Masters of Cinema wird demnächst eine DVD von Jacques Feyders “Die letzte Etappe / Le grand jeu” [F 1934] veröffentlichen. Ein genauer Termin (angeblich Mai 2010) und weitere Infos sind bisher nicht bekannt, das Cover konnte ich allerdings schon auf der Label-WebSite mit ein paar Tricks finden.
Masters of Cinema wird zwei weitere Filme von Maurice Pialat am 22. März 2010 auf DVD veröffentlichen. Im August 2009 hatte ich bereits die Cover vorgestellt, mittlerweile sind die Infos zur Ausstattung bekannt.
22. März 2010
DVD #76: “Auf das, was wir lieben / À nous amours / To Our Romance” [F 1983, Maurice Pialat]
Das Cover zur “M (aka: M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder)” [D 1931, Fritz Lang] Blu-ray hatte Masters of Cinema bereits im Oktober über Twitter verbreitet. Mittlerweile stehen auch die Ausstattungsdetails zur Blu-ray und zur DVD auf der Label-WebSite online. Die beiden Discs sollen im Februar 2010 in Großbritannien in den Handel kommen.
Of all Fritz Lang’s creations, none have been more innovative or influential than M, the film that launched German cinema into the sound era with stunning sophistication and mesmerising artistry. A spate of child killings has stricken a terrified Berlin. Peter Lorre gives a legendary performance as the murderer Hans Beckert, who soon finds himself chased by all levels of society.
From cinema’s first serial killer hunt, Lang pulls back to encompass social tapestry, police procedural, and underworld conspiracies in an astonishingly multi-faceted and level-headed look at a deeply incendiary topic. One of the greatest psychological thrillers of all time, M remains as fresh and startling almost 80 years on. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present a stunning high-definition restoration of a definitive classic of world cinema.
Wie im Oktober bereits gemeldet, erscheint Douglas Sirks “Es gibt immer ein Morgen / There’s Always Tomorrow” [USA 1956] im Februar 2010 bei Masters of Cinema. Ein genauer Termin steht noch nicht fest, dafür aber die Ausstattung der DVD. Leider erscheint der Film nicht auf Blu-ray. Der Grund: Das HD-Backup-Master soll im Feuer von 2008 bei Universal zerstört worden sein. Mehr dazu weiter unten.
DVD only release
Between his twin masterpieces All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind, Douglas Sirk created this razor-sharp study of male crisis, both a glittering testament to love’s labours lost and his most unforgiving vision of suburban conformity.
Disregarded and neglected by his family, executive toy manufacturer Clifford Groves (Fred MacMurray) is unexpectedly reunited with his former co-worker Norma Miller (Barbara Stanwyck). As the old friends catch up on lost time, his children’s suspicions and hostility to the new relationship threaten to push their father away permanently and throw into disarray the lives of all concerned.
With crystalline, noir-tinged cinematography from Russell Metty (Touch of Evil) and heartbreaking performances by Stanwyck and MacMurray, reunited 12 years after Double Indemnity in their final on-screen pairing,There’s Always Tomorrow finds one of Hollywood’s greatest dramatists at his finest. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present this little-seen classic in a new special edition.
Bei Masters of Cinema wurden die Details der “Hausu / House” [J 1977, Nobuhiko Obayashi] DVD (Filmtrailer), die am 25. Januar 2010 in den Handel gelangen wird, bekannt gegeben.
An unforgettable mixture of bubblegum teen melodrama and grisly phantasmagoria, Obayashi’s deranged fairy tale House is one of Japanese cinema’s wildest supernatural ventures and a truly startling debut feature.
Distressed by her widowed father’s plans to remarry, Angel sets off with six of her schoolgirl friends in tow for a summer getaway in her aunt’s isolated mansion. But all is not well – in this house of dormant secrets, long-held emotional traumas have terrifyingly physical embodiments and the girls will have to use all their individual talents if any are to survive.
A rollercoaster ride without brakes, House is by turns sinister, hilarious and curiously touching, with ceaseless cinematic invention and a satirical, full-blooded approach to the horror genre. A gigantic smash upon its original release in Japan, the Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present its UK premiere on DVD.
Gestern hat Eureka Entertainment den Trailer zu “Hausu / House” [J 1977, Nobuhiko Obayashi] bei Youtube online gestellt, mit dem Hinweis, daß der Film bei Masters of Cinema erscheinen wird. Heute ist das Cover der DVD auf der MoC-WebSite veröffentlicht worden. Ob es auch eine Blu-ray geben wird, ist zu diesem Zeitpunkt noch nicht bekannt.
UPDATE 20. November 2009
Der Film soll im Januar 2010 erscheinen, allerdings leider nur auf DVD.
Wie ich schon gemeldet hatte, erscheint Friedrich Wilhelm Murnaus “Unser täglich Brot - Die Frau aus Chicago / City Girl” [USA 1930] im Februar 2010 bei Masters of Cinema auf DVD und Blu-ray. Mittlerweile hat das britische Label weitere Infos bekannt gegeben:
After the visual fireworks of Sunrise and the now-lost splendour of 4 Devils, F.W. Murnau turned his attention to this vivid, painterly study of an impulsive and fragile marriage among the wheatfields of Minnesota.
During a brief stay in Chicago, innocent farmer’s son Lem falls for and weds Kate, a hard-bitten but lonely waitress. Upon bringing her home at the start of harvest time, the honeymoon soon turns into a claustrophobic struggle as they contend with the bitter scorn of his father and the invasive, leering jealousy of the farm’s labouring community.
Tenderly romantic and tough-minded in equal measure, City Girl is one of cinema’s great pastorals, featuring some of the most delicate performances Murnau ever filmed and influencing directors such as Terrence Malick and Jean Vigo. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Murnau’s penultimate film in a glorious high-definition transfer.
Masters of Cinema wird im Februar 2010 den Douglas Sirk-Film “Es gibt immer ein Morgen / There’s Always Tomorrow” [USA 1956, Douglas Sirk] veröffentlichen. Dies wurde über deren Twitter-Account bekannt. Ob die Veröffentlichung nur auf DVD oder aber auch auf Blu-ray erfolgt, ist bisher nicht bekannt.
Twitsclusive: we’re releasing Douglas Sirk’s THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW in February 2010.
Wie schon berichtet, erfolgt am 16. November 2009 die DVD- und Blu-ray-Veröffentlichung der Dokumentation “Soul Power” [USA 2008] von Jeffrey Levy-Hinte über Masters of Cinema. Die Details:
Soul Power is a vérité documentary – compiled entirely from footage shot in 1974 – of the astonishing back-to-Africa 3-day music festival “Zaire ‘74”. It was held in Kinshasa ahead of the biggest boxing event of all time: the Muhammad Ali–George Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle”. Directed by Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, editor of Leon Gast’s Oscar®-winning (Best Documentary) When We Were Kings, and sourced from the same archival pool, Soul Power features a legendary line-up of African and African-diaspora musicians – all of whom are at the very peak of their creative powers.
Alongside Ali’s wit and wisdom – profoundly lyrical in its own right – vibrant street scenes of downtown Kinshasa, and “fly-on-the-wall” footage of the festival’s staging, rehearsals, and jams, the three nights of concerts (lensed by Albert Maysles and a host of other legendary cameramen) offer electrifying performances by James Brown, B.B. King, Bill Withers, Sister Sledge, Miriam Makeba, The Spinners, Big Black, The Crusaders, Celia Cruz, and many more.
The concert has achieved mythological significance as the definitive Africa(n)-American musical event of the 20th Century and only now, after years of painstaking restoration – legal wrangling prevented an edit and release at the time of filming – Soul Power joins the pantheon of concert film classics, taking its place alongside others of the late-1960s and early-1970s, including Monterey Pop, Woodstock, Gimme Shelter, Soul to Soul, and Wattstax. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Soul Power for home viewing in the UK for the very first time.
Das “The Complete Fritz Lang Mabuse Boxset” von Masters of Cinema, welches am 19. Oktober 2009 in Großbritannien erscheinen wird, wird laut amazon.co.uk folgendermaßen ausgestattet sein:
From the early stages of his career across five decades to his final film, Fritz Lang built a trilogy of paranoiac thrillers focused on an entity who began as a criminal mastermind, and progressed into something more amorphous: fear itself, embodied only by a name Dr. Mabuse. For the first time on home video, all three of Fritz Lang’s Mabuse films have been collected for one package, in their complete and restored forms.
1: Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler. [Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler.] (1922) Lang’s two-part, nearly 5-hour silent epic detailing the rise and fall of Dr. Mabuse in Weimar-era Berlin.
2: Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse [The Testament of Dr. Mabuse] (1933) a tour-de-force thriller rife with supernatural elements, all converging around an attempt by the now-institutionalised Mabuse (or someone acting under his name… and possibly his will) to organise an ‘Empire of Crime’.
3: Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse [The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse] (1960) Fritz Lang’s final film, in which hypnosis, clairvoyance, surveillance, and machine-guns come together for a whiplash climax that answers the question: Who’s channelling Mabuse’s methods in the Cold War era? The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Fritz Lang’s complete Mabuse trilogy a cornerstone in the work of one of cinema’s all-time greatest directors.
Anfang 2010 erscheinen bei Masters of Cinema zwei weitere Filme von Maurice Pialat auf DVD:
Januar 2010
DVD #78: “Die Sonne Satans / Sous le soleil de satan / Under the Sun of Satan” [F 1987, Maurice Pialat]
Im September 2009 veröffentlicht das britische Label Masters of Cinema Friedrich Wilhelm Murnaus “Sonnenaufgang / Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans” [USA 1927] auf DVD und Blu-ray und legt im Oktober 2009 mit zwei weiteren Stummfilmen des deutschen Regisseurs nach. Beide Filme werden zusammen als 2-DVD-Set veröffentlicht.
“Phantom” [D 1922, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau]
SPECIAL 2-DISC SET also containing Murnau’s Die Finanzen des Großherzogs
After filming the landmark Nosferatu, the silent cinema’s master innovator F. W. Murnau demonstrated the reach of his genre versatility with a pair of films that explored the dimensions of the psychodrama and the adventure-programmer. All the Murnau characteristics are present: a vibrant naturalism, exquisite imagery, passages of dreamlike revery, and an atmosphere redolent with romantic longing.
In Phantom, an aspiring poet on the verge of what he takes for a big break experiences a chance encounter with a beautiful woman in the street — and falls headlong into love and fantasy. With debts piling up and his promised literary celebrity failing to materialise, the poet descends into obsession, deception, and, ultimately, a criminal act in this delirious film that stands as an early precursor of Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
Die Finanzen des Großherzogs sees Murnau exploiting the Mediterranean clime to film the tale of a rakish duke whose lifestyle has dried up his noble coffers. When word arrives about the existence of valuable sulphur deposits on his tiny duchy of Abacco, a comic adventure of high-seas intrigue, “animal impersonators”, and the Crown Princess of Russia unreels at a sprightly pace. Max Schreck (the mythic actor behind the makeup of Nosferatu’s Count Orlok two years earlier) appears in a supporting role, in what might be Murnau’s nimblest effort.
The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Phantom and Die Finanzen des Großherzogs for the first time in the UK in their restored forms.
Das britische Label Masters of Cinema hat per Twitter ein Bild des “The Complete Fritz Lang Mabuse Boxset” veröffentlicht. Das Set soll noch vor Halloween (31. Oktober) erscheinen und enthält diese drei Filme:
Zu den beiden bereits im März genannten Filmen von Maurice Pialat, die Masters of Cinema nun am 24. August 2009 auf DVD veröffentlicht, habe ich bisher noch nicht die Ausstattungsdetails genannt. Dies hole ich hiermit nach.
24. August 2009
DVD #73: “Wir werden nicht zusammen alt / Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble / We Won’t Grow Old Together” [F / I 1972, Maurice Pialat]
Jean (Jean Yanne) and Catherine (Marlène Jobert) are a couple whose every move charts an advancement deeper into an emotional warzone. Theirs is the classic and the tragic case of an emotional abuse centred around a perplexing, but powerful, interdependency. As the moment approaches wherein the relationship can no longer perpetuate its cycle of weekend holidays, apologies, and submissions, Maurice Pialat discloses all the ways in which the future might be at once liberated, and enslaved, by the past.
Based on a novel by Pialat himself, and on the trauma of his own personal life in the years leading up to the film, Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble was a smash-hit at the time of its release, and retains its power up to the present day. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Pialat’s second feature masterpiece for the first time on DVD in the UK.
Criterion hat am 14. Juli 2009 den rein aus Aufnahmen der Apollo-Missionen erstellten Dokumentarfilm “For All Mankind” [USA 1989, Al Reinert] ziemlich zeitnah zum 40. Jubiläum der ersten Mondlandung (20. Juli 1969) auf Blu-ray und als DVD-Neuauflage veröffentlicht. Mit etwas zeitlichem Abstand zur Feier des historischen Moments, nämlich am 16. November 2009, wird der Film auch beim britischen Label Masters of Cinema auf DVD und Blu-ray erscheinen. Für diese Ausgaben wird das Master von Criterion verwendet, außerdem - mit einer Ausnahme - das Bonusmaterial übernommen. Das Feature “On Camera, a collection of excerpted on-screen interviews with fifteen of the Apollo astronauts” bleibt allerdings den Criterion-Discs vorbehalten.
During the Apollo lunar missions from 1968 to 1972, those onboard were given 16mm cameras and told to film anything and everything they could, in space, in orbit, and on the surface of the moon itself. Two decades later, filmmaker Al Reinert went into the NASA vaults to create this extraordinary compendium of their journeys and experiences.
Assembled from hundreds of hours of the astronauts’ own footage, with a soundtrack made up of their memories and a specially composed score by Brian Eno, the film takes the form of one journey to the moon and back again, building with elegant simplicity and exquisite construction to create an overpowering vision of human endeavour and miraculous experience.
