, original everything beginning to end, that will be the Day One purchase of all time.

[sherlockjr]

Originally Posted by Professor Echo

I think one of the reasons many of these films have copyrights that were not renewed is not necessarily because of their quality-or lack of same thereof, but because the owners were concentrating on trying to turn a quick profit more than paying the bills and breaking even or giving any consideration to the future. That's not an indication of the content or enjoyment value contained therein, just that these "studios" and production houses weren't visionary enough to focus on long term survival or compensation. It was all disposable beyond the short haul, but I hasten to reiterate that their entertainment value was not always comparable to their business plan.

Even the major studios in the 20s-50s treated most of their output as one time use and basically worthless after they left theater screens a year or two after release. At least until broadcast TV started licensing old movies to fill airtime, and then they got a whole new lease on life--and the studios realized they could make more money from items they felt were completely dead assests.

However those Poverty Row B pictures (a far cry from the major studio Bs) were really treated as disposable, even by the tiny studios that created them. They were basically the weekly TV series of the day, except "re-runs" weren't an option, so they were mostly forgotten about after they'd run through their low budget theater circuit in a few months.

The only real assets those B studios had back then were those ultra low budget releases that were quickly played out and forgotten. So when those close-to-the-bone outfits got into financial difficulty, they just folded. Nobody wanted to buy their assets because nobody in the financially functional film industry thought they were worth anything at all.

Since no one bought them after their originating producers/studios went out of business, there was just no owner to renew their copyright. So after 28 years they were PD... If you could actually find a copy of any particular title!

Later on those films could get have been sold to TV, maybe drive-ins, etc which is what happened to the copyright renewed major studio B unit output. But the poverty row studios had long since gone out of business by then.

Entertaining? To me they're so clunky and repetitive I don't find them that way after seeing more than a couple. Mostly they suffered from such low budgets, low production times, low experience, and low expectations. Some turned out to be good in spite of all their handicaps, but that was mostly by happy accident of a few surprisingly talented filmmakers, not the studios intentions!

But I'm happy to other people get to enjoy them!

(This is all a characterization of the Gower Gulch bottom feeder type of B movies followed in a later era by those that were aimed straight at drive-ins. The B units from the major studios could often turn out excellent films, both fast produced experiments and training grounds or extra work for real professionals. Those major studio Bs were often better movies than the slow and ponderous prestige A's that got too much attention from the studio execs. But those B's almost all stayed under copyright.)

[DimitriL]

Originally Posted by Shane Rollins

My philosophy is "filmmakers' intentions within reason".

I’m down with this reasoning. I’m a LOT more lenient when the revisionism is grading. I remember Robert Harris talking about working on the color of Lawrence of Arabia with Lean and Freddie Francis, and Lean and Francis were at loggerheads because they disagreed about what the color was supposed to look like for pretty much every shot. (Harris said he just split the difference.)

Obviously there are situations - and Friedkin has been a prime offender - where it’s a lot more than color stuff, where you’re getting into intense desaturation and halation and such a wholesale rethinking that you can’t ignore it. But I also am learning to ignore a lot of the “peanut gallery” stuff. Three Colors? Ooops, turns out to be print-accurate for the first time. The Grifters, it’s so dark, they ruined it! Oh no, they based it directly on the bleach-bypass prints. Night Moves, they tealed everything up! Hunh, they used the dye transfer print as a reference. So, with the exception of certain Italian folk with an obvious heavy hand that have lost the benefit of the doubt, I usually think the people at the correction consoles get it more right than not.

I’m also agnostic on the whole just release all the versions issue. It’s nice when it happens. But we never used to ask that of artists. Walt Whitman revised Leaves of Grass dozens of times. Dr. Seuss also re-edited his books and made sure those were the versions in print. I get wanting what we fell in love with, but as a filmmaker myself, I want the *right* to say, this is what represents me, take it or leave it.

Though I would probably release multiple versions of something I released too, because who needs the hassle?

[Shane Rollins]

Originally Posted by DimitriL

I’m down with this reasoning. I’m a LOT more lenient when the revisionism is grading. I remember Robert Harris talking about working on the color of Lawrence of Arabia with Lean and Freddie Francis, and Lean and Francis were at loggerheads because they disagreed about what the color was supposed to look like for pretty much every shot. (Harris said he just split the difference.)

Obviously there are situations - and Friedkin has been a prime offender - where it’s a lot more than color stuff, where you’re getting into intense desaturation and halation and such a wholesale rethinking that you can’t ignore it. But I also am learning to ignore a lot of the “peanut gallery” stuff. Three Colors? Ooops, turns out to be print-accurate for the first time. The Grifters, it’s so dark, they ruined it! Oh no, they based it directly on the bleach-bypass prints. Night Moves, they tealed everything up! Hunh, they used the dye transfer print as a reference. So, with the exception of certain Italian folk with an obvious heavy hand that have lost the benefit of the doubt, I usually think the people at the correction consoles get it more right than not.

I’m also agnostic on the whole just release all the versions issue. It’s nice when it happens. But we never used to ask that of artists. Walt Whitman revised Leaves of Grass dozens of times. Dr. Seuss also re-edited his books and made sure those were the versions in print. I get wanting what we fell in love with, but as a filmmaker myself, I want the *right* to say, this is what represents me, take it or leave it.

Though I would probably release multiple versions of something I released too, because who needs the hassle?

I agree that even the "all versions" thing has limits. Some films have two or three cuts, or one or two ARs. That's doable. But then you get into the films with an insane number of cuts.

Once Upon A Time In America has a whopping eight different cuts, with all but one of them running no less than 225 minutes, and all of them edited in such a way that seamless branching would be impossible. So already, we're talking a minimum of eight discs, and that's not even considering the image quality, the encode, the likely complete lack of special features, and likely the lack of one format or the other.

Blade Runner also has eight cuts, and would likely result in a similar release to OUATIA.

I've waxed poetic about The Devils many times now. There's five cuts. One cut's amazing, one cut's hacked together by fans, one cut's okay, and two cuts suck. Seamless branching could work, but likely if a complete release happened it would be an unnecessarily large number of discs because...because.

The Godfather, when you factor in all three films, all cuts of all three films, and all chronological edits of all three films, would likely run several dozen discs, and again, that's omitting one of the formats.

And my favorite film ever is Metropolis. I'm not exaggerating when I say there are well over 100 confirmed cuts of the film in existence, and likely many more that I don't know about. While a complete box set would be amazing, such a release would also likely encompass several hundred discs, cost well over $1,000, appeal only to completists, and likely sell so few copies that its cost and existence would be impossible to justify.

"All cuts" is awesome to think about, but the bigger and bigger "all cuts" is for a certain film, the harder and harder that is to justify, and the more and more you have to sit down and say "okay, what makes the grade and what doesn't?"

For Sorcerer specifically, "all cuts" is:

-Rough cut
-American cut 1 (with a three-and-a-half-minute overture, and with both mono and four-track sound)
-American cut 2 (without said overture, and with both mono and four-track sound)
-Possibly American cut 3? (IMDb says this:

Shortly before release the decision was made to change the title to "Wages of Fear," based on the English title of the original French novel and the French film. The soundtrack album, which was prepared in advance to be in stores before the film's release, carried the title "Sorcerer," but a sticker was added stating "New title 'Wages of Fear.'" The title change was abandoned and the film was released as "Sorcerer."

It does not, however, list a country

-European cut 1 (prologues edited as flashbacks)
-European cut 2 (film severely cut, retitled "The Wages Of Fear", which would be even more confusing in Europe than in the US)

-Various other foreign re-edits (there were too many to count, since each owner in each country had their own idea on how the film should run

-1998 cut (verified to have been overseen by William Friedkin, released on the 1998 DVD

-2016 Blu-ray cut (overseen by Friedkin)

-2025 Criterion cut (not overseen by Friedkin, but based onthe 1998 and 2016 jobs that he did oversee)

There were also three ARs: the intended 1.85:1, the opened-up 1.37:1, and the pan-and-scan 1.33:1 from the VHS (I forget what the laserdisc was, but it was either the same P&S as the tape of the theatrical 1.85).

I have no clue if 70mm and six-track were planned and fell through, or if they were never in the cards at all, but there's not one scintilla of evidence to suggest anything related to those two bigger formats.

So either a gigantic Sorcerer box set (hey, I'd be in for it), or we need to figure out what's in the box and what's on the block.

That's one movie. There's likely tens of thousands where the same decision would have to be made.

[DimitriL]

Boy, we could have a great conversation for weeks just talking about cuts of any number of films. I appreciate your voluminous knowledge.

I got the impression from the Criterion note that their release is based on one of the original ‘77 cuts (I assume the one with overture) and the 1998 and 2016 releases are just being used as comparison references?

[Shane Rollins]

Originally Posted by DimitriL

Boy, we could have a great conversation for weeks just talking about cuts of any number of films. I appreciate your voluminous knowledge.

I got the impression from the Criterion note that their release is based on one of the original ‘77 cuts (I assume the one with overture) and the 1998 and 2016 releases are just being used as comparison references?

I can only hope it's based on the first American cut, since it is in fact what the first paying audiences saw. But considering the "Original Theatrical Cut" of The Exorcist was not the original theatrical cut, we truly won't know what Criterion did until the disc drops.

KL made it clear that Friedkin was a major pain in the ass on their projects, hence one getting cancelled and one teetering on the edge of cancellation. And Arrow gave me a rather tongue-in-cheek response to my email regarding Cruising, suggesting that Friedkin really rocked their boat when they did the 2019 Blu-ray of Cruising, and the 2025 4K likely wouldn't have happened if Friedkin were still alive.

This is Criterion's first time facing Hurricane Billy, so we'll see how this goes. On one hand, they gave Mann and the Coens free reign, and that ended horribly. On the other hand, I didn't hear a peep about Sorcerer or TFC until March 15 for Sorcerer and either December '24 or January '25 for TFC. We'll see. If this comes out looking like one of the TFC Blu-rays, or like one of the myriad revisions of The Exorcist, or like the Blu-ray of Cruising (the Blu-ray specifically), that'll effectively seal the deal for me.

And I'll definitely be looking for an A/B to the previous Blu-ray, of which at least one person will do. Knowing Billy, I'm shocked there's none for the older copies, transfers, and prints.

[DimitriL]

Yeah, they’ve always deferred to the director - I mean, Gilliam got to cut the best line in Brazil because he didn’t understand Tom Stoppard’s joke. And that was almost 30 years ago, in the freakin’ laserdisc days? But in this case, they said they scanned the original camera negative so I assume that means they’re having some version of that first cut. I also think it makes more sense now since we’re not indulging artistic whims but now dealing with an archival responsibility. But we’ll see soon enough.

[gekats]

Originally Posted by Driver78

I purchased the big Ingmar Bergman set around the time it was released; Been meaning to start delving into the collection but I don't know where to begin. I know these films are far from mainstream and might take a little time to get into so I need a recommendation. Where should I begin my Bergman journey? It's gotta be a film that will introduce a newbie like myself to the Director and won't make me run for the hills instead

Driver, I know our tastes are not very closely aligned (recall Russ Meyer or the Spanish Gothic set?), but my recommendations, which you should definitely hear, would be Hour of the wolf or The Virgin spring. These have all the trademarks of Bergman's mature period, but are also horror tinged, so most appropriate for you and might be a gentle introduction to some of the more theatrical aspects of his cinema. The latter's connection to Last house might help too. Persona is my favourite of his films.

[Shane Rollins]

Another film has left the Criterion island.

Last Tango In Paris will be getting a release from Vinegar Syndrome.

In a bizarre twist, Last Tango In Paris will also be getting a release from Melusine, with the same discs but different packaging.

For those out of the loop, this is shockingly not an April Fools joke.

[NeoNical]

Theo Angelopoulos's Eternity and A Day was just added to the Janus site

[DimitriL]

Originally Posted by Driver78

I purchased the big Ingmar Bergman set around the time it was released; Been meaning to start delving into the collection but I don't know where to begin. I know these films are far from mainstream and might take a little time to get into so I need a recommendation. Where should I begin my Bergman journey? It's gotta be a film that will introduce a newbie like myself to the Director and won't make me run for the hills instead

One of the joys of the set was following the included curation to a tee - it felt like a real repertory experience. (Starting with a light film like Smiles of a Summer Night is also ideal for a newbie!)

[sfmarine]

Anyone still waiting for the flash sale order?

[Sommerswerd]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMNrdRkZwxw

[Rzzzz]

Originally Posted by Sommerswerd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMNrdRkZwxw

Never heard of him...

[Shane Rollins]

Originally Posted by Rzzzz

Never heard of him...

He's like royalty in Philadelphia. He was in Footloose, Flatliners, and he had a bit part in Planes, Trains And Automobiles. He did more roles too, but they're the ones I remember him for.

[ShellOilJunior]

Without doing the research, I'm going to guess Kevin Bacon has a connection to anyone that's ever visited the Criterion closet.

[SeanJoyce]

The Woodsman should be in the collection.

[sfmarine]

Originally Posted by Rzzzz

Never heard of him...

Sarcasm?

[DimitriL]

Originally Posted by Shane Rollins

He's like royalty in Philadelphia. He was in Footloose, Flatliners, and he had a bit part in Planes, Trains And Automobiles. He did more roles too, but they're the ones I remember him for.

I can never forget him really laying it all out there for Oliver Stone in JFK. Whatever matinee image he still had left, he torched it for that one.

[HarryAlbright89]

Originally Posted by Shane Rollins

Another film has left the Criterion island.

Last Tango In Paris will be getting a release from Vinegar Syndrome.

In a bizarre twist, Last Tango In Paris will also be getting a release from Melusine, with the same discs but different packaging.

For those out of the loop, this is shockingly not an April Fools joke.

I'm disappointed Criterion decided not to take the project on because Last Tango feels like a film that fits the mold of the label. Within Bertolucci's filmography it's arguably his most iconic film, and as such would have been a strong addition. At least Vinegar Syndrome was willing to take the possible pr hit to allow those interested to acquire the title.