Wim Wenders | A Curzon Collection [Blu-ray] (2022, 22 Films)

[nicwood]

Curzon released a definitive Wim Wenders Collection on December 12, 2022.
I couldn't find a separate thread and due to the volume of the edition I decided to make a new one:






This authoritative 22-disc collection encompasses the 50-year career of award-winning filmmaker Wim Wenders. Alongside his masterpieces Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire, the collection features his electrifying debut The Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Penalty, his classic road movie trilogy (Alice in the Cities, Wrong Move and Kings of the Road), the director’s cut of Until the End of the World and the acclaimed documentaries Buena Vista Social Club, Pina and The Salt of the Earth. The collection also features a wealth of extras, an illustrated booklet, film posters and four Polaroid images shot by the filmmaker.

SPECIAL FEATURES
Hardcover lay flat book in a canvas slipcase
New 4K digital restorations of Wings of Desire, Kings of the Road, The American Friend, The State of Things, Tokyo-Ga, Notebook on Cities and Clothes, Until the End of the World, Lisbon Story, The Million Dollar Hotel, Wrong Move and The Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Penalty approved by director Wim Wenders.
New 2K digital restorations of Paris, Texas and Alice in the Cities.
New masterclasses and interviews with Wim Wenders filmed in London in summer 2022.
7 short films by Wim Wenders: Same Player Shoots Again, Silver City Revisited, From the Family of Reptiles, The Island, Room 666, Reverse Angle, Arisha, the Bear and the Stone Ring
Over 50 Special Features including exclusive interviews, deleted scenes, commentaries, behind-the-scenes footage, music videos, original and restored theatrical trailers.
PLUS: 22-page booklet, five collectible polaroids by Wim Wenders, three A3 theatrical posters.

I have received my copy and will go through the set, especially the films that haven't received Blu-ray releases until now.

Stay tuned!


Detailed Breakdown:

The discs reside in individual sleeves, open on the top. The discs are tucked in INCREDIBLY tightly. I highly, highly recommend putting on gloves or take a towel in order not to leave the biggest fingerprints imaginable. I never had to pull so hard to get discs out of any edition. Thank God mine are all without scratches as a result.

All discs are BD-50s though often leaving large parts of the disc space unused - sometimes up to 20 GB.

The films that are fully in English do NOT come with any subtitle track. The affected ones are Lightning over Water, Paris Texas and The Million Dollar Hotel.
The films that have portions in English and other languages will have those foreign parts subtitled, but not the English ones either. For me personally (even though I almost never need them) a strong negative that adds to a somewhat lack of love and care which has been put into this set. Full English subtitles for the features should be an absolute given nowadays.

Original audio looks to be included with all films in addition to 5.1 remixes when applicable.

As seen in the screenshots, the films' restorations are often, if not all glorious with beautiful detail, remarkable colors and a vividness in every frame as (mostly) shot by the legendary Robby Müller.
The video presentations by Curzon nevertheless often leave A LOT to be desired. I think all of the discs have been put together with very little effort by the person doing the authoring. In all cases I have checked so far, the video bitrate has been set to a constant 30 / 35 Mbps with probably no involvement by the encoder to calibrate the image shot-by-shot. This happened exactly that way with their Wings of Desire UHD which has been set to a similarly constant bitrate, causing artifacts in the highlights and blacks which could have been avoided.

So, in general, the discs here frequently look absolutely ATROCIOUS - no hyperbole in the slightest. Usually, the longer the film the worse it looks but even the shortest ones are very badly encoded. Paris Texas, Wings of Desire, Until the End of the World and Kings of the Road are among the worst discs I have in my collection. ALL DISCS have severe macroblocking in highlights and sometimes the ENTIRE frame, noticeable in motion and on smaller screens as well, like an invasion of huge blocks of digital mush.

How can I possibly recommend this set? In truth, I can't. But, how will we ever get to see the Wenders films that haven't been released on BD anywhere in the world before? I think it is very unlikely, especially with Criterion sitting on their titles for ages. For fans of the director (which I am), I think this is still a must-own to get the films that haven't been released elsewhere in an "okay" presentation but the disappointment at what could and should have been is immense. I hate thinking about what gorgeous masters Wenders and his foundation supplied to Curzon and how carelessly their encoder treated them. It's such a shame.

The short films spread over the discs are often from old, broadcast masters with the exception of Silver City Revisited and Reverse Angle, coming from 4K 16mm scans and 2K restorations.

Bonus features are often the old ones ported from the DVD era, but with a couple of new and exclusive interviews with Wenders and 2022 Q&A's / screen talks at the BFI and Curzon cinemas. For a breakdown, see the post HERE.

For now, for the best video presentation please consider alternatives from other countries such as the US (Criterion) and especially Germany (StudioCanal - apart from Kings of the Road and The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty which both have vertical aliasing) instead of this set.
For the films whose restorations have seen releases with English subtitles, I'd recommend those over the Curzon's.

Right now, you'd buy this set for the films that haven't been released anywhere else and the exclusive bonus features which do seem worthwhile. But this isn't worth 200€ / $ or pounds.

Notwithstanding the huge disappointment, hope you enjoy the screenshots / coverage below to form your own opinion.

Full disc technical breakdowns listed under the following posts including MediaInfo and Screenshots:

Discs 1 - 6: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...20&postcount=2
Discs 7 - 15: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...97&postcount=3
Discs 16 - 22: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...2&postcount=11

Full disc content breakdowns for the entire set listed here: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...2&postcount=20

Release credits and technical information on every disc:

[Show spoiler]

Please ask if you need any other information. Being so "lucky" and getting perfect discs, I will keep my set. If only they were encoded better... (sigh)