865 Blow-Up

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: Blow-Up

#51 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Wed Mar 03, 2010 3:20 am

Seems reasonable -- does anybody have the Digital Classics discs and could check for licensing info? Kaleidoscope and The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer are also listed as WB titles on their site, so those would work too.

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ellipsis7
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Re: Blow-Up

#52 Post by ellipsis7 » Wed Mar 03, 2010 5:38 am

A curio - the original Belgian poster of MA's I VINTI, under the title 'Youth and Perversion'... Wonder what they were selling there?...

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This US 1 sheet of BLOW UP more straightforward & stylish... With the tagline 'Antonioni's camera never flinches'...

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Slightly confusing maybe insofar as it is Verushka in the picture, but Redgrave is the top billed name above the title...

The original Polish poster presents a different spin, round a screen printed image based on Redgrave...

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HarryLong
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Re: Blow-Up

#53 Post by HarryLong » Wed Mar 03, 2010 1:28 pm

MichaelB wrote: Sadly, they can't - Warner Bros doesn't sublicense its films, period.

If they did, The Devils would have been out years ago - plenty of distributors would have been only too happy to take on Ken Russell's restored version. And this isn't idle speculation: enquiries were definitely made once Russell complained that Warners weren't going to release it.
I didn't know about the inquiries from other companies. Interesting. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind anymore that WB - for whatever reason - wants to bury THE DEVILS forever. Some months back there was a link from somewhere on this board to an online conversation that WB conducted. THE DEVILS was, as usual promised as forthcoming. At another juncture in the conversation, the guy from WB (Feltenstein?) asserted that if for some reason WB couldn't get a title out in a timely fashion & the director told them he wanted it released, they would license it.
Naturally I forwarded this to my friend Ken Hanke who wrote what I think was the first book-length study of Russell (based on a long series of interviews) & has remained good friends since. I told Ken H that Ken R should notify WB to offer DEVILS to Criterion. Ken R's response to Ken H was that he has told WB over and over that he wants it released but they just won't do it.
So Russell wants it released. There's an online petition with heaven only knows how many thousands of signatures by now begging for a release. There are other companies perfectly happy to take the title off WB's hands...
(And as an aside Ken H tells me that WB was apparently very happy when their archival print of the film finally wore out & they could annopunce it would not be replaced.)
What baffles me & Ken H is why this apparent hatred of the film for all these years (if you google the US advertising posters, you can see that WB's campaign was ... well ... reluctant). It's not as if the same people that were in charge almost 40 years ago are still in place. It's as if the dislike of the film has been handed down from management to management (though I'll admit that in the US it might now be an even more controversial film than when it was released).

HarryLong
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Re: Blow-Up

#54 Post by HarryLong » Wed Mar 03, 2010 2:22 pm

BTW, Michael, I emailed the gist of your post to Ken Hanke & he confirmed that Criterion was one of the companies that inquired about THE DEVILS...

karaman
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Re: Blow-Up

#55 Post by karaman » Thu Mar 04, 2010 3:26 am

Warner's last release of "Zabriskie Point" is also cemsored. It slightly cuts some nude scenes.

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MichaelB
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Re: Blow-Up

#56 Post by MichaelB » Thu Mar 04, 2010 3:29 am

HarryLong wrote:So Russell wants it released. There's an online petition with heaven only knows how many thousands of signatures by now begging for a release. There are other companies perfectly happy to take the title off WB's hands...
...and the costs of assembling even a pretty decent special edition would be negligible. The screening of the restored version that I attended was a hi-def video projection, so a usable master already exists, Mark Kermode's Channel Four documentary is pretty much the last word on the film, and apparently Russell even recorded a commentary for Warner UK before the plug was pulled. Even if there were no additional features at all, I doubt fans would complain - hell, at this stage they wouldn't complain about a barebones release, provided it wasn't of the butchered and Russell-disowned US cut.

I also got the very strong impression from that November 2004 screening that a UK release was imminent - someone from Warner UK confirmed as much, and there was even a BBFC spokesman in the audience who assured him that there would be no censorship problems: it would obviously get an 18 certificate (well, duh), but it would certainly be uncut. There was even talk of a tie-in edition of Aldous Huxley's 'The Devils of Loudun' to accompany the release. And then it all went quiet.

It seems pretty clear to me that Warner UK was quite happy to release the film, but that Warner US pulled the plug. To be fair to them, I can see why they got cold feet in the wake of Dubya's re-election on the back of a major revival of the fundamentalist religious right, and the game-changing success of The Passion of the Christ: a boycott of all Warner products organised by the fundies would probably have real teeth.

But that still doesn't explain why it hasn't opened in Britain (the film's native country, after all), where Warner UK was apparently keen and where it would be far less inflammatory. This is partly because the version we've long been familiar with is pretty extreme anyway (and in any case all the footage from the restored version has been aired on terrestrial TV at some point, either in the form of the British cinema release or the extra material that Kermode uncovered), but also because we have far fewer religious maniacs - or at least Christian ones. And many of those tend to be Muslims these days, and I imagine they couldn't care less about the film.

HarryLong
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Re: Blow-Up

#57 Post by HarryLong » Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:57 am

but also because we have far fewer religious maniacs - or at least Christian ones
Yes, you're lucky in that.
My feeling is that we actually have less of them here in the US that it sometimes seems because the ones we have are so vocal. (Meaning also I don't think any threatened boycott of all WB products would have any real effect. Our Xtian fundies over here are pretty good at cherry-picking.)
I also suspect a good many of the audiences for THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST were the same ones as for SAW and HOSTEL...
Intriguingly, despite many protests way back when for THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST when it played theaters I don't recall even a whimper when it hit DVD. So any paranoia on the part of WB is probably just that.
And you're right, Michael, all the elements are sitting there waiting to be put on the DVD: a restored version of the film, a Russell commentary...
This is, imo, Russell's masterpiece & I'd really like to see it released while he's able to appreciate it.

videozor
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Re: Blow-Up

#58 Post by videozor » Thu Mar 04, 2010 2:20 pm

Back to Blow Up.
I remember reading a couple of years ago and, most likely, on this forum (not reading anything else), that Warner is quietly prepearing a Special Edition.
Any update on this?

HarryLong
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Re: Blow-Up

#59 Post by HarryLong » Thu Mar 04, 2010 6:28 pm

videozor wrote:Back to Blow Up.
Yeah. Sorry about the hijack...

rrenault
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Re: Blow-Up

#60 Post by rrenault » Fri Sep 23, 2016 6:29 am

So can a Criterion release be expected sooner rather than later?

oh yeah
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Re: Blow-Up

#61 Post by oh yeah » Fri Sep 23, 2016 8:19 am

One certainly hopes so...

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swo17
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#62 Post by swo17 » Thu Dec 15, 2016 5:03 pm

Coming in March

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Ribs
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#63 Post by Ribs » Thu Dec 15, 2016 5:05 pm

A book!

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Telstar
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#64 Post by Telstar » Thu Dec 15, 2016 5:34 pm

Man, Amazon robo-brains catch on fast. I had my blow-up dvd set to trade-in for around $4, got up to let the dog in and when I returned to push the button a minute later it was priced at 49 cents.

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Luke M
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#65 Post by Luke M » Thu Dec 15, 2016 6:20 pm

Telstar wrote:Man, Amazon robo-brains catch on fast. I had my blow-up dvd set to trade-in for around $4, got up to let the dog in and when I returned to push the button a minute later it was priced at 49 cents.
On the other hand, Amazon is pretty slow to catch MSRPs of box sets.

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Cronenfly
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#66 Post by Cronenfly » Thu Dec 15, 2016 6:59 pm

Was hoping this would be paired with Zabriskie Point, but I guess there is nothing to say that isn't coming along somewhere down the line as well.

Extras look pretty solid, quality over quantity. Guess the Brunette commentary is resigned to the same hell/limbo as the one Marc Gervais did for Persona, and I'm guessing for similar reasons.

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Never Cursed
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#67 Post by Never Cursed » Thu Dec 15, 2016 9:29 pm

What happened with the Marc Gervais commentary?

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zedz
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#68 Post by zedz » Thu Dec 15, 2016 9:34 pm

Mungo wrote:What happened with the Marc Gervais commentary?
It's like it never happened. Which is the way it should be.

oh yeah
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#69 Post by oh yeah » Thu Dec 15, 2016 9:54 pm

This made my day. I'm sure it's going to be a stunning upgrade over the (not bad-looking) DVD. Now if Criterion could just get ZP and Passenger, my life would be complete...

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Rayon Vert
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#70 Post by Rayon Vert » Fri Dec 16, 2016 12:17 am

zedz wrote:
Mungo wrote:What happened with the Marc Gervais commentary?
It's like it never happened. Which is the way it should be.
I actually like that commentary. But really glad this is getting a Criterion release anyway.

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feihong
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#71 Post by feihong » Fri Dec 16, 2016 1:29 am

Never listened to the Gervais commentary, but the Brunette commentary is one of the worst I've ever heard. I would have been happy to hear another commentary on the film, but omitting the commentary from the Warners DVD was a strong step in the direction of overall quality for the Criterion release.

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domino harvey
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#72 Post by domino harvey » Fri Dec 16, 2016 2:32 am

I must have listened to it since I saw Blow-Up early on in my serious film watching days, and I always played the commentaries back then, but I cannot remember it at all. Perhaps it is a blessing (I've certainly blocked out most of the Drew Casper and Richard Schickel comms)

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feihong
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#73 Post by feihong » Fri Dec 16, 2016 4:23 am

I think in terms of delivery and tone the Blowup commentary is comparable to a Schickel, but it has the edge for being the worst in terms of being more broadly disappointing. Brunette keeps refusing to offer any analysis of film, all the time insisting "what does it mean? it can mean anything you want it to mean. It doesn't have to mean anything" to just about every scene or isolated image he talks about within the film. But while he doesn't want to offer any analysis of the film he doesn't have any technical or production details to share either; nor does he have "behind the scenes" stories or anecdotes to spruce things up. He also occasionally has some unquestionably wrongheaded notions about what's happening in the film. He fervently insists that the first scene in the movie has no meaning. He demands we accept that no one has been able to identify the activity the actors are depicting in the sequence (he doesn't know it's a rag raid). At one point he insists the raid isn't a depiction of any concrete event at all.

Other than that, Brunette talks a lot about how he teaches the film in a course somewhere, and he leans quite a bit on how many times he's taught the movie. And he occasionally describes the action we're seeing on screen, though mostly this is limited to intermittent chuckles and comments like "he's a jerk"--referring to the David Hemmings character and whatever louche thing he's doing at that moment.

It's one of the more disappointing commentaries out there in light of the way other Antonioni films have had very well-made and illuminating commentaries. L'Avventura, L'Eclisse and Red Desert all have fine commentaries. Even the Jack Nicholson commentary on The Passenger is far more intellectually stimulating than the Blowup commentary. I remember feeling a kind of revulsion and disbelief as the realization dawned upon me just how bad this commentary was going to be. Obviously Warners didn't care what was going to be in this commentary, but given that so many people have discussed and dissected so tirelessly, it's kind of mind-boggling how little they cared what went on in the commentary.

Robin Davies
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#74 Post by Robin Davies » Fri Dec 16, 2016 2:49 pm

feihong wrote: Even the Jack Nicholson commentary on The Passenger is far more intellectually stimulating than the Blowup commentary.
The Brunette one isn't quite as bad as Nicholson's which has to be one of the worst I've ever heard. "I could tell so many stories about Antonioni". Well go on then! He only has one good anecdote and he'd already told that in his recollections on the l'Avventura release. The rest is mostly mistakes and statements of the obvious. "Still one shot... Still one shot..."

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feihong
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Re: 865 Blow-Up

#75 Post by feihong » Fri Dec 16, 2016 4:20 pm

I guess it's apples and oranges. Nicholson won me over right away with his introductory statements––"a man...comes to the desert...and he's looking for something....and that's as much of a story as Michelangelo Antonioni wants or needs"––I'm paraphrasing...but for me Nicholson's good-natured, open rambling, even if it is bereft of content, is better than Brunette's insistence that no, none of this means anything definite. There's a closure to Brunette's view of the film that really grates, so I guess that's why I hate that commentary so much. He's done with the film, and it seems to tire him––as if the commentary is only belaboring the point for him. Whereas I like to think I can at least feel Nicholson's love for the film and the experience of it, even if he doesn't get into it in the depth I wish he would.

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