Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

Discuss internationally-released DVDs and Blu-rays or other international DVD and Blu-ray-related topics.
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BradStevens
Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2006 1:39 pm
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#101 Post by BradStevens » Wed Feb 01, 2012 1:24 pm

I've asked a friend who is more technologically savvy than me to put some of the missing sections up on YouTube. Will let you know when this happens.

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bigP
Joined: Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:59 am
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#102 Post by bigP » Wed Feb 01, 2012 1:29 pm

J Adams wrote:Did they really expect TA to sit through the whole thing to make sure it was all there? Not all directors are finicky (if you will) about their DVDs.
For what it's worth, here's a quote from the excellent Theo Angelopoulos Sight and Sound article this month, which appears to verify that Angelopoulos' watching of The Hunters in a "director approved" authority seems very unlikely.
David Jenkins for Sight and Sound wrote:Speaking to the 76-year-old Angelopoulos over the phone from his production office in Athens, I am impressed that all his films remain indelibly etched on his memory, even though he insists that he never watches them once they have been completed.
Certainly not a statement set in stone, but given how recently this interview went into publication, I would have assumed he may have mentioned re-watching some or all of his works if this had indeed happened.

Perkins Cobb
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:49 pm

Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#103 Post by Perkins Cobb » Wed Feb 01, 2012 1:47 pm

What a colossal clusterf*ck.

Hail_Cesar
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2008 7:20 pm

Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#104 Post by Hail_Cesar » Wed Feb 01, 2012 2:28 pm

James43 wrote:
Stefan Andersson wrote:The Swiss Hunters DVD runs 143 mins. according to the German-language site OFDB. The site seems very useful when searching for German film/DVD facts.
I own this dvd and definitely runs 168 minutes.
Wo kann ich diese kaufen?

J Adams
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2009 12:28 pm

Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#105 Post by J Adams » Wed Feb 01, 2012 3:00 pm

It can be kaufened here.

Ishmael
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:56 pm

Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#106 Post by Ishmael » Wed Feb 01, 2012 3:54 pm

BradStevens wrote:I know that Monte Hellman approved the Anchor Bay transfer of IGUANA, and even sat through the entire film while recording his commentary track, but failed to notice that a crucial scene had accidentally been left out.
What happened in the scene that was cut? I have the Anchor Bay disc, and I've never noticed anything suspicious about it, but then again, I've never seen the film in any other way.

Hail_Cesar
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#107 Post by Hail_Cesar » Wed Feb 01, 2012 4:38 pm

J Adams wrote:It can be kaufened here.
Tack!

BradStevens
Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2006 1:39 pm
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#108 Post by BradStevens » Wed Feb 01, 2012 5:19 pm

As promised, here's some YouTube links to a few of the scenes missing from the UK DVD of THE HUNTERS: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Ishmael wrote:What happened in the scene that was cut? I have the Anchor Bay disc, and I've never noticed anything suspicious about it, but then again, I've never seen the film in any other way.
The cut occurs 40m 26s in. It's the scene in which Oberlus introduces himself to Carmen. In the film, Carmen and Diego, the man who accompanied her to the island, are knocked unconscious by Oberlus, and wake up to find themselves in a cave. Diego disappears from the DVD version at this point. In the missing scene, Diego wander off into the darkness and is killed by Oberlus, who then tells Carmen "Diego is gone, Carmen. You have no one to turn to but me. My name is Oberlus, and I'm king of Hood Island. Those who obey me live, and those who don't die. And death is not the worst punishment I can inflict. If you keep our home clean and open your legs when I order you to, I guarantee you a life of peace for as long as you please me. Now it's time for you to receive your husband and king. Lie down and spread your legs".

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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#109 Post by zedz » Wed Feb 01, 2012 6:31 pm

J Adams wrote:In addition, I would argue that the AE "print damage" argument is a lie, just based on the shortening of the blackout scene.
Being charitable, a possible explanation is that there were two prints available, of different edits, but the longer print had some damage, so they went with the shorter, undamaged, edit. Of course, the best - and most costly - solution would have been to use the shorter edit and augment it with whatever scenes were recoverable from the longer print. But for that I guess we're going to have to wait (a very long time) for a proper restoration.

Thanks, Brad, for facilitating the upload of those missing scenes!

J Adams
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2009 12:28 pm

Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#110 Post by J Adams » Wed Feb 01, 2012 6:59 pm

IMDB says this film is 168 minutes and it didn't appear to be that hard to find the missing footage (which all looks quite good on youtube). AE presumably didn't even try.

Still glad they put these sets out, of course.

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#111 Post by Stefan Andersson » Thu Feb 02, 2012 3:34 am

James43: thanks for verifying the length of the Trigon edition.

J Adams: does the Chinese DVD of The Hunters look worse than the YouTube excerpts? If it is watchable, then it´s an affordable alternative to the Swiss DVD box.

The French DVD of The Hunters (available in a box set from Potemkine) is listed at 144 mins. in a PDF press kit available through their website. The DVD is not English-friendly. This is a fairly new release, supported by Agnès B. (who also contributed to the Lola Montès resto), and released by a quality-minded company. Seems they timed their master but didn´t research the running time.
Last edited by Stefan Andersson on Thu Feb 02, 2012 4:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

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MichaelB
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#112 Post by MichaelB » Thu Feb 02, 2012 4:08 am

I'm much more likely to trust a DVD review site that gives the running time as a reassuringly precise 143:22 than I am a Swiss distributor's blurb that may well have been written by someone who's never even seen the film.

Anyway, it sounds as though this is identical to the version on the Artificial Eye disc, and presumably came from the same master.

Stefan Andersson
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#113 Post by Stefan Andersson » Thu Feb 02, 2012 7:01 am

I agree.

BTW, the Swiss and French boxes contain "Ekpombi", a short film by A.

BradStevens
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#114 Post by BradStevens » Thu Feb 02, 2012 7:11 am

bios wrote:Lucky i speak Greek so i have no problem watching the full cut without subtitles.
I'm trying to put together an English subtitle file for the long version. Would it be possible for you to translate the (minimal) dialogue in the first and third You Tube clips?

Ishmael
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#115 Post by Ishmael » Thu Feb 02, 2012 10:00 am

BradStevens wrote:The cut occurs 40m 26s in...
Thank you, Brad!

BradStevens
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#116 Post by BradStevens » Thu Feb 02, 2012 11:18 am

Just received Angelopoulos Vol 2, and will be checking the films for cuts over the next few days. THE BEEKEEPER is identical to Artificial Eye's previous release; it contains a trailer and an alternate French soundtrack, though these are not mentioned on the box set packaging. The packaging incorrectly claims that the film is in 16:9, whereas it's actually framed at 4:3. Apparently, the version shown at festivals ran 20 minutes longer, but was cut at the request of the producer. The version shown on Channel 4 is identical to the AE release.

The claimed running time of 112 minutes for LANDSCAPE IN THE MIST is worrying, as that would make the film 7 minutes shorter than it should be. I'll take a closer look later.

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MichaelB
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#117 Post by MichaelB » Thu Feb 02, 2012 11:26 am

BradStevens wrote:The claimed running time of 112 minutes for LANDSCAPE IN THE MIST is worrying, as that would make the film 7 minutes shorter than it should be. I'll take a closer look later.
As I'm sure you've already worked out, it should be 119:29 on PAL video, based on the footage length submitted to the BBFC.

J Adams
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2009 12:28 pm

Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#118 Post by J Adams » Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:06 pm

The Chinese "full version" of The Hunters looks much worse than the youtube excerpts. It's not worth getting. It was worth it years ago simply due to ridiculous cheapness and the unavailability of most of the films.

To my eyes the youtubes are of sufficiently quality for AE to have inserted them into their transfer, but I'm no specialist.

In any event, the "print damage" argument does not fly for the blackout scene. How did it just so happen that the blackout part was "damaged" then miraculously became undamaged the instant the lights go on. No--someone presumably cut it for the shorter DVD because they thought it was an error.

BradStevens
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#119 Post by BradStevens » Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:05 pm

J Adams wrote:In any event, the "print damage" argument does not fly for the blackout scene. How did it just so happen that the blackout part was "damaged" then miraculously became undamaged the instant the lights go on. No--someone presumably cut it for the shorter DVD because they thought it was an error.
It's very clear that all of the cuts were made simply in order to reduce the running time. The cutting has been carried out quite smoothly, and is obviously not the result of damage to the negative.

Good news. I can confirm that LANDSCAPE IN THE MIST does indeed run 119m 29s, and is uncut.

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#120 Post by Stefan Andersson » Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:09 pm

Thanks for the update on the Chinese DVD, J Adams!

BradStevens
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#121 Post by BradStevens » Thu Feb 02, 2012 7:07 pm

THE SUSPENDED STEP OF THE STORK is pretty much uncut, missing only a few seconds at the end of three shots. Curiously, the French prints have a slightly different order of scenes (Alexandre's first encounter with Eleni appears a little earlier), while the Greek prints have an additional voiceover at one point. But what a superb film! I'm haunted by this closing image, which, like so much else in Angelopoulos' oeuvre, moves me deeply in ways that I'm unable to account for intellectually.

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jegharfangetmigenmyg
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#122 Post by jegharfangetmigenmyg » Fri Feb 03, 2012 5:22 am

That's funny. I found it to be one of his lesser films. Of course it has the amazingly haunting closing scene that you're linking to, but overall, I was very distracted by Jeanne Moreau in this one. Weird, because I'm a fan of all her other work, but her acting in the one is very clunky, she seems totally out of place in every scene she's in, like she wasn't able to adapt to Angelopoulos' style of filmmaking. There's still 5 of Theo's films that I haven't watched, but of those I've watched, this is by far the one I remember the least.

The Hunters is one of the films I have yet to watch, so it truly saddens me to read all the reports on the apparently severely cut version by AE that I just bought. I want to watch the whole thing, so I guess I will have to wait for a fan cut with the cut scenes edited in. I'm on the fence here, because I think it's important to watch his movies in the best visual quality as possible, so a subtitled version of the washed out Chinese edition isn't an option for me, but I also do not want to watch the film with 20 minutes of footage cut. Damn...

BradStevens
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#123 Post by BradStevens » Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:00 pm

jegharfangetmigenmyg wrote:Weird, because I'm a fan of all her other work, but her acting in the one is very clunky, she seems totally out of place in every scene she's in, like she wasn't able to adapt to Angelopoulos' style of filmmaking.
Yes, but surely her out of place quality is intentional, since the character herself is out of place - she can't even speak the same language as the people around her, and has to resort to English, which is the first language of none of the characters.

I just compared Artificial Eye's transfer of VOYAGE TO CYTHERA with my VHS recording of a version screened on Channel 4 in the late 80s. The print used for the DVD has 11 brief cuts as the beginnings and ends of shots, each of which eliminates from 5 to 15 seconds of footage, reducing the overall running time of the film by approximately 2 minutes. The largest cut appears at 34m 5s, eliminating 21s from the end of a shot. The last of these cuts appears at 80m 37s, and eliminates the whole of a brief shot of wax dummies. Inexplicably, the shot of two old men meeting in the street and discussing their experiences on opposite sides in the war (which can be found between 64m 14s and 67m 5s) is an alternate take.

Perkins Cobb
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#124 Post by Perkins Cobb » Fri Feb 03, 2012 3:11 pm

And that's at least three films that have confirmed cuts, ranging from the very minor all the way up to the catastrophic. So basically the whole Artificial Eye Angelopoulos project can be binned. Appalling.

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TMDaines
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Re: Theo Angelopoulos on DVD

#125 Post by TMDaines » Fri Feb 03, 2012 3:16 pm

It seems a little strange though as AE aren't really the type of company to make these kind of fuck ups.

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