Criterion wird im Februar 2009 drei DVDs veröffentlichen. Blu-ray Discs scheinen für den Monat nicht geplant zu sein. Anscheinend hat Criterion mit der Produktion der HD-Scheiben irgendwelche Probleme, wie man auch an der Terminverschiebung der ersten Hi-Def-Veröffentlichungen sieht.
#459: “Der Würgeengel / El ángel exterminador / The Exterminating Angel” [MEX 1962, Luis Bunuel]
2-Disc Set | $39.95
A group of bourgeois cosmopolitans are invited to a mansion for dinner and inexplicably find themselves unable to leave, in Luis Buñuel’s daring masterpiece The Exterminating Angel. Made just one year after his international sensation Viridiana, this is a furthering of Buñuel’s wicked takedown of the rituals and dependencies of the frivolous upper classes, full of eerie and hilarious absurdity.
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- The Last Script: Remembering Luis Buñuel, a 2008 documentary featuring Jean-Claude Carrière and Jean Luis Buñuel
- New interviews with filmmaker Arturo Ripstein and actress Silvia Pinal
- Theatrical trailer
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film scholar Marsha Kinder and a reprinted interview with Buñuel
#460: “Simon in der Wüste / Simón del desierto / Simon of the Desert” [MEX 1965, Luis Bunuel]
Single Disc | $24.95
Simon of the Desert is Luis Buñuel’s wicked and wild take on the life of devoted ascetic Saint Simeon Stylites, who waited atop a pillar surrounded by a barren landscape for six years, six months, and six days, in order to prove his devotion to God. Yet the devil, in the figure of the beautiful Silvia Pinal, huddles below, trying to tempt him down. A skeptic’s vision of human conviction, Buñuel’s short and sweet satire is one of the master filmmaker’s most renowned works of surrealism.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- A Mexican Buñuel (1995), 50-minute documentary by Emilio Maillé
- New interview with actress Silvia Pinal
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Michael Wood and a reprinted interview with Buñuel
#461: “Der Herr im Haus bin ich / Hobson’s Choice” [GB 1954, David Lean]
Single Disc | $39.95
An unsung comic triumph from David Lean, Hobson’s Choice stars the legendary Charles Laughton as the harrumphing Henry Hobson, the owner of a boot shop in late-Victorian Northern England. With his haughty, independent daughter Maggie (Brenda De Banzie) decides to forge her own path, romantically and professionally, with the help of none other than Henry’ prized bootsmith Will (a splendid John Mills), father and daughter find themselves head-to-head in a fiery match of wills. Equally charming and caustic, Hobson’s Choice, adapted from Harold Brighouse’s famous play, is filled to the brim with great performances and elegant, inventive camera work.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- New high-definition digital transfer—restoration by the BFI National Archive, funded by the David Lean Foundation and StudioCanal
- Audio commentary featuring film scholars Alain Silver and James Ursini, co-authors of David Lean and His Films
- The Hollywood Greats: Charles Laughton, a 1978 BBC documentary about the actor’s life and career, featuring interviews with his friends and colleagues
- Theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A new essay by critic Armond White
17. November, 2008
08:47 Uhr
Bei DER WÜRGEENGEL wäre es wirklich interessant zu erfahren, ob wir hier in den Genuß der seltenen Langfassung kommen, bei der noch mehr Dopplungen enthalten sind.
18. November, 2008
11:33 Uhr
Hast Du vielleicht weitere Infos zu der Langfassung? Was hat es damit auf sich?
19. November, 2008
12:46 Uhr
Buñuel hat ursprünglich zwei Szenen gedreht, bei denen die Gäste zu Beginn des Films das Haus verlassen wollen, und auf US-VHS-Tapes ist auch diese Version enthalten. Für die DVD-Erstellung scheint ein übereifriger Cutter diese Dopplung als Fehler erkannt zu haben und herausgeschnitten, weshalb alle weltweit erschienenen DVDs ohne diese Szene sind.
Im Criterionforum wird das gerade diskutiert: Criterion-Forum
Und bei DVDBeaver steht folgendes:
DVDBeaver
NOTE: This disc has a major flaw in the opening scenes:
Buñuel shot two “versions” (if you like) of the servants preparing to leave the mansion at the start of the movie, both versions happening before the guests arrive.
I’ll quote some comments I elicited here:
1: Roger Ebert:
“The dinner guests arrive twice. They ascend the stairs and walk through the wide doorway, and then they arrive gain–the same guests, seen from a higher camera angle. This is a joke and soon we will understand the punch line: The guests, having so thoroughly arrived, are incapable of leaving.”
2: from a Criterion poster “The correct order of shots is that the servants are leaving but see that the guests are entering the hall so they hide in another room. The guests then enter the hall, the host calls his butler and the guests go up the stairs. It then cuts to the servants in the other room who begin to leave thinking that the guests have gone upstairs but then the guests enter the hall again so they retreat back into the other room. We then see the guests entering for a second time, the host calls his butler and the guests go up the stairs.”
The discs completely remove these shots/sequences, as though they were an embarrassing “mistake: on Buñuel’s part.
2. Dezember, 2008
17:30 Uhr
[...] / El ángel exterminador / The Exterminating Angel” [MEX 1962] veröffentlicht. Die DVD erscheint am 10. Februar [...]