denti alligator wrote:So am I, but Kino just keeps disappointing. Forget the cropping and bad PAL-to-NTSC and non-progressive, their number one offense is not providing original intertitles. That's butchering the film! I guess Shepard is to blame for a lot of the films that have this fault. But really, it's just pathetic. I don't seem to ave many supporters in this opinion, as was shown by a thread I started on the old board about this topic.
So Herr Schreck, what are some of the finest Kino releases of silents, in your opinion? I'm not sure I could name one that has fully impressed me.
By the way, I did watch Applause (not a silent, but from that era and a Kino release) on your recommendation and it was fantastic. Thanks!
Well, they've done some beautiful work this year with EDISON-- and their AVANT GARDE box is a sacred event for me for two reasons, both progressively transferred from nice prints: more Jean Epstein besides CHUTE DE LA MAISON USHER, one of my favorite films, and actually having
Dimitri Kirsanoff, including MENILMONTANT, constitutes the actual materialzation of a morning prayer for me...
Their (relatively) new transfers (vs old laserdiscs/VHS) of ROBIN HOOD, THIEF OF BAGHDAD are very nice. INTOLERANCE is by far the best on the market (but NOT their BIRTH OF A NATION)... BROKEN BLOSSOMS is quite beautiful. Of course the two-strip restoration from the actual primitive color negs of BLACK PIRATE was an event. WAXWORKS was a wonderful surprise. Since their MAN WHO LAUGHS was a composite of two prints combining an Italian print for action, and a slightly deteriorated english print for (original) intertitles, which was restored and constructed in cooperation w Universal who cleaned up the original audio specifically for them, the non progressive transfer puzzles me. This was NOT a shortcut from someone else's masters! But an otherwise beautiful release there-- that blew me away when it appeared.
Isn't APPLAUSE just absolutely amazing, Dr. Alligator? Did the return of Tony at the end feel like a last minute pick-me-up tack-on by the studio execs for a stunningly bleak ending?
dmkb wrote:denti alligator wrote:...their number one offense is not providing original intertitles...I don't seem to ave many supporters in this opinion, as was shown by a thread I started on the old board about this topic.
I think there are more people who feel this way than you know. To my mind, the restoration (sometimes reconstruction) of intertitles in the original language is one of the most important contributions of the Masters of Cinema series. That this practice hadn't even been considered until fairly recently amazes me.
Now you guys are pulling me back to an old irritation I had almost gotten over, by telling myself that even back then, foreign markets were provided simple flash intertitles, etc, from which to insert their own title cards. What Kino does now, the American studios did back then to many imports, and vice versa-- perfect example are the gorgeous hand-painted Italian intertitles made in that country for MAN WHO LAUGHS, and edited in for their own impoprt print. Everyone wound up with their own bastardized unique versions of each film.
But I always felt that each print is a snapshot in time. These are no longer contemporary releases. Title cards were an art. Nuances in translation can be studied. And nothing is more disconcerting than watching, for example, Flicker Alleys JUDEX or Shepards MABUSE DER SPIELER... you feel yourself getting good and submerged in a lost era, digging the old film stock, choosing to, as I often do when pristine prints are not available (they rarely are for silents) see the scuffs, speckling, dust, contrast flickering, etc, as the fermentation on a fine wine, contributing to the overall fine aged flavor........ then some fucking cornball Microsoft Windows font on a blindingly clear & crisply pixelated marblized background jolts you out of your time machine. Whatever print has survived is an archeological artifact that should not be doofed with. We do not redub old foreign talkies-- we prefer subtitles to preserve the integrity of the original. In this case, our 'original's are sort of arbitrary since they may not be from the country of the original release where the filmmaker worked... but it is still therefore an artifact from it's country of origin, giving the viewers an insight into how other markets handled translations & intertitles... and it preserves the age-thru-line of the viewing experience. It's not even like they do nice intertitles, or try to make them look nice. One of Sheperd's better jobs was Indian Tomb, and Les Vampires, where he dropped into the original cards
only new translated text.
I may be in a minority here but I also feel sound & image on talkies can be occasionally over-restored. I love the atmosphere granted on old films by a moderate amount of hiss & pops & crackles... again, to me, old films are like a fine wine and I like tasting the proof of their age. It adds to the experience a certain moodiness, a lost nostalgia, even a pleasant gloominess by reminding you that-- No, today is not yesterday... yesterday is gone forever, particularly in film. There's a melancholy sweet sadness, very delicious to me, in the light veneer of age, particularly on the audio track.
Since we're discussing Kino, I'll mention a DVD of their's I watch endlessly: NARCOTIC/MANIAC, the Dwain Esper "collection". Listen to the soundtrack to Narcotic-- you don't get better "old audio" adding to the mood than that.
And as to many out there who will label me a kook for loving those films, say what you want. I love em. I also have MARIHUANA WEED W ROOTS IN HELL as well as HOW TO UNDRESS IN FRONT OF YOUR HUSBAND. Esper was one unusual boy, and his wife's scripts were some of the strangest in the biz.
tryavna wrote:denti alligator wrote:So Herr Schreck, what are some of the finest Kino releases of silents, in your opinion? I'm not sure I could name one that has fully impressed me.
I'm not HerrSchreck, but have you taken a look at the three titles that make up Kino's "Erich von Stroheim Collection"? IMO, they're all pretty impressive for when they were released (2002, I believe), especially
Queen Kelly. Those three titles are about the only instance where I can't imagine any other company doing a better job -- except for perhaps making all three available in a box set, with some of the extras on a fourth disc. (But then again, I can't imagine Kino making much money on any of these titles anyway, so I can't imagine a box set being economically viable for them.)
Oh and by the way, I love the Von releases, though I would say one thing: due to the poor quality of the MoMa/AFI elements, I thought that BLIND HUSBANDS & FOOLISH WIVES (Christ that movie never gets the credit it deserves, nor does GREED, at least not anymore) could have benefited from being encoded at a higher bitrate than the 4.0-5.0mb/s rate, to give the image a bit more of a photpgraphic look and depth. Having THE GREAT GABBO & THE MAN YOU LOVED TO HATE, was a decent trade off though.
Fucking GABBO... what a hilariously odd film.
