Murnau, Borzage and Fox
- HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
Such faith and dedication can only be applauded, especially when coming from the most unlikely of the big studios (save Universal, maybe) for putting out product like this. In the era of Ape Heads and Paramount Suitcases (or whatever the hell) Fox earned beaucoup respect on this & the Ford box (even with that cringe-inducing Becoming John Ford doc).
The head of Warner Brother's silents holdings should fucking intern for Feldstein for a month. Maybe some magic pixie dust'll rub off. Dolts.
The head of Warner Brother's silents holdings should fucking intern for Feldstein for a month. Maybe some magic pixie dust'll rub off. Dolts.
- zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
So, now that we know that Fox's motivations are supererogatory, what's on the cards for 2010?
Can we hope for Raoul Walsh at Fox? A quick IMDB check shows a rich vein of late silents / early sound films, including the original What Price Glory and the highly regarded The Bowery (plus the irresistably-titled Me, Gangster from 1928). I think the only title already available from this period is The Big Trail. Then there are a handful of films from the end of his career: The Tall Men, Revolt of Mamie Stover, A Private's Affair and Marines, Let's Go!. There are potentially twenty or so titles eligible for inclusion.
Other contenders?
Can we hope for Raoul Walsh at Fox? A quick IMDB check shows a rich vein of late silents / early sound films, including the original What Price Glory and the highly regarded The Bowery (plus the irresistably-titled Me, Gangster from 1928). I think the only title already available from this period is The Big Trail. Then there are a handful of films from the end of his career: The Tall Men, Revolt of Mamie Stover, A Private's Affair and Marines, Let's Go!. There are potentially twenty or so titles eligible for inclusion.
Other contenders?
- Jeff
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:49 pm
- Location: Denver, CO
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
That would be George Feltenstein. Feltenstein would intern for Feldstein.HerrSchreck wrote:The head of Warner Brother's silents holdings should fucking intern for Feldstein for a month. Maybe some magic pixie dust'll rub off. Dolts.
- HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
And the guy who wrote the Variety piece-- MERMELSTEIN (who filled Ehrenstein's shoes)-- will write about it.
So many steins I feel like I'm in a Bavarian dishwasher.
So many steins I feel like I'm in a Bavarian dishwasher.
-
- Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2007 8:29 pm
- Location: Los Angeles CA
- Contact:
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
Went to high school with David Mermelstein. i think I owe him an email.
- ola t
- They call us neo-cinephiles
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 4:51 am
- Location: Malmo, Sweden
Re: Where's My Murnau, Borzage and Fox?
Well, apparently not. The reservation has expired and they haven't charged me, nor shipped anything. Sorry for the false alarm.ola t wrote:Barnes & Noble made a reservation on my Visa card today, and the amount matches what I ordered this for. Are they going to ship it this early?
- HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
(Holds chest, heaving, head bobbing with with eyes wide)
Phew. Don't do that to me you hear? Was getting all psyched up over here...
Phew. Don't do that to me you hear? Was getting all psyched up over here...
- HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
Somebody just sent me caps from LUCKY STAR that are so beautiful I hadta change my pants afterwards. Furchrissakes this set may burn down even EDISON & UNSEEN CINEMA for "DVD of the Ages".
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
Get thee to a urologist
- HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
That's not the GIST of it.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
Oh man, you have gastrointestinal syndromic tendencies too?
- carax09
- Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:22 am
- Location: This almost empty gin palace
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
The urologist can wait, get thee to the Screen Captures thread!
- HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
Well.. we may be Going Into Something Trichinal... get it, silly tad?domino harvey wrote:Oh man, you have gastrointestinal syndromic tendencies too?
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- Joined: Wed Oct 25, 2006 10:14 am
Beaver review
DVD Beaver
Looks like the "European silent version" of Sunrise might be a new transfer.
Gordon Thomas
Looks like the "European silent version" of Sunrise might be a new transfer.
Gordon Thomas
- Tommaso
- Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
Oh well... looks like that European silent version of "Sunrise" has Czech (?) intertitles... okay, okay, faithful to the artefact, but YELLOW subs??
Much worse is this:
PLEASE NOT!!
Hell, Gary lives just around the corner from Fox, but they have to send this thing to me around half the globe...
Otherwise, it looks as stunning as expected...
Much worse is this:
PLEASE NOT AGAIN!The Beaver wrote:Not unlike Ford at Fox from last year the discs come in a large binder but, for mine specifically speaking, in transit a number of the holders were torn and 5 of the 12 discs were not in their place-holders.
PLEASE NOT!!
Hell, Gary lives just around the corner from Fox, but they have to send this thing to me around half the globe...
Otherwise, it looks as stunning as expected...
- HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
Canada aint around the corner from LA, though not as far from Germany.
- Tommaso
- Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
Depends on where you are in Canada, but mocking and joking aside: I really hoped they had learned from the Ford packaging desaster, but it looks otherwise. I'm only glad that Gary doesn't report about severely scratched or even unplayable discs. I'm not normally a packaging fetishist, really, but the talk about torn holders and loose discs worries me in this case. Somehow I see this set as a sort of 'Gesamtkunstwerk'...
- denti alligator
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:36 pm
- Location: "born in heaven, raised in hell"
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
That European vs of Sunrise looks much, much sharper. Too bad it's cropped and has Czech intertitles.
- arsonfilms
- Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2005 12:53 pm
- Location: Philadelphia, PA
- Contact:
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
It is a mild let down, of course... but I'll still be czeching it out anyway.denti alligator wrote:That European vs of Sunrise looks much, much sharper. Too bad it's cropped and has Czech intertitles.
- HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
Odd how cropped it is.. it looks like a sonorized print has been sonorized again. I mean the prints we already see are LH cropped-- are these double cropped?denti alligator wrote:That European vs of Sunrise looks much, much sharper. Too bad it's cropped and has Czech intertitles.
- fdm
- Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2006 1:25 pm
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
Might just have to give Amazon a try just to see how much this gets massacred in transit...Tommaso wrote:Much worse is this:PLEASE NOT AGAIN!The Beaver wrote: Not unlike Ford at Fox from last year the discs come in a large binder but, for mine specifically speaking, in transit a number of the holders were torn and 5 of the 12 discs were not in their place-holders.
PLEASE NOT!!
(Hope Costco gets it...)
- Tommaso
- Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
Hmm, looking at that Czech print again, I'm not really sure whether it's so much sharper, I'd say it's brighter and thus might appear more detailed (look at the beard stubbles). Have to see this in motion of course, but the cropping is worrying me in any case. If this is representative of the whole film, I think I'll stick to the good old movietone version.
- HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
The strange thing is the Czech print is supposedly 1.37, and the Movietone is appropriately pillarboxed to 1.19.
Looking at the caps, shapewise, this is true mathematically (the ratio of Gary's Czech cap is 1.333333333etc).
If they're taken at the exact same point in the film, then it may be that the Czech print was taken from a neg which came out of another camera that was taking the actors from just a little bit more over to the right vs the camera that shot the neg that was cropped for the Movietone optical strip. If you look at Margaret Livinstone's back you not only see all of it (which you dont see in the 1.19 print) but you see the swamp reeds/open space behind her.
But yet at the same time her hands are cropped, the bottom of the picture is cropped, etc. And Livingstone's figure is far larger in the Czech than in the movietone. The question I guess is whether or not this is due to a different camera being placed closer to the actors, or this print is artifically zoomed in in telecine.
Looking at the caps, shapewise, this is true mathematically (the ratio of Gary's Czech cap is 1.333333333etc).
If they're taken at the exact same point in the film, then it may be that the Czech print was taken from a neg which came out of another camera that was taking the actors from just a little bit more over to the right vs the camera that shot the neg that was cropped for the Movietone optical strip. If you look at Margaret Livinstone's back you not only see all of it (which you dont see in the 1.19 print) but you see the swamp reeds/open space behind her.
But yet at the same time her hands are cropped, the bottom of the picture is cropped, etc. And Livingstone's figure is far larger in the Czech than in the movietone. The question I guess is whether or not this is due to a different camera being placed closer to the actors, or this print is artifically zoomed in in telecine.
- ola t
- They call us neo-cinephiles
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 4:51 am
- Location: Malmo, Sweden
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
David Pierce wrote this on the BFI website in 2004 (archive.org link):
We need more comparison caps. If the European version is all second-camera footage, then all shots should look different in slightly different ways. There would be a mixture of shots that go closer and shots that go wider.The film survives in two versions - the American and European release editions. Sunrise was filmed as a silent, and the commercial need to add a Movietone soundtrack blocked a portion of the left side of the image, placing the compositions slightly off-balance. The European release of Sunrise was silent, so the image was intact. However, this edition used footage filmed by a second camera from slightly different angles, and the editing of the shots was different.
- Tommaso
- Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am
Re: Murnau, Borzage and Fox
In that case, is there any way to determine which was Murnau's preferred version/edit? In the case of "Faust", it seems that the 'best' footage went into the German version, while 'lesser' takes were used for the export versions. With "Sunrise" being an American film, the situation is the reverse of course, i.e. one would assume that the definitive version is the Movietone edit. That doesn't mean of course that the European version is just a curiosity. If indeed vastly different, it will probably be a great pleasure to see this alternative and its differences.