The Criterion Collection

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by Andrew13

A fantastic early Bergman that I'd highly recommend, especially at the $15 price tag. I'd strongly consider picking up Summer with Monika while you're at it, for me those are the first two "essential" Bergman pictures.

I was looking at Summer with Monika but something about it didn't interest me as much as Summer Interlude. I think it's because the latter has the ballet element (which, since I'm such a fan of The Red Shoes, appeals to me) and a flashback narrative that looks like it works in the whole summer/autumn, life/death angle Bergman appears to be going for.

Which of the two do you prefer and does Monika have any advantages over Interlude, in your opinion?

By the way, I noticed there's a dog in the film. Can you tell me what ends up happening to it? Thanks!

On another note, Fellini Satyricon is now sold out, which is just as well since I can rent it from Netflix on Blu-ray later on and always pick it up during the October flash sale if I want to own it. Love it/hate it titles are by definition too risky for blind buys.

[Andrew13]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

I was looking at Summer with Monika but something about it didn't interest me as much as Summer Interlude. I think it's because the latter has the ballet element (which, since I'm such a fan of The Red Shoes, appeals to me) and a flashback narrative that looks like it works in the whole summer/autumn, life/death angle Bergman appears to be going for.

Which of the two do you prefer and does Monika have any advantages over Interlude, in your opinion?

I prefer Monika, but it's very, very close. For me Monika leaves you with a little more to chew on, it's a fantastic examination of the vigor and folly of young love, whereas Interlude introduces many of the classic Bergman themes, but doesn't flesh them out as fully as his later works.

That being said, given your affection for The Red Shoes (an affection I share), you can't go wrong with Interlude.

[blujazz]

I simply adore Blue Is the Warmest Colour. However, its sex scenes are seemingly shot from a man's point-of-view it was really distracting. Those scenes could have been removed and the film would have been the same. There's a lot more eroticism in a look given by Adele compared with any of the sex scenes.

Antichrist - well, I don't classify it as porn. Need to remember Antichrist was written and shot when von Trier was depressed, so my interpretation of it was that the director is testing the limits of how to abuse these characters up to the point the director actually starts to cares for them. Does he at the end? Jury is out.

[Fellini912]

Originally Posted by Gusto-Guus

LOL, Like in Birdman,

[Show spoiler]Kill an actual person on camera.

As for the sex topic, there is a line where it's pornographic. Using violence as an example, in some films they omit blood, sometimes they don't show a headshot with a gun, etc. I thought both Nymphomaniac and Blue is the warmest color crossed that line into porno. Go watch any porn and watch those particular scenes and there isn't much difference in the two.

I know it is not the best approach to criticize a movie by isolating certain scenes, but some movies are centered on specific scenes and the whole context revolves around these scenes.

Lars is outspoken about his advocacy for pornography. And without a doubt, he tries to elevate pornography to an art form with Nymphomaniac. The film ends up being pretentious (this film is a great example of pretention).

To compare sex to Bach's musical composition (I could not stop laughing by that point). At the begin, I thought he was being humorous by comparing sex to different hobbies, but towards the end you find out he is being serious. It is a fact that pornography is not difficult to make, but to make a movie (or any art form) requires talent and experience. It is not the model that makes the painting, it is the painter (my two cents on the topic).

In conclusion, Nymphomaniac film required more art than sex.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by blujazz

I simply adore Blue Is the Warmest Colour. However, its sex scenes are seemingly shot from a man's point-of-view it was really distracting. Those scenes could have been removed and the film would have been the same. There's a lot more eroticism in a look given by Adele compared with any of the sex scenes.

I don't think that's true. The intensity of their physical relationship was really the only thing they had in common. Those scenes were the only times I ever felt 'omg, how could a sane person possibly walk away from this relationship, you'd have to be crazy to throw this away, all the little differences are trivial in comparison'. A lot of romances (or maybe even all of them, now that I think about it) try to establish those kinds of stakes but very, very few succeed.

Could that intensity have been conveyed without the sex scenes or with less explicit sex scenes? Maybe but I dunno.

I don't think the film would have been nearly as powerful without them.

[Infernal King]

For all my questions and discussions, I ended up right back where I started:

Black Narcissus
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

The latter two are blind buys. I'm supremely confident about Blimp and I believe I will at least enjoy watching Investigation.

Maybe I'll make another order before the flash sale ends or maybe I'll wait until the next one in (presumably) October.

[bstv69]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

For all my questions and discussions, I ended up right back where I started:

Black Narcissus
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

The latter two are blind buys. I'm supremely confident about Blimp and I believe I will at least enjoy watching Investigation.

Maybe I'll make another order before the flash sale ends or maybe I'll wait until the next one in (presumably) October.

All 3 of those films look absolutely stunning. Those are some of the most beautiful films that I have seen in the collection.
Powell and Pressburger are probably the safest movies you could get in the collection. They're so wonderfully done and capture a wonderful time of cinematic history that those two (mainly Powell) helped shape.
As for IoaCAS, I really enjoyed the movie. It looks AMAZING!!! I felt that it was shot very much like a Hitchcock, which i really enjoyed. The film itself is very political and you can truly feel the directors feelings and helps give a wonderful insight to Italy at the time. It definitely has rewatchability and the extras are great.
Hope this helps you with your decision.

[WonderWeasel]

Originally Posted by Namuhana

As sad as it is to say, I believe us Americans are "conditioned" to accept violence and reject sex (in anything public or for the mass market). It's the same thing as cursing, too. I quite distinctly remember the whole The Hunger Games/Bully thing a few years ago (fun fact: Bully's director, Lee Hirsch, held a colloquium at my university back in 2012 to discuss his film and the impact of bullying). The Hunger Games shows children killing each other and received a PG-13 rating whereas Bully has several instances of expletives and automatically gets rated R. Just equate sex with expletives and it's the same situation. It's completely idiotic in my opinion.

A few years ago, I drove through Missouri/Kansas along Interstate 70 toward Colorado, and saw some odd sights: several billboards referring to Obama as a Marxist/communist and calling citizens to arms against a corrupt government if incumbent politicians aren't voted out of office, and several more Christian-themed billboards decrying pornography as a life-destroying vice. I blame the rural Bible-belters for this hypocrisy.

[FlexMentallo]

Picked up

An Autumn Afternoon
Sword of Doom
Every Man for Himself

Had been holding on to a $50 loyalty certificate waiting for the next flash sale, so it only cost me 10 bucks all up.

[fancyclaps]

Picked up:

Seven Samurai
Rashomon
High and Low
Days of Heaven
Eyes Without a Face
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Repo Man
Paris, Texas
Watership Down
Breaking the Waves
Life Aquatic
Les Diaboliques

All blind buys except Life Aquatic and Les Diaboliques. I couldn't be more excited!

[HothEnergies]

What's up with Tess? The criterion site says it can't sell it on the website and there's a redirect link to amazon (not backordered).

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by bstv69

All 3 of those films look absolutely stunning. Those are some of the most beautiful films that I have seen in the collection.
Powell and Pressburger are probably the safest movies you could get in the collection. They're so wonderfully done and capture a wonderful time of cinematic history that those two (mainly Powell) helped shape.
As for IoaCAS, I really enjoyed the movie. It looks AMAZING!!! I felt that it was shot very much like a Hitchcock, which i really enjoyed. The film itself is very political and you can truly feel the directors feelings and helps give a wonderful insight to Italy at the time. It definitely has rewatchability and the extras are great.
Hope this helps you with your decision.

I am a huge fan of Technicolor, particularly 3-strip, and arguably no one did it better than "The Archers". The Red Shoes is near-orgasmic and I'm anxious to see Black Narcissus in high-def, although Criterion's DVD still looked pretty damn good. Judging by the rave reviews of the restoration and the screenshots, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp looks to blow me away as well. I'm only now delving into more of the Powell/Pressburger filmography beyond The Red Shoes and they're quickly rising up the ranks of my favorite filmmakers! However, it might end up being a shock to my system when I get around to some of their black and white movies.

One of my research sources was the book Technicolor Movies: The History of Dye Transfer Printing by Richard W. Haines, which someone in this thread recommended.

It's good to get at least one enthusiastic response for Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion today, lol. The videos and screenshots indeed make it look very attractive, albeit in a much different way than the P&P films. I'm attracted to beautiful visuals; the more gorgeous, the better! After all, men are a very visual-oriented gender.

Thank you very much for such a great response.

Originally Posted by WonderWeasel

A few years ago, I drove through Missouri/Kansas along Interstate 70 toward Colorado, and saw some odd sights: several billboards referring to Obama as a Marxist/communist and calling citizens to arms against a corrupt government if incumbent politicians aren't voted out of office, and several more Christian-themed billboards decrying pornography as a life-destroying vice. I blame the rural Bible-belters for this hypocrisy.

As I said earlier, it all goes back to the Puritans who settled in America a few hundred years ago. The Bible-thumpers are just their descendents.

[StLouisRibs]

Picked up:
Topsy-Turvy
Don't Look Now
Every Man for Himself
The Hidden Fortress
The Shooting / Ride in the Whirlwind

Originally Posted by HothEnergies

What's up with Tess? The criterion site says it can't sell it on the website and there's a redirect link to amazon (not backordered).

The restock will be of a plain BD-only version, without the DVD bundled in. Highly recommend anybody (like me) who cares about digipaks to pick one up sooner rather than later.

[Martin_31]

I went back to Criterion and I bought three more.

Purple Noon
Eclipse Series 4: Raymond Bernard
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

That's including the other's that I bought earlier today.

Eclipse Series 11: Larisa Shepitko
Eclipse Series 17: Nikkatsu Noir
Eyes Without a Face
The Killing
On the Waterfront

[oildude]

Originally Posted by Martin_31

After a couple of hours of thinking, I decided to buy some Criterion Collection DVD's and Blu-Ray's. I bought:
Eclipse Series 11: Larisa Shepitko
Eclipse Series 17: Nikkatsu Noir
Eyes Without a Face
The Killing
On the Waterfront

You made some EXCELLENT choices there.

[WonderWeasel]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

I am a huge fan of Technicolor, particularly 3-strip, and arguably no one did it better than "The Archers". The Red Shoes is near-orgasmic and I'm anxious to see Black Narcissus in high-def, although Criterion's DVD still looked pretty damn good. Judging by the rave reviews of the restoration and the screenshots, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp looks to blow me away as well. I'm only now delving into more of the Powell/Pressburger filmography beyond The Red Shoes and they're quickly rising up the ranks of my favorite filmmakers!

You aren't going to be disappointed with the restoration of 'Black Narcissus' or 'Colonel Blimp'. It's amazing to think these films are 70 years old and still look this good, especially 'Colonel Blimp'. It is one of, if not the best-looking Technicolor film I've seen on blu-ray.

...and I almost forgot: When you get done with the P&P filmography, there's a great documentary that came out a few years ago about their cinematographer called 'Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff'. It has some great interviews with him, Martin Scorsese, Lauren Bacall, and a bunch of other film legends. It's worth a watch for any Technicolor/P&P fan.

[Travman93]

I'm so torn on whether or not to partake in this sale. I'm a very casual Criterion consumer, only owning Rushmore, The Game, and the wide-release of Benjamin Button. I was looking forward to finally getting Seven Samurai, but alas, I wasn't quick enough. All of my "backups" are on backorder, so I went searching through to see if anything really jumped out at me when I came across Blow Out. I know nothing about it and only knew of its existence about ten minutes ago. Is it something worth picking up?

[Edward J Grug III]

Originally Posted by Travman93

I'm so torn on whether or not to partake in this sale. I'm a very casual Criterion consumer, only owning Rushmore, The Game, and the wide-release of Benjamin Button. I was looking forward to finally getting Seven Samurai, but alas, I wasn't quick enough. All of my "backups" are on backorder, so I went searching through to see if anything really jumped out at me when I came across Blow Out. I know nothing about it and only knew of its existence about ten minutes ago. Is it something worth picking up?

Blow Out is tremendous fun!

[pro-bassoonist]

Cries and Whispers Blu-ray REVIEW



This is a massive upgrade that shows the wide range of limitations DVD had. The improvements in terms of detail and clarity are not surprising -- all of the 2K restorations of Bergman's films have been extraordinary -- but the improvements in color depth and saturation are tremendous. And they have a massive impact on image depth as well. I did various comparisons during the last coupe of days (my DVD and the Blu-ray) and the difference is astonishing. You can tell exactly what Sven Nykvist was trying to accomplish with the fade-to-red transitions, the flashbacks, etc. On the DVD release the effect is lost -- very clearly.

I hope Criterion continue to bring the Bergman restorations to the U.S. as they have been nothing short of revelatory.

Anyhow, this release has a reserved spot on my Top 10 list. Fantastic!

Pro-B

[ShellOilJunior]

Purple Noon would be even better if

[Show spoiler]Ripley got away with it in the end like in the novel.

Just my 2 cents. Still a great film.