25 Vampyr

[CSM126]

post about Shanghai Express next

Shanghai Express never got no postcard shoutouts.

[Tommaso]

This ought to count for something (note "Coming Soon: VAMPYR" at the bottom)

Coming soon on VHS, of course!

[Ledos]

Coming soon on VHS, of course!

I can't wait!

[MichaelB]

The copyright date of 2000 at the bottom of the flyer suggests that you probably shouldn't take it as gospel...

[CSM126]

That's a postcard from Criterion's wacky postcard-in-keepcase campaign, so it's more recent than 2000.

And I still believe it,

[colinr0380]

That's a postcard from Criterion's wacky postcard-in-keepcase campaign, so it's more recent than 2000.

Sadly it is not as recent as the postcards. I've got the same card in my Criterion of Passion of Joan of Arc which I bought mid-2002. The postcards thing only started in late 2005 (I've still only ever found one postcard in my Criterion purchases - in Ran - since they started doing them!). I think Criterion Dungeon only put the scans of the card in their 'Postcards' section because there wasn't any other place to put it!

I'm not sure why that one Criterion has a special advert included, but another nice touch in their Joan of Arc disc is the inclusion of a little booklet translating Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light score (as well as the original text so you can sing along in French and Latin!).

You never know though, it could be one of those long-gestating Criterions that suddenly appears once everyone has given up hope of seeing it!

[Awesome Welles]

Pre-Order at Play.com £11.99

[peerpee]

This appears to be a DVD to be released by Network. GranadaMedia are probably under the impression that they own some rights to VAMPYR, but they do not.

It should be a laugh seeing what they release.

[Tommaso]

You're right, Nick, still this gives me a feeling of unease when I think of the 'Savage Innocents' desaster. I only hope this Network release does not delay the MoC edition.

[domino harvey]

I really hope Casper Tybjerg is included somewhere on this release.

[Person]

Apparently, Criterion still plans to release Vampyr.

[Awesome Welles]

I am really glad I didn't pre-order. I did feel something was a bit fishy. Such a shame Network are making a release, God knows what they'll release. I just hope it doesn't go down the same route as The Savage Innocents. This is one of my most desired upcoming DVDs, any news on a release month/season, Nick? In time for Christmas?

[kekid]

Any estimate of when MoC might release this?

[Kinsayder]

Koerber's "Some notes on the restoration of Dreyer's Vampyr (1932)", published in English at carldreyer.com, makes interesting reading.

He answers a question that had been in my mind while watching the MK2 edition: why hadn't the restorers attempted to reinsert the two censored segments (the driving of the pole into the vampire and the suffocation of the doctor) cut from the German edition, which still exist intact in French prints of comparable quality, and which are included as extras on the MK2 disc? Presumably the MoC edition, which will use the same restoration, will be forced to adopt the same approach.

[HerrSchreck]

Thanks. This is great to finally know for sure. I am so thrilled about this release. Any extras you can divulge?

Schreck, wanna take me to one of those Vertovs at Anthology? You owe me one now!

Absolutely, completely and totally incredible that at this late date MK2 would do such an absurdly ridiculous thing like reframing such an already-abused-on-vid classic like a VAMPYR resto. Absolutely unbelievable. I know the Chaplins were fucked but this goes back a way. Somebody ACTUALLY made the decision "Yeah, these are some of the most amazing compositions in the whole century of film, and yea, we've seen pillarboxing become pretty much routine in processing film elements such as this... but fuckit... we'll just be a bunch of lazy snobs and fuck with an abused masterpiece..."

Denti, we've a date. BUT... remember all, this film exists in a variety of states, including silent versions released silent. View sonorized films like THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, SUNRISE.. films along those lines which were released in both states like VAMPYR, and you with find that these hyper-painterly cameramen & quality directors (many of whom viewed sonorization as an aberrant passing trend like hand-stencil-coloring) like Murnau & Leni and many more continuing to frame their shots in full 1.33 AOR-- the famous shot of the chopped table lamp in SUNRISE (where the city girl is lodging, the old couple is eating soup or porridge on the famously slanted table) being a prime example of a "sonorized silent" where the sound issue represents an atrophied version of the directors & cameramans original framing intent. To see the full compositions (which most have not, outside of archivists) of Struss & Rosher for Murnau, one would have to view the silent versions of the film (which exist in full, but are not distributed for home vid, except for one example from Leni which I'll mention inna minute). This was what made the Bologna restoration of Leni's masterpiece MAN WHO LAUGHS so fantastic (available on the, although nonpreconverted, very nice, Kino disc), as they did an exclusively digital restoration.... transferring the fullframe unchopped silent film elements via telecine, and joining them with the sonorization tracks from the visually atrophied prints with synch-sound (the film, like SUNRISE, VAMPYR and so many other glorious masterpieces from this transition period, was released in both silent and sound versions) to come up with a "dream" version the filmmakers could not have produced at the time... fullframe and with sound. One can see the uncorrupted beauty of these images.

The question for me was what kind of restoration was going to be done... and also, whether or not Dreyer and Mate framed their film for a more-visually-glorious silent version that would simply, a la similar sonorized silents, lose a bit off the left edge during sonorization. This mentality was not uncommon-- with no control over the audio mood-setting in the totally silent version, they would shoot so that the silent version would have the advantage of being more visually rapturous & poetic, whereas the sound version would lose a bit visually but they would have total control of mood on the sonic plane. This was apparently the trade-off these high-art directors felt made sense. The process of home video transfers and telcine frame-in on old sound elements to blow them back up to full 1.33 (as done so sinfully w Clair & Chaplin et al), and the use of anamorphic lenses (whereby cinematographers regularly ignore the 1.33 boundaries of a viewfinder or vid feed in the directors tent during set-ups) over the past few decades has led to the possibly mistaken belief that these early half-silent/half-sound semi-silents from the transition period were downframed within the viewfinder to compensate the later add-on of the sonic strip for the quantity of sonorized prints. Certainly it was done, but even in some askew compositions from the early sound era (folks strangely to the left of compositions, chopped pieces of furniture) in releases that were FULLY SONORIZED (in other words, releases that were totally dialog driven and had no fully silent release in non-wired theaters) one can see that some cinematographers were shooting as they always did, and let fate take it's course during sonorization process. We do see early sound masters like Lang & Von Stern & Pabst getting in the saddle very quickly and mastering the frame-down within the viewfinder process of left-edge compensation, to produce those 1.19 images we love so much. But remember, even in some of our beloved classics like SUNRISE & MAN WHO LAUGHS-- and possibly VAMPYR, when we view pillarboxed, we are watching what the director considered to be, in visual terms, a second best version of his work. Silent houses got the better image but no soundtrack, and wired houses got a slightly atrophied 1.19 image, but the whistles & bells of the synch soundtrack. Whether or not Dreyer and Mate considered the silent version of VAMP to be the complete visual record of their compositional intentions--- or simply one with a lopsided bit of extra visual data on the left because they shot it giving the sonorized version priority and therefore advance-compensated the framing to 1.19 in the viewfinder-- I simply don't know. I do know that in spirit and technique (and his last prior experience, ie JOAN) he most resembled those Germanic filmmakers still clinging to the painterly, hypervisual qualities of their style, downplaying sonorization & dialog as a passing trend which sucked the "art" out of their Art. The sonic technique of VAMPYR does of course seem to reflect this sensibility, as well. (As does the desire to ideally not even want a score on JOAN... i e completely silent theater). It would be another decade before he created a dialog driven feature. Yet, whether or not one can construe from this that the fullframe nonsonorized prints of VAMP are the "true" ones reflecting his visual intention a la SUNRISE & MAN WHO..., that's a leap I just can't make. Where this leaves us today, in attempting a "definitive" resto of this already-problematic film (what language, etc?.. not to mention a limited number of workable elements to create a composite from).... I just don't know.

But doing what MK2 did and zooming in the transfer "gate" and removing image from a pillarboxed print... that's about as bad as it gets, in this day & age for sure. Kudos to you Nick. Keep up the fantastic work.

Dent, I'm traveling this upcoming week, but we'll hang in Sept for sure.

PS: yes, that insert from CC about VAMP is old, before the snag was hit. It's from the old VHS/HVe days.

[kekid]

PS: yes, that insert from CC about VAMP is old, before the snag was hit. It's from the old VHS/HVe days.

Hello, HerrShreck. I am not sure what you are referring to as "CC insert", but if it refers to Criterion's intention to release Vampyr, it is based on a response I got from Tamara within (roughly) last four weeks.

[HerrSchreck]

PS: yes, that insert from CC about VAMP is old, before the snag was hit. It's from the old VHS/HVe days.

Hello, HerrShreck. I am not sure what you are referring to as "CC insert", but if it refers to Criterion's intention to release Vampyr, it is based on a response I got from Tamara within (roughly) last four weeks.

Someone did me a solid and linked my mention of what was an insert CC included in their original printings of Dreyer's JOAN from about 5 or 6 yrs ago, advertising VAMP as "Coming Soon". They obviously hit a snag, and according to Kline -- years ago -- the title was taken off the "imminent" table. Thats what I was talking about, as some folks must have recently bought JOAN, got an old printing from a dusty store shelf, saw the old flyer in their case, and thought the card was new. It's not.

Yet coincidentally, they acquired the card just as CC- - according to your stated confirmation -- acquired the rights to the new Danish hi-def transfer of the resto. I'm not doubting it's coming (or the veracity of your confirmation), and am frankly pissing my clothes with total joy.

Dave -- sorry to bore you, but Dent & I are a coupla immutable hets.

[Steven H]

Dave -- sorry to bore you, but Dent & I are a coupla immutable hets.

So!! You still didn't say if you'd spring for the airfare!!

If you guys got together, I'd say "take a shot every time the word 'Gremillon' is uttered". You'd all end up in the bay.

[bollibasher]

From IMDB message boards:

VanRippestein (Fri Aug 31 2007 03:46:02)

hey everyone!
check this out (it a mail i sent to Eureka MoC):

Dear Sir/Madam,

On your website I see that you're planning to release Vampyr by Dreyer. I'm looking forward to this release. Is there a release date set for this title?

Hiya

This will not be released before March 2008.

Best Wishes

Ron Benson

[domino harvey]

too late for Halloween, but right in time for a spooky St. Patrick's Day

[HerrSchreck]

[Tommaso]

looks like #40 and #50 are not on the MOC catalogue page, being updated as I type?)

Disturbing, considering #50 was to be "Vampyr" and #41 is also gone. I hope it works out like this:

#40/41 Nibelungen (as it's two films actually)
#49 Frau im Mond
#50 Vampyr

[Awesome Welles]

I hope that there are no problems with Vampyr (perhaps with Network? Let's hope not another Savage Innocents fiasco).

I've always suspected that Nick has a liking for grouping films of directors on consecutive spines (see the Muranu's, Mizoguchi's, Shindo's and Mayseles') let's hope that this is merely a reordering of spines.

[Tommaso]

Incidentally, the various announcements of a Network disc of "Vampyr" on various retailers' sites disappeared a while ago. So that gave me hope again.

[peerpee]

We're deciding what to do about digital restoration of VAMPYR. It's cost a lot for us to get this far and we can't afford to lavish a full-on NOSFERATU job on it. So we're faced with releasing what MK2 released (except properly rendered in 1.19:1), or sitting on it a while longer, trying to restore it.

The bottom line is that, if we're talking Criterion or Warner USA levels of restoration quality -- VAMPYR needs a new film restoration. This restoration we have now (the Koerber one) is 1999 and involved duping original film elements to create the film restoration. Throwing money at polishing that up, is a bit of a waste when we think it could look even nicer with a new film restoration using more modern techniques (that have only come to light in the last 5 years).

We are toying with the idea of releasing it soon, with no digital restoration. We'd be interested to hear everyone's thoughts.