713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

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dwk
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#51 Post by dwk » Tue Jun 24, 2014 2:39 pm

Minkin wrote:It appears that the trailers have been dropped from the supplements.

Does Criterion hate trailers or is there some contractual asshole who keeps preventing them from showing up?
According to Shout Factory, Paramount would not let them include the trailers on their The Duellist Blu-ray. So, even though these aren't from Paramount, it could be because of the licensr.

Zot!
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#52 Post by Zot! » Tue Jun 24, 2014 3:08 pm

dwk wrote:
Minkin wrote:It appears that the trailers have been dropped from the supplements.

Does Criterion hate trailers or is there some contractual asshole who keeps preventing them from showing up?
According to Shout Factory, Paramount would not let them include the trailers on their The Duellist Blu-ray. So, even though these aren't from Paramount, it could be because of the licenser.
I would guess in all these cases they're asking too much money rather than "won't let them".

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FrauBlucher
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#53 Post by FrauBlucher » Mon Jun 30, 2014 5:58 am


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tenia
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#54 Post by tenia » Tue Jul 01, 2014 6:25 am

I preordered the boxset on B&N at -50%, but I'm still quite eager to see how Lola will turn out, because the Arte French BD was pretty poor PQ wise, and I'm afraid this is already poor at a restoration level, meaning nothing could be done to make it better, except a new restoration.

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feihong
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#55 Post by feihong » Tue Jul 01, 2014 2:14 pm

I did the preorder from B&N as well. I'm hoping Criterion will have pulled off some sort of miracle and Lola will magically look great.


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criterionsnob
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#57 Post by criterionsnob » Mon Jul 07, 2014 12:49 am


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manicsounds
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#58 Post by manicsounds » Mon Jul 07, 2014 1:11 am

Well, Lola looks no better than the French blu-ray...

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swo17
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#59 Post by swo17 » Mon Jul 07, 2014 1:33 am

That sucks, though it sounds like it would have taken a herculean effort for Criterion to remedy (doing a restoration from scratch when the Demy estate already feels that it's been done right).

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How rude!
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#60 Post by How rude! » Mon Jul 07, 2014 6:24 am

I am breaking my silence here to advise you all to seriously consider cancelling your orders
So, what are the available alternatives, including forthcoming, or proposed releases? The boxset seems to be a great way to collect Demy's films, flaws and all. My pre-order stands, as this is a fine release, all things considered. Thanks for your input, though.

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domino harvey
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#61 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jul 07, 2014 10:51 am

Lola still looks better than my old Fox Lorber DVD, and the other films so far look to be in great shape. I already have the giant French Complete Demy box and Les demoiselles on Blu, so I'm in no rush to pick this up, but I am in no rush not to either

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MichaelB
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#62 Post by MichaelB » Tue Jul 08, 2014 10:59 am

Beaver on Lola.

Three-word précis (and direct quote): "It looks awful."

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#63 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Tue Jul 08, 2014 12:30 pm

MichaelB wrote:Beaver on Lola.

Three-word précis (and direct quote): "It looks awful."
I note that there is a 10 minute plus supplement on the restoration. How long does it take to say 'This is how we abandonned all hope and fucked it up'?

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Fred Holywell
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#64 Post by Fred Holywell » Tue Jul 08, 2014 1:39 pm

NABOB OF NOWHERE wrote: I note that there is a 10 minute plus supplement on the restoration. How long does it take to say 'This is how we abandonned all hope and fucked it up'?
You can watch it on YouTube. Some of it's in French without subs, but restorer Tom Burton speaks in English.



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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#67 Post by Jakamarak » Wed Jul 09, 2014 7:29 am

And I think this was missed...

Beaver on Umbrellas of Cherbourg

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Finch
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#68 Post by Finch » Wed Jul 09, 2014 12:10 pm

Seems like not a year goes by without Criterion accepting a bad resto from the French. Anyone know who has Young Girls of Rochefort in the UK? Still the BFI or Studio Canal? The BFI DVD is still in print so presumably a Blu-Ray would come from them. Apart from Lola, Cherbourg and Rochefort, are the other titles in the Criterion set available in HD anywhere in Europe in English-friendly editions? The Studio Canal Cherbourg is bound to go down in price at some point so I'm tempted to hang in there and buy Cherbourg, Rochefort, Donkey Skin and Bay of Angels individually. Even if Donkey Skin and Un Chambre en Ville turn out great, I don't fancy buying a set with 5 strong transfers and one total cockup.

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jindianajonz
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#69 Post by jindianajonz » Wed Jul 09, 2014 12:51 pm

Finch wrote:Seems like not a year goes by without Criterion accepting a bad resto from the French.
Can I get creepily precise for a second? It actually happens every 11 months, with Children of Paradise in Sep 2012, Madame De in Aug 2013, and now Lola in Jul 2014.

Now taking bets on what they'll screw up next June!

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Drucker
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#70 Post by Drucker » Wed Jul 09, 2014 12:56 pm

In their defense, these terrible restorations at least weren't their doing (and of course, Lola debuted what, two years ago in France). Since Madame De... they've been pretty spot on. David Hare used to imply (at least it seemed) that he was privy to who was messing up restorations in France, perhaps he or someone else actually shouted loud enough?

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Finch
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#71 Post by Finch » Wed Jul 09, 2014 3:00 pm

Criterion should have done a resto themselves (ditto Children of Paradise and Madame de) or rejected Lola and only made it a 5 title boxset. Of course not everything they release can be a home run but titles as badly compromised as these three shouldn't see the light of day until they're done properly. It really worries me in respect of the outstanding Blu-Ray upgrade for Le Samourai because even Pathe's replacement disc was not as good as it ought to have been, and with this latest disasterpiece I fear that Criterion will settle for the Pathe reissue of Le Samourai. I hope I'll be wrong but I won't be parting with the DVD unless the US Blu-Ray is demonstrably superior to both French discs.

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swo17
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#72 Post by swo17 » Wed Jul 09, 2014 3:31 pm

Well, CoP came after an extensive promotion and tour. I wouldn't be surprised if they had signed on to do the release before having seen the transfer. Unfortunate but I can understand it.

Madame de made no sense at all. No one was expecting a Blu-ray upgrade, and there was no point in doing one if it didn't truly constitute an upgrade. They could have seen the results, turned them down, and no one would have been the wiser. Perhaps that's where Le samourai currently stands.

Lola is a trickier situation, since it's packaged with all of these other films. It's possible that Criterion took all the films on as an all-or-nothing deal. There could be professional relationships that they don't want to damage by rejecting/voicing criticism of one restoration in favor of another (which there's no guarantee they could afford to do themselves, or that they could have access to necessary materials). I get that at some point you have to take a stand and say that this kind of "restoration" work is unacceptable, but there are other practical realities to consider as well.

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zedz
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#73 Post by zedz » Wed Jul 09, 2014 3:57 pm

Also, an 'essential Jacques Demy' box would make no sense without Lola. They could have called it something else, of course, but they were already struggling a bit for a concept that fell somewhere between "The Complete Jacques Demy" and "Demy musicals that don't suck" (actually, how about a three-film 'The City Musicals' set: Cherbourg / Rochefort / Nantes?) I'm just going to view Lola as the red-headed bonus film and hope for a better release of it eventually.

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Drucker
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#74 Post by Drucker » Wed Jul 09, 2014 4:34 pm

In addition to what Swo just said, there are circumstances where they haven't used botched masters, such as Band Of Outsiders.

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MichaelB
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Re: 713-719 The Essential Jacques Demy

#75 Post by MichaelB » Wed Jul 09, 2014 4:45 pm

zedz wrote:Also, an 'essential Jacques Demy' box would make no sense without Lola. They could have called it something else, of course, but they were already struggling a bit for a concept that fell somewhere between "The Complete Jacques Demy" and "Demy musicals that don't suck" (actually, how about a three-film 'The City Musicals' set: Cherbourg / Rochefort / Nantes?) I'm just going to view Lola as the red-headed bonus film and hope for a better release of it eventually.
Yes, I do sympathise with Criterion to a certain extent, because at one point I was really hoping that Arrow's Walerian Borowczyk box would span 1957-75 in toto (i.e. including the six early Polish shorts and Story of Sin), and so we could legitimately claim that it covered an unbroken span of work covering by far the most interesting period of his career. And two of the pieces in the book talk about Dom in some detail, which almost feels like a rebuke to us for not getting hold of it. (I even considered cutting that section from the Raymond Durgnat piece, as it's very detailed, but decided to leave it in.)

Similarly, I imagine that at least one person at Universal must have felt a pang about not being able to include The Miracle of Morgan's Creek in an otherwise comprehensive survey of Preston Sturges' Paramount era, and while lots of people have been calling on Arrow to do a Vincent Price/Roger Corman/Edgar Allan Poe box along the lines of the US one, it's unlikely that such a box will be able to include The Masque of the Red Death (which in the UK is owned by Studio Canal rather than MGM) - and both those titles are clearly "essential" if the word is to have any meaning.

So I can absolutely see where Criterion's coming from: if the choice was between including an imperfect copy or not including it at all, I generally favour "imperfect copy", unless there's a genuine prospect of an improved master in the foreseeable future. And it seems that in this case there isn't.

Swo's also right about the politics. You often don't get to see masters until a fairly late stage in the production process (I didn't see Sullivan's Travels until only a few weeks before my signing-off deadline, and was distinctly nervous because of Universal's track record - although happily it turned out to look great), and while there's almost invariably a clause in the contract that allows you to reject substandard masters - and I've known of situations where it's been invoked - if money has already been spent on the release it can be very hard to decide to write it off at that stage.

But what I wish would become standard practice is preserving the original scans prior to "restoration", so you can effectively turn the clock back if you think that the supplied master is overly scrubbed, without incurring the expense of a whole new transfer (which may not be possible anyway). In some cases this has been possible, but not always.

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