The Criterion Collection

[Scottie]

Anyone else find it odd that a BD only version of A Hard Day's Night is only available in The Rock Box?

[bwdowiak]

My wife's mother and two aunts are visiting us from India this month. I wasn't sure if they were keen on Satyajit Ray. I had mentioned him to them before and my mother-in-law seemed vaguely familiar. When they arrived earlier this month, my Late Ray Eclipse set was on the dining room table in plain view, so I bragged about how knowledgeable I am about Indian culture and art. It turns out that my mother-in-law (who is Punjabi and speaks Hindi and two (maybe three) other Indian languages) has actually seen maybe a dozen or so of his films. So, we've been trying to arrange a time to watch Pather Panchali and other Ray films.

We watched The Big City because I thought my wife would take to it. My mother-in-law told me a story about how she saw the film when it was brand new at a theater near her home town. It only played with one daily show time because it is Bengali and not Hindi. That was the first and only time she saw the film - as a 12 year old girl in 1964! Despite it being so long ago, she remembered the precise scene in which

[Show spoiler]the husband finds lipstick in Arati's handbag.

The story must have had a profound effect on her.

Perhaps needless to say, the film is a great depiction of certain western influences on the Indian world and the modernization of Indian society. It is a great story about the empowerment of women in a culture in which roles had been (maybe still are?) clearly defined (diskspinner or ravenus would be able to speak to this point better than me.) Ray was certainly ahead of his time with his film.

[ravenus]

^Well, at least in metropolises like Kolkata, Mumbai etc women are more empowered and hardly anyone would bat an eyelid at them working an office job, wearing lipstick, enjoying a drink etc. But as you go towards the small towns and the rural sector many of them are still back in time. While they may be too courteous or intimidated to protest against urban visitors doing these things they would have an issue with the women in their families taking to such pursuits, which would be regarded as the culturally degrading impact of westernization.

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by ravenus

^Well, at least in metropolises like Kolkata, Mumbai etc women are more empowered and hardly anyone would bat an eyelid at them working an office job, wearing lipstick, enjoying a drink etc. But as you go towards the small towns and the rural sector many of them are still back in time. While they may be too courteous or intimidated to protest against urban visitors doing these things they would have an issue with the women in their families taking to such pursuits, which would be regarded as the culturally degrading impact of westernization.

I spent two months in India in 1998.

I've often wondered how much it's changed since then.

...it's been almost 20 years.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by MeMynonsense

The Spy in Black is so much fun. Twists, double-crosses, abductions, mistaken identities, quick-witted (and sometimes euphemistic) banter and a wonderfully ironic finale. One could easily mistake it for a Hitchcock movie of that era. It’s certainly not as refined as some of their subsequent works but it also resisted the urge to peddle blatant propaganda a la 49th Parallel. Conrad Veidt’s performance has to be one of classiest of all onscreen nazi renditions. And wasn’t this like P&P’s first or second collaboration?

It was their first collaboration, followed by Contraband and 49th Parallel. Their next film after those, One of Our Aircraft Is Missing, was their first as "The Archers".

I have The Spy in Black on LD. As far as I know, it was never released (at least in the US) on DVD. 'Twould be nice to have it on Blu-ray. There's apparently a Region A-friendly French BD available.

[senseabove]

Originally Posted by jayembee

It was their first collaboration, followed by Contraband and 49th Parallel. Their next film after those, One of Our Aircraft Is Missing, was their first as "The Archers".

I have The Spy in Black on LD. As far as I know, it was never released (at least in the US) on DVD. 'Twould be nice to have it on Blu-ray. There's apparently a Region A-friendly French BD available.

This review makes it sound like that's about the only worthwhile disc of the French Powell Blu-Rays (and there isn't much enthusiasm for it, even): https://www.avforums.com/threads/mic...avoid.1921100/

It sounds like that print is the same one I saw this weekend, since it was described as an imported BFI print. If it is, the first reel or so is a bit rough (it seems to have lost a least a few frames at the very start, for example), and the audio is a little muddy throughout, making some of the thicker dialect accents a struggle to understand, but the image cleans up pretty well once it gets going. I'd be curious to see how the Filmstruck stream looks, but I'm waiting until they get Chromecast support to do my trial.

[ShellOilJunior]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

I spent two months in India in 1998.

I've often wondered how much it's changed since then.

...it's been almost 20 years.

You can't leave me hanging here, Ray. I'm sure you've got a few stories...

[MifuneFan]

Satyajit Ray Jackson

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by ShellOilJunior

You can't leave me hanging here, Ray. I'm sure you've got a few stories...

I have a Polaroid of me lying face down, almost naked (tidy whities only), on a beach outside of Calcutta while getting a 50 cent massage from an old Indian man. He went pretty low on my back a few times, deep into the gluteal tissue, which was very uncomfortable.

This was some random guy who came up to me on a public beach.

After it was over, someone came up and said, "You realize that guy's not an actual massage therapist right? He's just some guy who decided he could scam tourists for a few bucks."

I almost threw up.

It's one of the reasons I don't trust people anymore.

...I can post the picture if you want.

[mja345]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

I have a Polaroid of me lying face down, almost naked (tidy whities only), on a beach outside of Calcutta while getting a 50 cent massage from an old Indian man. He went pretty low on my back a few times, deep into the gluteal tissue, which was very uncomfortable.

This was some random guy who came up to me on a public beach.

After it was over, someone came up and said, "You realize that guy's not an actual massage therapist right? He's just some guy who decided he could scam tourists for a few bucks."

I almost threw up.

It's one of the reasons I don't trust people anymore.

...I can post the picture if you want.

Ray, you overpaid, my friend. I'm sure he would have gone "deep into the gluteal tissue" for free. 50 cents wasted.

[monorail91]

Just picked up my last two for this sale, Blood Simple and Only Angels Have Wings. I noticed a ton of the Dekalog and Lone Wolf & Cub sets being held behind the counter at my location (Orange, CA)...which one of you is hoarding them?

[demonknight]

Didn't know the sale ended today. Was glad I went on this fine afternoon to pick up a couple of Roy Schieder flicks though (All That Jazz & Naked Lunch).

[Abdrewes]

I'm not sure if it's just me, but the audio track on The Cranes are Flying via Filmstruck is completely out of sync at the 13 minute mark. As in minutes out of sync.

[mrjohnnyb]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

I have a Polaroid of me lying face down, almost naked (tidy whities only), on a beach outside of Calcutta while getting a 50 cent massage from an old Indian man. He went pretty low on my back a few times, deep into the gluteal tissue, which was very uncomfortable.

This was some random guy who came up to me on a public beach.

After it was over, someone came up and said, "You realize that guy's not an actual massage therapist right? He's just some guy who decided he could scam tourists for a few bucks."

I almost threw up.

It's one of the reasons I don't trust people anymore.

...I can post the picture if you want.

Over the years, I have probably given fifty bucks to beggars and panhandlers-

and you have lost your trust in humanity over fifty cents?

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by mrjohnnyb

Over the years, I have probably given fifty bucks to beggars and panhandlers-

and you have lost your trust in humanity over fifty cents?

He went real deep into that gluteal tissue. It was a pretty scarring experience for poor Ray.

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by ravenus

^Well, at least in metropolises like Kolkata, Mumbai etc women are more empowered and hardly anyone would bat an eyelid at them working an office job, wearing lipstick, enjoying a drink etc. But as you go towards the small towns and the rural sector many of them are still back in time. While they may be too courteous or intimidated to protest against urban visitors doing these things they would have an issue with the women in their families taking to such pursuits, which would be regarded as the culturally degrading impact of westernization.

I can attest to that as the people I've met have been very respectful towards me. They take a great interest in foreigners and I was kind of treated like a celebrity when I was there. The smaller the village, the more curious looks you get. And the people there really love to know how much you know about India. Very hospitable. Nice people.

[pedromvu]

So I finally completed the whole Dekalog and I must say it is an eye opening experience, I really like how aside from Chapter 1, most of the episodes deal with the commandments in a very humane way, I mean that instead of focusing on the grace or religious aspects they focus on the human nature and condition.

This combined with the ambiguity of most of the endings helps make each episode points or questions very effective, because I found myself thinking about them a lot after watching them.

In the end I found they hardly give us any clear answer to the issues posed, but they give incredible insight of the complexity of humans and their relationships, it gives clear examples of how almost nothing is black or white, no matter what our self imposed rules or moral standards.

Also while watching this episodes I alternated my viewing with the first 7 episodes of Black Mirror, and as different as it appears to be on first glance, I kept thinking about Dekalog during several episodes, this all deal with technology mostly but they tend to focus a lot on the human drama even if not in a melodramatic kind of way, really can't recommend it enough.

I would rate the episodes as following:

Masterpiece:
Episode 1
Episode 6

Great:
Episode 3
Episode 5
Episode 8
Episode 9
Episode 10

Good:
Episode 2
Episode 4
Episode 7

BTW, in one supplement, they say this whole ten episodes cost the equivalent of $100,000 USD (in the late eighties at least), how could that be? not only everything looks quite professionally shot, but it has beautiful cinematography too, and via film non the less, they even got the patience to film that freaking bee coming out of the water, can't imagine how long it could have taken to get it right.

[fdm]

Originally Posted by AaronJ

Which reminds me, I STILL haven't seen all of World on a Wire. It seems like I've owned it for decades at this point. I really need to get onto that.

One (of many) I haven't gotten around to yet either. Probably will still be a while.

[thrillmygorilla]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

I was violated sir.

Violated by a pervert who claimed to be a doctor of the Ayurvedic school of massage...but in reality was no more than a soulless con man who saw an opportunity to put his filthy hands on the naked flesh of an idealistic young 22-year-old...brimming with optimism and verve...utterly convinced of the essential goodness of all living things.

I lost my innocence that day.

...it was my own personal Salo.

That was an amazing read. My hat's off to you, sir!

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by fdm

One (of many) I haven't gotten around to yet either. Probably will still be a while.

At this point, I am starting to feel guilty when I look at my un-watched pile.