Filmedition Suhrkamp

[accatone]

Respectable German book publishing house Suhrkamp will release several very interesting films on DVD (this has already been posted elsewhere but due to the quality of releases i think it deserves its own thread). Find the first releases here.

On Die Welt online it's said that Chantal Ackerman, Pierre Bourdieu & Romuald Karmakar among others will (hopefully) be future releases in this edition.

Chantal Akerman, Pierre Bourdieu, Ödön von Horváth, Romuald Karmakar und Christa Wolf stehen schon in der Warteschleife.

[Tommaso]

I hope they will not only publish great authors, but foremost great films in that collection. Of course "Kuhle Wampe" and the Beckett films are a great way to start; not entirely sure about the other ones, honestly.

But given that they are the German publishers of James Joyce: it would be a real treat if they could give us a definitive edition of Huston's "The Dead" or would unearth a print of Mary Ellen Bute's "Passages from Finnegans Wake".

[accatone]

there are some serious first time releases so i am not sure about your doubts here??? However, to each his own..

edit: by the way, there is much more on their roster than Joyce - however i would not expect much on what you probably mean by "great films" i.e. classic fiction cinema but actually think the contrary that this could be a wonderfull addition to the big TV/Film studio release companys. In fact it was just a matter of time that (book) publishing houses start releasing DVDs and here are high hopes that these quality (if) houses give niche releases the treatment that they deserve. Who but them has the power and rights to supply further infos, booklets etcetera - something that might be not too usefull for a Hollywood fiction film but could be an essential addition for more analytical, documentary or even essayistic films. (that would be "Great", in my opinion)

[accatone]

Kluges Kapital premiered in Munich yesterday - some obvious Pro & obvious Contras.

Both are German newspapers (leftist newspapers if you want . . .) I am looking forward to the DVD!

[accatone]

No subs / Nice packaging / No Drama.

Just watched the first disc and some minutes of the second one - and can say that this is probably only for the TV film lovers of Kluges work (whatever that means…). On the first disc there is plenty of intertiteling (the typografie is, as most of the time, quite boring (tautologies on masse) in my opinin as a professional graphic designer as opposed to the great use of image and sound and even the texts - but the form of the text…uhhhhh). There are very interesting interviews regarding the background of Marx, Eisenstein and even a little Joyce and how these 3 got/fit together. As far as the form of this film is so open (Joyce) its really difficult to point out certain phrases and images - plus, i just watched disc 1 yet…

[Tommaso]

Some comments on the brand-new "Kuhle Wampe":

First: no subs on everything on the package. Second: the print used is in pretty rough shape with all the usual suspects: dirt, debris and some highly visible tramlines. I guess that was to be expected given the troubled history of the film, and I'm sure this is the best we will get for a while, barring a major restoration. Of course it's still the version as cut by the censors, i.e. central speeches are missing and even a whole plot point (the abortion) is hard to fully understand unless you knew about it before. But here again: the cut bits seem to be lost, unless someone at the Film Archive of Ulan-Bator finds a complete print....

Transfer itself seems to be good, though sharpness and clarity are very variable (all print issues, of course). No print issue is the slight edge enhancement, and the fact that again a German label got the aspect ratio wrong when releasing an early German sound film: this should be 1.19, but of course again it is transferred here in 1.33. The chopped heads don't occur as often as in other films with the same problem, and generally even with the tight framing it looks alright, but I wonder why it is apparently so difficult to get that elusive 1.19 right ?

Extras are very fine: a short documentary silent (indeed without music) by Dudow from 1930, and a 60 minute documentary about the censorship of the film, made by East German TV in 1975. That's a funny one: they actually 're-staged' the censorship proceedings with actors and even re-filmed the censored nude bathing scene with 1970s-looking people (which made me laugh out loud). Some interviews with cast and crew members at the end, too, and all in all a quite informative extra.

Best extra, though, is the 60-page booklet with a very illuminating essay on Brecht's filmic aesthetics, the making and reception of the film, some photos, some texts by Brecht himself and finally a contemporary review of "Kuhle" by Kracauer (and for once he has something useful to say). Great, clearly an MoC-style effort. But again, all in German, of course.

So, if you understand German, I would consider this a must-have, despite the wrong AOR. It's a very important film despite some flaws, and a good chance to see the amazing Hertha Thiele again.

[razumovsky]

This is my first post on the forum, though I have been dropping by to read posts for a while now. I finally decided to join to sing the praises of the Filmedition Suhrkamp edition of Samuel Beckett television works for SDR. It's a stunning collection, but one reason it hasn't received the attention it deserves may be that it has been rather confusingly advertised. Even the packaging does not give a clear account of what is on the disc, so I thought it would be useful to post a quick resume. It is divided into two sections, the first of which (1966-1977) includes Eh Joe (1966) and Schatten, which itself encompasses Not I, ..but the clouds..., and Ghost Trio. The second section (1979-1986) includes Eh Joe (1979), Quad 1 and 2, Nacht and Traume, and What Where. I've not seen all of these yet (it's not a disc to be rushed!), but I can report that the version of Not I is the famous production featuring Billie Whitelaw, directed by Beckett, and is in English. The other films are in German, without translation, though in many of the films, dialogue is sparse or (in Quad), non-existent. Only extras are a contemporary introduction to Eh Joe (1966) by an unnamed man in a bow tie, and essays in the booklet by Gilles Deleuze and Dietmar Kammerer (both in German only), plus some nice photos of Beckett at work. I ordered my copy through Amazon.de, and, with postage to the UK, it knocked me back £23.51. I consider this a bargain, because this stuff is absolutely priceless. I already consider it one of the finest DVDs I own. There's a lot more I could say about this, but I'll stop there unless anybody has any questions they'd like me to answer.

[razumovsky]

Okay, my first post coincides with my first mistake. The version of Not I on the Beckett disc was in fact directed by Anthony Page, albeit with Beckett's assistance. It was not directed by Beckett himself. As far as I'm aware, all the other films in the set were directed by Sam himself.

[accatone]

After reading the great Der mensch erschien im Holozän/Man in the holocene a while ago (by Max Frisch) i just found out that this wonderfull story was actually put onto film by Manfrad Eicher (ECM) and Heinz Bütler:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0128255/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Expecting a lot from image and sound due to Eicher…i was not disappointed. There is very little spoken text and you should read the book anyway - before you watch the DVD which unfortunatly has no subtitles…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIs_ksM-sLI" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[denti alligator]

Thanks for that link. I think Der Mensch erscheint... is Frisch's masterpiece. A book everyone should read.