The Criterion Collection

[Mansinthe]

Seventh Seal that movie is just pure art. and the making of on that disc is awesome. all the interviews and stuff with ingmar.. this person was really awesome. i could listen to him talk about life and all kind of stuff for hours.


Bergman topic:
just found a TV movie he made in germany on youtube.


From the life of the marionettes...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080397/

[Tin Drum]

Originally Posted by mdonovan

Ok ... A little embarrassed here ... But to the best of my knowledge I have never seen a single Bergmen film. From his catalogue which are essential 'don't die before seeing this' titles ?? Please don't answer 'all'.

Fanny and Alexander (television version)
Shame
Wild Strawberries
Persona
Cries and Whispers

are my five favorites from him.

[ravenus]

Originally Posted by deepbreathsanddeath

Cheers for the response! Yeah it was a great price. They seemed like really dark, more horror orientated films so I thought I would just snatch it up. If you don't mind my asking, what were the aspect ratios supposed to be and what were they initially? It wouldn't surprise me if I have the wronf aspect ratios in my box set lol

Quoting from an Amazon customer review:

MGM (USA) have made an appalling series of errors with their new Bergman boxset. Two films in the set have been heavily cropped from their original 1.37:1 aspect ratio to a very noticeable 1.66:1; and Persona is missing roughly 11.5% of screen information despite being 1.33:1. This is a faux pas the like of which has not been seen for a long time in DVD land. There is no precedent for Hour of the Wolf and Shame being 1.66:1 yet MGM seems to think that these films were shown theatrically at this ratio. With characters' heads chopped in half, Bergman and Nykvist's careful framing is ruined at 1.66:1 (the transfers are non-anamorphic too). R1 Bergman fans should strongly consider holding off on this boxset.

I am not sure about Persona, but at least the films wrongly presented in 1.66:1 were quickly recalled and replacements in the correct 4:3 ratio were issued.

[ravenus]

Originally Posted by mdonovan

Ok ... A little embarrassed here ... But to the best of my knowledge I have never seen a single Bergmen film. From his catalogue which are essential 'don't die before seeing this' titles ?? Please don't answer 'all'.

If you want to start off with something simple, Virgin Spring or Winter Light are great appetizers to Bergman's style with very concise stories/themes and some lovely memorable scenes. Next come Cries & Whispers and Wild Strawberries. Seventh Seal is a more ambitious film, very good as a middle course. If you like films with surreal WTF elements, Persona is quite excellent.

Fanny & Alexander is a full-on meal in itself. I will not recommend as a blind-buy or intro to Bergman because it is a very long film (5 1/2 hours in full length so you want to be sure it's not a waste of time for you)

[mdonovan]

Originally Posted by ravenus

If you want to start off with something simple, Virgin Spring or Winter Light are great appetizers to Bergman's style with very concise stories/themes and some lovely memorable scenes. Next come Cries & Whispers and Wild Strawberries. Seventh Seal is a more ambitious film, very good as a middle course. If you like films with surreal WTF elements, Persona is quite excellent.

Fanny & Alexander is a full-on meal in itself. I will not recommend as a blind-buy or intro to Bergman because it is a very long film (5 1/2 hours in full length so you want to be sure it's not a waste of time for you)

Thanks to you and the prior posters .. To be honest I think the only reason I have not seen his films is because I have been intimidated by them from all the acclaim they have garnered. Looking forward to starting though.

[The Great Owl]

The Barnes & Noble "40% Off all Blu-rays" sale is in effect starting today, as per their website, just in case some of you did not get enough Criterion titles.

I'm set on the Criterion front, but I've reserved copies of The Misfits and How the West Was Won for pickup at the store down the street from my place.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by SilentDawn

Well it's now on my never-ending list of Criterions to buy!

Originally Posted by shadedpain4

If you just buy them all there is no need to make lists

Not true. You still have to make a list so that you can note down which ones you've bought so that you don't accidentally buy them a second time.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by EricJ

(Thought we had a Dead Ringers Criterion at one point, didn't we?)

Yes, we did. On LD and DVD. We also had Crash on LD.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by chris_sc77

NOT ONE TITLE OF EVEN SLIGHT INTEREST.
No thanks March sucks so bad.
At least eh February titles are awesome

So disappointed

Dear God.

A Kurosawa upgrade, a new Bergman, a new Harold Lloyd. What's not to love?

[lordmorpheus72]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

The Barnes & Noble "40% Off all Blu-rays" sale is in effect starting today, as per their website, just in case some of you did not get enough Criterion titles.

I'm set on the Criterion front, but I've reserved copies of The Misfits and How the West Was Won for pickup at the store down the street from my place.

Don't they know I've given them all my money already?? However... Pale Flower may end up in my collection after all. And maybe The Right Stuff digibook.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Illy Scorsese

And I'm always happy to have any Kurosawa, but did we really need "Hidden Fortress" before "Ikiru" or "Stray Dog" or "Drunken Angel"?

I imagine that the readiness of a new scan of a new restoration is the primary criterion (pun intended) for the order in which they get released.

[Clare2904]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Dear God.

A Kurosawa upgrade, a new Bergman, a new Harold Lloyd. What's not to love?

I could flip it around, I wasn't interested in anything from the Feb announcement (bar FC that will be bought at some point in 2014), I just didn't see the need to bash what others enjoy. I don't get it

[ccfixx]

Originally Posted by Mansinthe

Bergman topic:
just found a TV movie he made in Germany on YouTube.

From The Life Of The Marionettes...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080397/

Also available on DVD from Tartan UK. In fact, there are still a number of Bergman films put out on DVD in the UK from Tartan that haven't made an appearance on DVD in the USA (not sure if they've made it over your way in Germany, though). The prices on Amazon UK are usually ridiculously low for some of these titles, too.

• Music In Darkness
• Eva
• Prison
• Waiting Women
• A Lesson In Love
• The Devil's Eye
• All These Women
• The Rite
• After The Rehearsal

A few of these titles are available to watch on Criterion's Hulu channel now, though, so I imagine we'll see some of them in the future.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

Yeah, me too. We're in the minority unfortunately as it seems Criterion vastly prefers Kurosawa's samurai titles to anything else he's made.

I fail to see how you can come to that conclusion, given that Criterion has released every single Kurosawa film on DVD that they could get the rights to. Their AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa set is only missing 7 out of his 31 films.

If you're basing it on Blu-ray upgrades, as I said before, what they release probably has more to do with what new restorations have been done and scanned, and are ready for release than any other factor. I'm guessing that Toho is putting more effort into restoring the samurai films than the others because, for better or for worse, the samurai films are the more popular (and certainly the best known) ones.

So, if you're going to bïtch at somebody, bïtch at Toho rather than Criterion.

High and Low is so much better than those movies. Ugh.

Perhaps it is or perhaps it isn't. In any respect, Criterion has released it on Blu-ray.

[bookcase]

Are they ever going to release y tu mama tambien?

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Clare2904

Time to tidy up the "to buy" list. These are films I definitely will buy:

Paths of Glory
Early Summer
Summer Hours
The Double Life of Veronique
*Monsieur Verdoux
*The Gold Rush
Qatsi Trilogy

Foreign Correspondent – February 2014
The Great Beauty – March 2014

* open to suggestions as to which one I buy first.

Either one would be fine, but I think The Gold Rush is the better of the two.

Films that I like the look of, from the write-up / previous comments seen here etc, but I'm not 100% certain. In no particular order:

Night Train to Munich
Eyes Without A Face
The Big City
The Uninvited
The Testament of Dr Mabuse
Tokyo Drifter
Branded to Kill
Blow Out
Vagabond
My Man Godfrey
The Cranes Are Flying
Sullivan’s Travels
49th Parallel
The Forgiveness of Blood
I Married A Witch
Hopscotch

Any suggestions are greatly received

All are good choices. I would, however, suggest that you try Tokyo Drifter before Branded to Kill. Branded to Kill is just completely insane (but in a good way). I mean, Tokyo Drifter is also insane, but BTK is like TD turned up to "11".

Personally, as much as I like his wacky yakuza films, my favorite films of his (out of the dozen or so that I've seen) are two of his "prostitute" films: Gate of Flesh and The Story of a Prostitute. While downbeat, they're both terrific. Both are available on Criterion DVD, but not, alas, on Blu-ray. Gate of Flesh is near the top of my Criterion Upgrade Wishlist.

[shadedpain4]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Not true. You still have to make a list so that you can note down which ones you've bought so that you don't accidentally buy them a second time.

Very true, although it's super easy once you are caught up. You just dump all the newly announced titles into your wishlist on Criterion.com on announcement day, and then remove them as you buy them. Piece of cake.

[joie]

Well, I don't think anyone should take it personally if I don't like something they like. There are probably things I like that they don't like, and that's fine with me. I'm not here to affirm anyone's choices and don't expect mine to be affirmed.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by smoss469

Tokyo Drifter wasn't bad, but I watched it before Branded to Kill, maybe it was lessened by the off the wall wackiness that Branded brings to the table. Branded is it's own beast for sure. Best way I can describe it is, it's almost like they took a schitzo from a psycho ward, gave him a camera and a crew and said "Go make a movie!"

Time for my quote again, from a friend posting on Usenet back in the 90s: "BRANDED TO KILL, on the other hand, is like TOKYO DRIFTER's drunk, crack-addict cousin who just happens to have taken some acid on the day you run into him."

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by mdonovan

Ok ... A little embarrassed here ... But to the best of my knowledge I have never seen a single Bergmen film. From his catalogue which are essential 'don't die before seeing this' titles ?? Please don't answer 'all'.

The Seventh Seal is probably his most-praised film, and is filled with many "iconic" moments. It's not my favorite of Bergman's films, but it's up there. Smiles of a Summer Night is my favorite Bergman, and is the one on Criterion Blu-ray that I would most heartily recommend. I'd also recommend Fanny and Alexander (on BD) and Scenes from a Marriage (DVD only, so far), though their lengths (the original TV mini-series versions are the way to go) might be a bit daunting for a newcomer.