British Film Institute (BFI) Discussion Thread

[Gerby]

£150!!!
Did not expect that price tag. I've pre ordered it so hopefully the price willl drop a fair bit before May.

[oddbox83]

I think it a safe bet! The others are quite high too, probably they're all at or close to RRP right now.

[rapta]

Herzog set was £79.99 RRP and dropped to £46.11 before release.

I expect this will drop to about £85-90.

[BarnDoor]

Some more details from Amazon on The Firm. Elephant is included, and I imagine the disc will be the same on the box set. Still eager to know the difference in running times between the two versions of The Firm. Also, there were some interesting extras on the DVD - an audio commentary, an extract from The Late Show - which I hope might be included eventually:

THE FIRM: DIRECTOR'S CUT (Blu-ray)
A Film by Alan Clarke

Gary Oldman is Clive 'Bex' Bissell, an intelligent family man with a good job, who also happens to be the leader of the notorious East London hooligan firm, the Inner City Crew. Bex plans to unite rival gangs into a national firm to talk to the European Championships, but that will mean defeating Oboes' Birmingham crew and the South London Buccaneers led by arch rival Yeti (Phil Davis). As Bex's craving for violence becomes an obsession, the violence spirals out of control.

Alan Clarke's unflinching drama courted much controversy when it was first broadcast in a toned down version on the BBC. Now, it is rightly considered a masterpiece, due in so small part to the brilliance of Oldman's central performance one of the finest of his career.

Newly transferred in HD, The Firm is presented here in two versions: the never-before-seen Director's Cut, which re-instates a number of bold sequences previously considered too controversial for audiences; and the original BBC TV broadcast version.

The complete Alan Clarke at the BBC is also available on DVD and Blu-ray box sets from the BFI.

Special features

Remastered in HD for the first time
The Firm: Director's Cut (World premiere presentation)
The Firm: Original broadcast version
David Leland introduces The Firm (1991)
Elephant (1989, 38 mins): Clarke's final, unflinching drama, set in Northern Ireland
Elephant audio commentary with producer Danny Boyle
Alan Clarke: Out of His Own Light (2016): documentary on Clarke and his final words

Cast: Gary Oldman (Batman Series, Leon), Lesley Manville (Secrets and Lies, Maleficient), Phil Davis (Poldark, Sherlock) and Steve McFadden (Eastenders)

UK | 1989 | 68 minutes | Cert 18 | TBC

[rapta]

Glad to hear Elephant is on one of the standalone discs. I'm more likely to get the separate releases than the box set then, unless the latter eventually falls to a more manageable price.

[Ozu Teapot]

Pre-ordered the Dissent & Disruption set.

No point in hanging around with this one. In my experience Amazon is the safest place to order an important (to me) limited release like this, and as others have said hopefully the price will drop and the Price Guarantee will come in to effect. Even if the price didn't drop I'd still want it so why wait!

[BarnDoor]

I wonder if this deepening co-operation between the BBC and BFI, with the former seemingly more willing than before to create and supply HD masters, might possibly allow for an upgrade of the Ghost Stories for Christmas set? I've been going back through old threads on here and other sites and the BFI's response at the time appears to have been:

Our Blu-ray plans for the Ghost Stories will be dependent on the availability of HD masters.

With regard to the materials, there was this e-mail response to user James78 (https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=6):

Hi,

The original negatives are in the BBC archive. It's not a question of the negatives not surviving, it's more to do with whether they have been scanned in order to create a new HD master which in this case they have not. We (the BFI) have licensed the films from the BBC and therefore it is their decision as to whether they are going to create new HD masters and in turn supply them to us. Sadly that is not the case.

Best regards,

Ben

This would seemingly suggest that all the relevant materials survive. Interestingly, at the back of the booklet for the existing DVD release, it is mentioned that A Warning to the Curious was remastered in High Definition using the original 16mm negatives (why this was done for this installment and not the others I do not know).

I recall reading that the DVD was a big seller for BFI, and it's coming up to four years since that was originally released (in various versions), allowing for a decent period of sales. Following the Ken Russell, Peter Watkins and Alan Clarke releases this year, might the BFI be able to twist the BBC's arm and release a limited edition Blu-ray upgrade of the great Ghost Story for Christmas strand? Costs would be a major consideration of course, though it could be now that the BBC are subsidizing the process of creating new HD masters for release (this is pure speculation on my part - I'm aware the BFI are performing miracles on an ever-decreasing budget).

MichaelB, have you heard any rumblings? (Though of course I doubt you'd be able to tell us if you had).

* I should add that I'd be quite happy if such a Blu-ray set only contained the original Whistle and the six made between 1971-1976 (being as I consider these to be the best). That said, I do like the 2005 A View from the Hill.

[oddbox83]

I very much doubt a Ghost Stories upgrade coming. That ship has sailed given the cost of new HD masters for most and an already existing release many have bought.

The 2000s reboot Ghost Stories are locked into SD as shot, I believe.

[BarnDoor]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

I very much doubt a Ghost Stories upgrade coming. That ship has sailed given the cost of new HD masters for most and an already existing release many have bought.

The 2000s reboot Ghost Stories are locked into SD as shot, I believe.

In that event then, they could just include the current DVD disc (View from a Hill, Number 13) as part of the package. The real selling point here is the upgrade of the classic strand, but I'm also aware that people will want a comprehensive package (especially those who haven't already bought the DVD).

I suppose another incentive for such a release would be the possibility to include The Tractate Middoth and Mark Gatiss' recent documentary on M.R. James (Ghost Writer). Perhaps the the rights issues with Christopher Lee's reading of The Ash Tree could also be resolved? If looking for further extras, they might also include Michael Hordern's radio reading of 'Oh Whistle...', or the mid-2000s BBC documentaries, M.R. James: The Corner of the Retina and The Story of the Ghost Story. Again, it's possible (or even probable) that there are issues relating to these, but I'm just throwing out a few ideas that could encourage people to double-dip.

I can't speculate on costs, but, as I said, it may well be dependent on BBC co-operation in that regard.

[Lutz]

Pre ordered the Clarke set too.

BFI packaging has been really good recently and I hope for that price they do something similar to the Bill Morrison set.

[BarnDoor]

I e-mailed BFI about the possibility of getting a Blu-ray upgrade of the Ghost Story for Christmas set, and received the following reply (from Sam Dunn no less):

I'm sorry to say that we have no immediate plans to upgrade the GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS set. However, we agree that it would be great to present the set on Blu-ray, so we'll certainly look at it in detail.

Fingers crossed they can work something out.

[John_Drake]

Sorry, what is a Flipside release?

[ravenus]

Originally Posted by John_Drake

Sorry, what is a Flipside release?

That's a sub-label of BFI specializing in underground / little known independent British films.

[Pecker]

Originally Posted by MichaelB

Neglected British films in general - there are major studio titles in the line-up as well (Privilege, Joanna).

The one thing that they all have in common is that for various reasons they didn't get sufficiently noticed first time round - sometimes because they were simply critical and commercial flops, sometimes because they were actively suppressed (Captured, The Black Panther), sometimes because even though they're reasonably well known, for much of their lifespan they've only been available in a drastically compromised version (That Sinking Feeling). Oh, and every film is culturally British, even if (like Deep End) it was largely shot outside the UK by a foreign director.

Symptoms is a perfect Flipside release: once upon a time it was prestigious enough to represent the UK in the main Cannes competition, but it hasn't been seen in 35mm for decades and all viewings since the 1980s have been sourced from VHS recordings. The original negative was only discovered a few months ago.

I remember the hoo-ha over The Black Panther.

Strangely enough, there was a similar controversy in Yorkshire with First Blood.

Steve W

[oddbox83]

Originally Posted by John_Drake

Sorry, what is a Flipside release?

A Flipside to me means a British feature, usually very rare and rescued from complete obscurity, which regardless of personal genre preference has a lot of merit to be rediscovered.

Some of the more successful titles in the range aren't obscure anymore, and that's mission accomplished! Films like Deep End (one of the best in the range) which has now appeared several times on Film4. On a more personal note, I've been introduced to the dubious pleasures of Andy Milligan filmmaking and have found more of his films on the strength (or lack thereof! ) of Nightbirds.

[tenia]

That Kind of Girl, along with All The Right Noises, is one of my favourite Flipside release.

I thought it would be much more provocative that it actually is, but that's not a bad thing. It's actually much finer that what it looks like from afar and I was quite happy with that.

I expected the same from Her Private Hell, but it sadly was the other way around.

As a whole though, I usually end up quite liking the movies released within the Flipside collection. For sure, some of them appealed less to me than I expected (I was quite disappointed by Black Panther, but also by Captured, surprisingly). But stuff like Lunch Hour, Man of Violence, Privilege, The Pleasure Girls, and clearly Herostratus really were wonderful discoveries.

[BarnDoor]

Symptoms up on Amazon - 18th April:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Symptoms-Blu.../dp/B01BLONBCC

SYMPTOMS (Flipside 032) (DVD + Blu-ray)
Film by José Ramón Larraz

The official British Palme d'Or entry at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival, Symptoms is a sophisticated modern gothic horror film exploring the themes of sexual repression and psychosis.

Larraz's dark and stylish film tells of a young woman (Lorna Heilbron) who is invited by her girlfriend (Angela Pleasence) to stay at her remote English country mansion. Events take a disturbing turn when a menacing groundkeeper (Peter Vaughan) interrupts their time together, and a woman's body is found in the mansion's lake.

Other than a limited theatrical release and a late-night screening on British television in the early 80s, Larraz's film has slipped into obscurity, and the original negative was long thought lost, assuring it a place in the BFI's 'Most Wanted' list. Following the rediscovery of the original negatives in 2014, the dark delights of Symptoms can finally be experienced again in this new restoration, undertaken by the Belgian Cinematek.

Special features

Newly restored in 2k
On Vampyres and other Symptoms (Celia Novis, 2011, 74 mins): Feature-length documentary about director José Ramón Larraz focusing on two of his most acclaimed films, Vampyres and Symptoms
From Barcelona to Tunbridge Wells: The Films of José Larraz (Andrew Starke & Pete Tombs, 1999, 24 mins)
Interview with Brian Smedley-Aston (2015): Interview with the film s editor
Original theatrical trailer
Other extra TBC

[rapta]

*Wolf whistle*

[BarnDoor]

Looks as though Culloden/The War Game will have a slipcover. I guess that's one way to encourage early buyers when it's not a LE (unless the slip is sealed also). By contrast, the Ken Russell Collections don't look to have slips (I've posted one for the sake of clarity). On further investigation, Bande a Part, Farewell My Concubine, Valentino, Shooting Stars and Underground appear to be the same. Not sure why Culloden/The War Game looks to be a special case, if indeed it is:

[rapta]

Interesting...I may keep my copy of Culloden/The War Game on pre-order now. I was only going to reconsider it because Farewell My Concubine and Bande à part were both out the same month, but I have a feeling the former will be delayed now (as no specs have appeared yet, and it already has been delayed from the original January release date).

We haven't had slipcovers from the BFI for a while, and those were only with limited editions (Deep End, Chinese Bookie, Chaplin, Welles). Nice to see they're trying some new things out! I wonder if any of their other upcoming releases will get slipcovers...