The Criterion Collection

[Cremildo]

Best monthly announcements in a while, IMO.
The Tarkovsky is a must (might not even wait for a sale), and I've got my eyes on the La Cava and the Bergman as well. The other two are interesting, but not urgent.
Not overly impressed with the covers, though. The best is the one for the Bergman, though it's the same image from the old DVD.

[CinemaBlu]

I like Tarkovsky films but the animal torture in Andrei Rublev just pisses me off. The film is good otherwise, but the animal scenes just ruined it for me. It was really uncalled for. I lost a bit of respect for Tarkovsky as a person when I saw it.

[StarDestroyer52]

Originally Posted by jw007

Maybe I'm a bit ahead of myself here, but the future is digital because Planet Earth's resources will prob. be devastated and maybe plastics will be engineered to disintegrate within a matter of months or years, so future movies on disk won't last long. Lol.

I can't think of a move that would sour consumers more than something like this. For a fact I know I would never trust a company that would do that and even those who pay for streaming services I highly doubt would tolerate that and would cause a massive backlash.

[captainron_howdy]

Well wow, Tarkovsky & Bergman upgrades in the same month.

[StarDestroyer52]

Here is an interesting Q&A from a recent interview of Kevin Brownlow at the SF Silent Film Festival:

Why did you choose Rex Ingram’s Mare Nostrum [1926] to show for this celebration?

Rex Ingram has been quite forgotten. I very seldom come upon a screening of anything he’s done. The last time Photoplay restored one of his films it was The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse [in 1992]. I was quite used to seeing it in the versions available over here, but it looks so much better and is such a better a film when you see it as it was released in 1921. When it was reissued the year Rudolph Valentino died, in 1926, it coincided with a number of treaties in which European countries agreed to try not to go to war with one another. So they cut out scenes of a German orgy and executions and so on. Editing out those and a few other scenes made it a much less interesting picture. It was marvelous to restore them and add a really stunning score by Carl Davis.

And it’s really frustrating that Warner Bros. has yet to fulfill its promise of putting that out on DVD. They did do Ben-Hur [as part of the 1959 version’s collector’s edition] and Flesh and the Devil and The Big Parade. But they were going to put out all the MGM restorations we did at Thames Television. They included The Crowd, The Wind, and Show People, most with marvelous scores by Carl Davis. When I located the original negative of The Big Parade, they did a marvelous job with that, and they must have been disappointed when it failed to meet their financial expectations. Still, it’s a form of commercial censorship.

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/int...evin-brownlow/

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by CinemaBlu

I like Tarkovsky films but the animal torture in Andrei Rublev just pisses me off. The film is good otherwise, but the animal scenes just ruined it for me. It was really uncalled for. I lost a bit of respect for Tarkovsky as a person when I saw it.

Haven't seen the film, but just looked it up, and I'd have to agree with you there.

[Reddington]

Originally Posted by CinemaBlu

I like Tarkovsky films but the animal torture in Andrei Rublev just pisses me off. The film is good otherwise, but the animal scenes just ruined it for me. It was really uncalled for. I lost a bit of respect for Tarkovsky as a person when I saw it.

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Haven't seen the film, but just looked it up, and I'd have to agree with you there.

This is good to know (and sad to learn) as it would have been a blind-buy for me. I'll scratch it from my list, as I've no tolerance of animal cruelty at all.

[iamnoone]

Originally Posted by CinemaBlu

I like Tarkovsky films but the animal torture in Andrei Rublev just pisses me off. The film is good otherwise, but the animal scenes just ruined it for me. It was really uncalled for. I lost a bit of respect for Tarkovsky as a person when I saw it.

There are some very tough scenes to watch,

[Show spoiler]especially the scene with the horse on the stairs.

It's something you'll never forget after you see it so viewer beware.

[Arch Stanton]

Originally Posted by iamnoone

There are some very tough scenes to watch,

[Show spoiler]especially the scene with the horse on the stairs.

It's something you'll never forget after you see it so viewer beware.

Very true. It's not a film I particularly love, not like some of Tarkovsky's other films. But it does really stay with you, in part because of how horrible those scenes are (especially in context).

It's a conflicting thing though - the horse was set to be slaughtered the following day. But at the same time it went through an absolutely horrible death as part of the film anyway, not just in pain but in great confusion.

I've never seen the cow scene because I think it was cut here in the UK? But Tarkovsky set a cow on fire too. Apparently insisted on doing it himself. There's some story about the cow having an asbestos jacket but I think that may be BS.

[Persona]

Originally Posted by Reddington

This is good to know (and sad to learn) as it would have been a blind-buy for me. I'll scratch it from my list, as I've no tolerance of animal cruelty at all.

That’s a shame as you’re missing out on one of the greatest films, you contribute to much worse cruelty by what you consume than what happened to the horse.

[MifuneFan]

[Bradsdadg]

Nothing really standing out early on for me. Maybe Rublev and Raisin at some point but nothing that gets moved to the top of the list this time around

[Persona]

It’s a can of worms but tell me I’m wrong. Yes it’s not nice to see but you’re being oblivious if you support eating meat and use animal products and think they have a perfect life, but it’s ok when it’s not shown to you, right?

[Cremildo]

Now we're equating an animal being killed for the sustenance of people to an animal being tortured for entertainment?

[malakaheso]

Scenes........ is just a new high definition transfer? In other words, it will be taken from an old master?

If so, I definitely won't be upgrading because it is not one of Bergman's better looking films.

[pedromvu]

Fantastic month, I really wish they keep it up like that with the upgrades, can't complain about lack of Bergman now so I will complain about lack of Fellini and Chaplin for too many months

[pedromvu]

Originally Posted by malakaheso

Scenes........ is just a new high definition transfer? In other words, it will be taken from an old master?

If so, I definitely won't be upgrading because it is not one of Bergman's better looking films.

Being shot in 16mm I wouldn't think it could look much better

The HD transfers from Hulu back in the day and now on Filmstruck show potential but really struggle with the compression due to heavy grain which made them look awful (the latter fares a bit worse than the former), but I can't imagine DVD doing it any more justice.

[themp3000]

Absolutely in for Scenes from a Marriage, Andrei Rublev and a high chance of Cold Water. Solid month, I’d say. I really like the cover art for Rublev.

[Arch Stanton]

Originally Posted by Persona

It’s a can of worms but tell me I’m wrong. Yes it’s not nice to see but you’re being oblivious if you support eating meat and use animal products and think they have a perfect life, but it’s ok when it’s not shown to you, right?

Well... I don't eat meat anyway. So I have no moral hypocrisy going on

[javy]

I don't believe Andrei Tarkovsky's mindset was to torture an animal for entertainment.