Michael Haneke: Trilogy (Criterion Collection, December 2022)

[BunyipPouch]

The Criterion Collection has announced a bluray release of Michael Haneke: Trilogy for December 2022



Features:

• High-definition digital masters, supervised by director Michael Haneke, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
• New interview with actor Arno Frisch
• New interview with film historian Alexander Horwath
• Interviews from 2005 with Haneke
• Documentary about Haneke’s career featuring interviews with the director and actors Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert, and Jean-Louis Trintignant
• Deleted scenes from Benny’s Video
• Trailers
• New English subtitle translations
• An essay by novelist John Wray

The Films:

The Seventh Continent:

The day-to-day routines of a seemingly ordinary Austrian family (Birgit Doll, Dieter Berner, and Leni Tanzer) begin to take on a sinister complexion in Michael Haneke’s chilling portrait of bourgeois anomie giving way to shocking self-destruction. Inspired by a true story, the director’s first theatrical feature finds him fully in command of his style, observing with rigorous, clinical detachment the spiritual emptiness at the heart of consumer culture—and the horror that lurks beneath its placid surfaces. The Seventh Continent builds to an annihilating encounter with the televisual void that powerfully synthesizes Haneke’s ideas about the link between violence and our culture of manufactured emotion.


Benny's Video:

Michael Haneke turns the unflinching gaze of the camera back on itself in this provocative, profoundly disturbing study of emotional disconnection in the age of mass-media saturation. Benny (a frighteningly affectless Arno Frisch), the teenage son of wealthy, disengaged parents (Angela Winkler and Ulrich Mühe), finds release in the world of violent videos—an obsession that leads him to create his own monstrous work of real-life horror. Layering screens within screens and digital frames within the filmic frame, Benny’s Video is a coolly postmodern, metacinematic labyrinth in which the boundaries between actual and mediated violence become terrifyingly indistinguishable.


71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance:

The simultaneously random and interconnected nature of modern existence comes into harrowing focus in the despairing final installment of Michael Haneke’s trilogy. Seventy-one intricate, puzzlelike scenes survey the routines of a handful of seemingly unrelated people—including an undocumented Romanian boy (Gabriel Cosmin Urdes) living on the streets of Vienna, a couple (Anne Bennent and Udo Samel) who are desperate to adopt a child, and a college student (Lukas Miko) on the edge—whose stories collide in a devastating encounter at a bank. The omnipresent drone of television news broadcasts in 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance underscores Haneke’s vision of a numb, dehumanizing world in which emotional estrangement can be punctured only by the shock of sudden violence.

[Pi905]

THESE ARE THE LAST FEW HANEKE FILMS I NEED TO SEE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Day negative 1

[Dragun]

The specs in your post are from the Mai Zetterling set. Here are the specs for the Haneke set:

DIRECTOR-APPROVED THREE-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• High-definition digital masters, supervised by director Michael Haneke, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
• New interview with actor Arno Frisch
• New interview with film historian Alexander Horwath
• Interviews from 2005 with Haneke
• Documentary about Haneke’s career featuring interviews with the director and actors Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert, and Jean-Louis Trintignant
• Deleted scenes from Benny’s Video
• Trailers
• New English subtitle translations
• PLUS: An essay by novelist John Wray

New cover by Eric Skillman

I assume these are older HD masters?

[DAT_JB]

Großartig!!!

[BunyipPouch]

Originally Posted by Dragun

The specs in your post are from the Mai Zetterling set. Here are the specs for the Haneke set:

I assume these are older HD masters?

Sorry about that, fixed!

[scorsese1]

This is awesome news, but considering how Funny Games turned out, and having to get the French blu in order to get the correct color-timing, I’m slightly worried about how the transfer for Bennys Video will turn out. Hopefully I will not have to get the French blu of that(or the others if they exist and are English-friendly) in addition to this set.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by Dragun

I assume these are older HD masters?

Unfortunately. I hate how lazy they are with some of their 90s offerings. An Angel at my Table is another example. DVD Era scans are not acceptable anymore for a boutique label.

[pixote]

3 of his best works. I'd take any of these three over Funny Games and/or Cache all day.

[yoloswegmaster420]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Unfortunately. I hate how lazy they are with some of their 90s offerings. An Angel at my Table is another example. DVD Era scans are not acceptable anymore for a boutique label.

Then you must dislike Indicator.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by yoloswegmaster420

Then you must dislike Indicator.

Honestly I don't pay too much attention to them. I only have 22 of their releases.

I do realize that it's at least something, and for that I'm grateful. I'm always grateful for any new to North America Region A catalogue releases, but enough's enough already with these dusty masters.

[HipsterTrash]

Wow. I wouldn't be surprised if Criterion releases a few more Haneke films.

This set looks great.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Unfortunately. I hate how lazy they are with some of their 90s offerings.

Can you elaborate how they are lazy? Like, you do understand that they're simply licensing what's available, right? They don't do scans, and full restorations for the vast majority of films they release. Are you seriously expecting them to do that here? You labeling them lazy makes zero sense whatsoever. Their only other realistic option here was to simply not release them at all.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Can you elaborate how they are lazy? Like, you do understand that they're simply licensing what's available, right? They don't do scans, and full restorations for the vast majority of films they release. Are you seriously expecting them to do that here? You labeling them lazy makes zero sense whatsoever. Their only other realistic option here was to simply not release them at all.

I understand full blown 4k restorations and 4k releases are out of the question for Haneke and most art house fare in general. I was never expecting that. But i dont see why they couldnt have invested a bit more to get these at least 2k scans. Yes, licensing ancient HD masters is lazy. It's Mill Creek type stuff and not something befitting of a boutique label.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

I understand full blown 4k restorations and 4k releases are out of the question for Haneke and most art house fare in general. I was never expecting that. But i dont see why they couldnt have invested a bit more to get these at least 2k scans. Yes, licensing ancient HD masters is lazy. It's Mill Creek type stuff and not something befitting of a boutique label.

It's not their job to "invest" anything here. These aren't their films. Why pay upwards of six figures to restore 3 films for a Blu-ray release, where there's little to no chance of recouping that money? Every single boutique label that exists has licensed a dated master at one point or another so I guess they're all lazy in your opinion.

[Jado3Dhead]

I've been hoping Criterion to get the rights for this trilogy, and I have gotten my wish. But I think the cover art would be better, as it looks almost like something Artificial Eye would make.

[silverlakephil]

Yikes. For the sensitive types, it's best you avoid the video sample from Criterion's webpage for Benny's Video

[Streetlight]

caps has Benny's Video, and it looks pretty good.

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=12421&d2=12420&c=4888

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Streetlight

caps has Benny's Video, and it looks pretty good.

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=12421&d2=12420&c=4888

Yeah, not bad. Clearly an improvement over the Kino DVD

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

It's not their job to "invest" anything here. These aren't their films. Why pay upwards of six figures to restore 3 films for a Blu-ray release, where there's little to no chance of recouping that money? Every single boutique label that exists has licensed a dated master at one point or another so I guess they're all lazy in your opinion.

At this point now that we are two formats removed it is unacceptable to keep using DVD Era masters. I can stomach it for budget releases, sure, but not boutique labels and boutique pricing. I am not assuming you are one of those that has said this about Criterion's mainstream/big studio offerings, but what happened to "its releases like this that pays for the more obscure stuff"? Well, here's the slightly more obscure stuff and they are only paying for the available masters, nothing more.

Maybe if you were actually planning on purchasing this release you'd feel the sting that I'm feeling knowing that I will be paying for a barely passable product. Sure, it will be the best one on the market, but far from the best release possible given the advancements in scan quality in the last 15+ years.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

At this point now that we are two formats removed it is unacceptable to keep using DVD Era masters. I can stomach it for budget releases, sure, but not boutique labels and boutique pricing. I am not assuming you are one of those that has said this about Criterion's mainstream/big studio offerings, but what happened to "its releases like this that pays for the more obscure stuff"? Well, here's the slightly more obscure stuff and they are only paying for the available masters, nothing more.

Maybe if you were actually planning on purchasing this release you'd feel the sting that I'm feeling knowing that I will be paying for a barely passable product. Sure, it will be the best one on the market, but far from the best release possible given the advancements in scan quality in the last 15+ years.

It still seems like you're not understanding how licensing and restorations work. Again, Criterion's realistic options are 1.) put out what's available or 2.) Don't put out anything. Do you choose the latter? Even in a hypothetical where they could do full restorations (even at 2K scans), do you really expect them to prioritize that treatment for these relatively obscure films, over others? They release 60 or so titles a year, why would they spend that much time, and hundreds of thousands restoring these particular films? Sales of this title won't be high, so that is absolutely where the sales of bigger titles helps to offset the sales here. Do you think spending hundreds of thousands is going to increases the sales so significantly as to offset those costs? More than likely, the set will sell the same regardless. I mean, you're the most vocal about the release, and you're still buying it, so tell me as a business, how much incentive is really here for them to invest money into these?

Also, have you seen the Criterion Blu-ray yet? You keep comparing it to the Kino DVD, yet there's already evidence that it will likely be a nice improvement over that. Take a look at the Benny's Video caps-a-holic, there's a nice bump in quality, framing, and I would say grading between the French Blu-ray, and the Kino DVD. I'm not even sure if they're from the same masters.