Roberto Rossellini: The War Trilogy

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Dr Amicus
Joined: Thu Feb 15, 2007 10:20 am
Location: Guernsey

Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#51 Post by Dr Amicus » Wed Apr 01, 2015 6:37 am

Mine arrived today, number 282. Packaging small, with 2 overlapping discs and 1 on its own.

beeton_up
Joined: Wed Apr 01, 2015 12:26 pm

Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#52 Post by beeton_up » Wed Apr 01, 2015 12:40 pm

Anyone have pictures of the set(would like to know if it'll fit through letter box)

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TMDaines
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:01 pm
Location: Stretford, Manchester

Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#53 Post by TMDaines » Wed Apr 01, 2015 3:28 pm

It's the same shape and size as the Robbe-Grillet set. Nice and compact, although I have requested a replacement as mine arrived squashed.

beeton_up
Joined: Wed Apr 01, 2015 12:26 pm

Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#54 Post by beeton_up » Wed Apr 01, 2015 3:53 pm

Thanks, I was hoping it would be like that,I've got the robbe grillet as well as the Kurosawa so will fit well with the collection :-)

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rohmerin
Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 10:36 am
Location: Spain

Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#55 Post by rohmerin » Mon Apr 06, 2015 3:39 am

Mine has arrived perfectly. Nice box.

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ellipsis7
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:56 pm
Location: Dublin

Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#56 Post by ellipsis7 » Thu Apr 09, 2015 7:09 am

After a rather roundabout route (UPS missorted & misdirected it along the way) have this set in hand... A complete game changer insofar as, apart from their copious excellent extras, it renders the Criterion set pretty much redundant feature-wise... The BFI BluRays present a positively visceral range of imagery that will be hard to beat...

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#57 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Apr 16, 2015 3:11 pm


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Oedipax
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 8:48 am
Location: Atlanta

Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#58 Post by Oedipax » Fri Apr 17, 2015 10:08 pm

Mine's 2695 - I don't think I pre-ordered it particularly early on in its availability, so they might be about out of them.

Looking forward to seeing all the films again - I saw the Open City resto theatrically in Paris last year and, while still retaining the source material's inherent roughness, it looked beautiful. And what a film!

I'm especially keen to see Germany Year Zero in halfway-decent shape.

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domino harvey
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Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#59 Post by domino harvey » Fri Apr 17, 2015 10:44 pm

david hare wrote:Absolute no brainer, even if you already have the Criterion box. This replicates essentially all the extras from that set including Tag's Video essay Into the Future, and the booklet essay material is equally copious.
I do not dispute that the BFI Blu-ray box by all accounts appears to be a great set, but it certainly does not replicate essentially all the extras. Here are the on-disc extras exclusive to Criterion:
• Video introductions by Roberto Rossellini to all three films, from 1963
• New video interviews with Rossellini scholar Adriano Aprà, film critic and Rossellini friend Father Virgilio Fantuzzi, and filmmakers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani
• Audio commentary on Rome Open City by film scholar Peter Bondanella
• Once Upon a Time . . . “Rome Open City,” a 2006 documentary on the making of this historic film, featuring rare archival material and footage of Anna Magnani, Federico Fellini, Ingrid Bergman, and many others
• Rossellini and the City, a new visual essay by film scholar Mark Shiel on Rossellini’s use of the urban landscape in the War Trilogy
• Excerpts from rarely seen videotaped discussions Rossellini had in 1970 with faculty and students at Rice University about his craft
• Roberto Rossellini, a 2001 documentary by Carlo Lizzani, assistant director on Germany Year Zero, tracing Rossellini’s career through archival footage and interviews with family members and collaborators, with tributes by filmmakers François Truffaut and Martin Scorsese
• Letters from the Front: Carlo Lizzani on “Germany Year Zero,” a podium discussion with Lizzani from the 1987 Tutto Rossellini conference
• Roberto and Roswitha, a new illustrated essay by film scholar Thomas Meder on Rossellini’s relationship with his mistress Roswitha Schmidt

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mistakaninja
Joined: Thu Aug 15, 2013 5:15 pm

Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#60 Post by mistakaninja » Sat Apr 18, 2015 10:05 am

The numbers are no indication of remaining stock. I only ordered from Amazon yesterday, and received 0273 today.

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FrauBlucher
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
Location: Greenwich Village

Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#61 Post by FrauBlucher » Sun Apr 19, 2015 5:53 pm


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manicsounds
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:58 pm
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#62 Post by manicsounds » Mon Apr 20, 2015 12:33 am

Question: In "Paisan" during the scene 97 minutes in when the American Revered is defending the Jewish and Protestant chaplains, there seems to be a jump cut, with 2 background characters suddenly disappearing. Was this always present? Was it on the Criterion DVD or other previous editions?

sabbath
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Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#63 Post by sabbath » Mon Apr 20, 2015 1:27 am

manicsounds wrote:Question: In "Paisan" during the scene 97 minutes in when the American Revered is defending the Jewish and Protestant chaplains, there seems to be a jump cut, with 2 background characters suddenly disappearing. Was this always present? Was it on the Criterion DVD or other previous editions?
I just checked out my Criterion DVD and there was the jump cut. Doesn't seem like an "error" to me, just a possible mistake when making a movie with lots of improvisation and limited resources like Rossellini did.

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Thornycroft
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Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#64 Post by Thornycroft » Wed Apr 22, 2015 7:32 pm

The only lazy error I've noticed in an otherwise sterling release is the copy-pasting of subtitles from the restoration info preceding Rome, Open City onto the other films. Consequently, all the films in the set are stated as having been restored from the original picture and sound negatives, when the text on screen and in the booklet says otherwise. It wouldn't be a huge issue, except a number of reviewers (including both Gary at DVDBeaver and Dr. Svet at Blu-Ray.com) have quoted the incorrect titles directly when talking about the restorations.

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manicsounds
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Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#65 Post by manicsounds » Wed Apr 22, 2015 9:05 pm

blu-ray.com on "Germany Year Zero"
Seemily skipped over "Paisan" and went to disc three?

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tenia
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Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#66 Post by tenia » Thu Apr 23, 2015 2:13 am

manicsounds wrote:blu-ray.com on "Germany Year Zero"
Seemily skipped over "Paisan" and went to disc three?
Maybe Svet had only time for the shorter movie ?

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PfR73
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:07 pm

Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#67 Post by PfR73 » Thu May 12, 2016 2:35 pm

I watched through this whole set this weekend, my first time seeing any Rossellini film. Reading about the films afterwards, IMDb states that a longer, 134 minute version of Paisan was restored & screened in 1998. I found this article on Adriano Apra's website that details the differences and confirms the longer restoration played at the 1998 Venice Film Festival. He makes the case that the cuts to the 125 minute version were made by Rossellini, so I can understand maintaining that as the official version, but does anyone know why the longer version hasn't been included by Criterion or BFI as an additional, alternate version? Especially since between Criterion & BFI, we've been given alternate versions of all 3 of the major Bergman/Rossellini films.
Last edited by PfR73 on Sat Nov 19, 2016 5:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Orlac
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Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#68 Post by Orlac » Sat Nov 19, 2016 6:48 am

Gamma looks off on "Rome Open City" but not the other two titles.

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tubal
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 8:52 am
Location: Zürich, Switzerland

Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#69 Post by tubal » Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:45 pm

Was waiting for a Criterion blu-ray set of these but finally decided to buy the BFI set to replace my Criterion DVD set. Couldn't turn down the bargain price on Zavvi:
http://www.zavvi.com/blu-ray/the-rossel ... 40688.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


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George Kaplan
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Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#70 Post by George Kaplan » Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:12 pm

PfR73 wrote:... does anyone know why the longer version hasn't been included by Criterion or BFI as an additional, alternate version? Especially since between Criterion & BFI, we've been given alternate versions of all 3 of the major Bergman/Rossellini films.
My understanding (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), is that, as you pointed out, the shorter 125-minute version of PAISA is Rossellini's "final cut" of the film; whereas the alternate versions of the Bergman titles are different cuts with different soundtracks (i.e Italian- and English-language versions) individually created for different markets.

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George Kaplan
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Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#71 Post by George Kaplan » Tue Jan 24, 2017 5:23 pm

Image

PfR73, Tag Gallagher's "The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini: His Life and Films" is an excellent book in many ways. It is an particularly useful resource with regard to the issue you raise, namely the alternate versions of Rossellini's films. There are many! and Gallagher clarifies with specificity each distinction and its particular variations.

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ellipsis7
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Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#72 Post by ellipsis7 » Wed Jan 25, 2017 4:01 am

Elena Dagrada's LE VARIANTI TRASPARENTI is the comprehensive study & reference point (in 544 pages) for the various versions of the Rossellini-Bergman films...

Image

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TMDaines
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Re: Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#73 Post by TMDaines » Wed Jan 25, 2017 6:16 am

Her DVD extra for Europa '51 is good. The only thing I know about the book is that Tag Gallagher felt that he was plagarised after assisting her, but not getting any mention.

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hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
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Re: Roberto Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#74 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Feb 16, 2017 2:32 am

Revisited Open City on this great set. I don't think I've ever seen it in better quality, which gave me a laugh. When I was a budding, teenage cinephile get acquainted with world cinema at the same time I was learning to drive, I was under the false impression that Open City had been shot only with discarded film stock that had been meant for the military (i.e. for combat and field photography, meaning something that had to be quick and easy to expose). With this in mind, I first saw this movie on a VHS tape from my high school library, one that undoubtedly had a terrible transfer from questionable sources, but interpreted it as the look of the original film. So the high contrast crushed blacks, gritty and crummy detail and texture, etc. all of these fed into a belief that this film had to be shot like a rough wartime documentary, and it wound up enhancing the experience to a large degree. I never thought a narrative film could be done like this! So this is realism! Well, no, because like Bicycle Thieves (which I also saw on a VHS tape from my high school library, this time videotaped from a 16mm film projection!), I eventually saw a good presentation and was startled by how "polished" they really looked. (For starters, the greater clarity made it obvious that so much was shot on studio sets.) Makes perfect sense now though - no way a theatrical distributor would've taken Open City if it looked that bad, and indeed in its true, not-as-rough-as-I-thought form, it had been rejected by a number of distributors for this very reason.

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TMDaines
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Re: Roberto Rossellini: The War Trilogy

#75 Post by TMDaines » Thu Feb 16, 2017 5:00 am

Roma città aperta probably as much bullshit surrounding its production than any film in history.

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