Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection

[Ozu Teapot]

Arrow posted this on Facebook:

Wondering what the Borowczyk packaging and that mammoth book might look like? Here’s a very early production sample. More images to follow soon!

[blurayoliver]

Originally Posted by tele1962

Michael, someone mentioned to me the other day that Terry Gilliam is on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday discussing a new project...........I wonder if this is correct and if it involves the Walerian Borowczyk collection?

Edit:

It is indeed the case:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04647bc

i watched that and it turned out he was talking about an opera he directed

[Vakulinchuk]

five discs and a respectable sized book, it's gonna be physically bigger than the Mizoguchi box!

[Steric_Hinderance]

Really looking forward to this. Had pre-ordered with Zavvi but switching my order to Amazon. Can't really trust Zavvi to deliver me a package where all of the discs and indeed the packaging going to be intact and know Amazon got a good returns policy etc.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by MichaelB

Eleven discs - it's a dual-format release.

(The shorts and the animated feature Theatre of Mr and Mrs Kabal are on a single BD but are being split across two DVDs to maximise bitrate.)

I've pre-ordered The Beast which is released before the set, are there plans to release any of the other titles individually?
I can't remember the box set's original release date, would they have come out on the same day?

[robsinden]

Originally Posted by Steric_Hinderance

Really looking forward to this. Had pre-ordered with Zavvi but switching my order to Amazon. Can't really trust Zavvi to deliver me a package where all of the discs and indeed the packaging going to be intact and know Amazon got a good returns policy etc.

Ha! Looks like we just swapped orders. I cancelled my amazon order and switched to zavvi, due to a £13 saving!

[MechaGodzilla]

While I'm not really interested in this collection (yet, anyway ), I have to say I admire the work being put into it. A real beauty is coming together here, bravo!

Now, I'll have to stop dreaming about Andrei Tarkovsky's films getting similar treatment.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by MechaGodzilla

Now, I'll have to stop dreaming about Andrei Tarkovsky's films getting similar treatment.

A couple of his sci-fi classics on UK BDs and I'd be a happy-camper!

[Steric_Hinderance]

Originally Posted by robsinden

Ha! Looks like we just swapped orders. I cancelled my amazon order and switched to zavvi, due to a £13 saving!

Wasn't aware it was quite as big a saving but in a sense I don't blame you.
Have to admit I don't mind paying a higher price when you realise what a labour of love this and as I think it will take a high pride of place in my collection I just feel Amazon are likely to provide me with a more pristine item (ie packaged better and therefore won't get knocked about in transit too much) also if any of the discs come loose and scratched because of Royal Mail etc then I know it will probably be a lot less hassle to get replacement discs from Amazon if I have to although I am basing this on fact they've enough stock of the sets to send replacements.

[robsinden]

Originally Posted by Steric_Hinderance

Wasn't aware it was quite as big a saving but in a sense I don't blame you.

Zavvi have a flash 10% off voucher, which meant it was £63. Okay, not quite a £13 saving, but still substantial.

[Vakulinchuk]

So here's a litte recap of the box's content so far. (updated!)

*"With every one of these films, we have created 2K scans from the best existing film elements available, to ensure that the presentations of every title will be definitive."*

Shorts:

Les Astronautes (Astronauts, 1959) 14 min.

Le concert (1962) 6 min.

L'encyclopedie de grand-maman (1963) 6 min.

Renaissance (1963) 10 min.

Les jeux des anges (1964) 13 min.

Le dictionnaire de Joachim (1965) 9 min.

Rosalie (1966) 15 min.

Gavotte (1967) 10 min.

Diptyque (1967) 8 min.

Le phonographe (1969) 6 min.

Une collection particulière (A Private Collection, 1972) 14 min.

Escargot de Vénus (Venus on the Half Shell, 1975) 5 min.

L’Amour monstre de tous les temps (The Greatest Love of All Time, 1978) 10 min.

Scherzo infernal (1984) 6 min.

=====

Features:

Le Theatre de M e Mme Kabal (1967) 80 min.

GOTO (1968) 93 min.

Blanche (1971) 92 min.

Contes Immoraux (1974) 103 min.

La Bete (1975) 93 min.

PLUS:

"Thanks in large part to your contributions, we were able to add a number of films that we didn't initially plan to include. In addition to all of the short films he made for Argos Films, we've managed to track down some of the commercials Borowczyk made during the 1960s, including a ten-minute animated short for a cigar firm that needs to be seen to be believed! We've also added trailers, alternate versions and even the short film Au Bout des Fusils directed by Borowczyk's friend Peter Graham, and lensed and edited by the man himself. "

"In addition to the films themselves, the list of extras, many of them new and exclusive to this release, has also grown by leaps and bounds - in addition to numerous interviews with Borowczyk's former colleagues, we've also secured an hour-long interview with the man himself, filmed in the mid-1980s for Channel Four's Visions series but never broadcast."

PLUS: the book last's wordcount is around 70,000!

PLUS: all the five disc cases have reversible artwork, with both sides of the covers using posters and illustrations by Borowczyk himself!

And I'm pretty sure I didn't cover it entirely yet - for example, we don't know how many commercials and a breakdown of the authors for the texts to be found in the book.

[Yami]

I really can't wait for this set - as much to dive into Borowczyk's short story collection as anything else. It's not often I read a paper book nowadays, having been a Kindle lover for several years now!

Michael, out of interest, have you seen all of Borowczyk's films?

[blurayoliver]

Originally Posted by Yami

I really can't wait for this set - as much to dive into Borowczyk's short story collection as anything else. It's not often I read a paper book nowadays, having been a Kindle lover for several years now!

Michael, out of interest, have you seen all of Borowczyk's films?

Same for me, I just can't wait to see Grandma's Encyclopedia, it's looks like, for some reason, something I'd find hilarious judging from that clip recently, it looks like a Python animation, obviously what influenced Gilliam, and probably why he put his name on the kickstarter campaign originally

[ravenus]

Originally Posted by MichaelB

Why don't you just ask me? You'll save a huge amount of time and guesswork.

[Show spoiler]Anyway, these are the official English titles:

FEATURES
Theatre of Mr & Mrs Kabal (1967)
Goto, Isle of Love (1968)
Blanche (1971)
Immoral Tales (1973) - in four and five-episode versions
The Beast (1975)

SHORTS
Astronauts (1959)
The Concert (1962)
Grandma's Encyclopedia (1963)
Renaissance (1963)
Angels' Games (1964)
Joachim's Dictionary (1965)
Rosalie (1966)
Gavotte (1967)
Diptych (1967)
The Phonograph (1969)
The Beast of Gévaudan (1972)
A Private Collection (1973) - in commercial and Oberhausen versions
Venus on the Half-Shell (1975)
The Greatest Love of All Time (1977)
Scherzo Infernal (1984)

COMMERCIALS
Holy Smoke! (1963)
The Museum (1964)
Tom Thumb (1964)

OTHER SHORTS
Gunpoint (1972) - shot and edited by Borowczyk

...plus introductions (Daniel Bird, Peter Bradshaw, Terry Gilliam, Craigie Horsfield, Leslie Megahey) and documentary extras created specifically for this release, with numerous interviews with Borowczyk's surviving colleagues. The centrepiece is Camera Obscura, a 70-minute (tbc) documentary about the man himself based around an unbroadcast 1985 interview.

BOOK
344 pages
Authors: Daniel Bird, Walerian Borowczyk, Michael Brooke, Raymond Durgnat, Craig Lapper, Patrice Leconte, Chris Newby, Philip Strick, David Thompson and James White.
Includes the complete text of Borowczyk's short-story collection Anatomy of the Devil, published in English for the first time.

I think you could carry this box to a desert island and not be done with it for a month

[Vakulinchuk]

Originally Posted by MichaelB

Why don't you just ask me? You'll save a huge amount of time and guesswork.

I guess mine was an oblique, elaborate way of asking

Of all this content, what is the material that BBFC had to... censor a little?

[skyofcrack]

Originally Posted by MichaelB

The BBFC hasn't censored anything (and I hope they won't: the previously unclassified material is being assessed right now), but for legal reasons we had to pre-censor the longer cut of A Private Collection as it contained genuine bestiality.

There was absolutely no way round this: the relevant legislation (Section 63 subsection 7d of the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act) couldn't be clearer.

The BBFC just passed Nekromantik uncut and that falls under the same subsection, 7c (necrophilia) and 7d (bestiality).

I would submit it and let the BBFC decide.

[Yami]

Originally Posted by skyofcrack

The BBFC just passed Nekromantik uncut and that falls under the same subsection, 7c (necrophilia) and 7d (bestiality).

I'm pretty sure Nekromantik doesn't contain unsimulated sex with an actual corpse though, does it?

[skyofcrack]

Originally Posted by Yami

I'm pretty sure Nekromantik doesn't contain unsimulated sex with an actual corpse though, does it?

I don't know. I've never seen it.

The law says: "an explicit and realistic way...an act which involves sexual interference with a human corpse"

[skyofcrack]

Understood, Michael.

[skyofcrack]

Originally Posted by MichaelB

(Incidentally, even if the BBFC offered us an R18, we wouldn't be able to make use of it as it would make the Borowczyk box undistributable outside sex shops - which amongst other things would make a nonsense of one of the project's main aims, which is to rehabilitate Borowczyk as a far more interesting and wide-ranging artist than the "arty pornographer" that he's all too frequently been reduced to.)

Michael, since there are only 1000 of these sets and it's almost sold out anyway, what does it matter since there won't be any left to sell. Unless, you're saying that you would have to cancel all the existing orders and sell all copies only in sex shops. Is that what you're saying?