Masters of Cinema

Happy New Year, everyone! We closed out 2011 with feelings of extreme gratitude toward our fans and our supporters for rewarding us with our best and most exciting year for the Series to date. Late-December and early-January saw The MoC Series rank significantly in Time Out London’s list of <a href=“http://www.timeout.com/london/feature/2055/the-top-50-dvds-of-2011-home”>the top 50 releases of 2011</a>, with placings given to Imamura’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/a-man-vanishes/“>A Man Vanishes</a> and <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/pigs-and-battleships/“>Pigs and Battleships + Stolen Desire</a>, our double-DVD-set of Lang’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/der-tiger-von-eschnapur/“>Der Tiger von Eschnapur</a> and <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/das-indische-grabmal/“>Das indische Grabmal</a>, Antonioni’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/la-signora-senza-camelie/“>La signora senza camelie</a>, Murnau’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/schloss-vogelod/“>Schloss Vogelöd: Die Enthüllung eines Geheimnisses</a>, Trumbull’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/silent-running/“>Silent Running</a>, Welles’ <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/touch-of-evil/“>Touch of Evil</a>, Ford’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/the-iron-horse/“>The Iron Horse</a>, Kobayashi’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/harakiri/“>Harakiri</a>, and, at #2, Pedro Costa’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/colossal-youth/“>Colossal Youth (+ Tarrafal, The Rabbit Hunters, and O nosso homem)</a>.

We were also extremely humbled to find that many of our releases received mention not only in <a href=“http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/dvds-2011.php”>the year-end poll from Sight & Sound magazine</a>, but also placed high in <a href=“http://www.dvdbeaver.com/DVDBlu-rayoftheYear2011.htm”>the major year-end poll from DVDBeaver</a> — with our release of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil_ winning not only Best Global Blu-ray Release of the Year, but also Best Single Overall Global Home Video Release of the Year!

So: sincere thanks to everyone for making 2011 such a success. We hope to continue the good work throughout 2012 and beyond — and, to that end…

We’ve just released our (gorgeous) 1080p HD revisitation of Peter Watkins’ galvanic 1971 film <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/punishment-park/“>Punishment Park</a> in a Dual Format edition. Watkins’ 92-minute feature represents a reaction to and critique of the American society and government of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s that spawned and casually digested such contemporary elements as the civilian and military massacres of Vietnam (Tet, My Lai, the whole of the war); the MLK + RFK assassinations; the Chicago Democratic Convention beatings and arrests; the Kent State massacre; and, most directly, the show-trial of the Chicago Seven. If Punishment Park still shocks, appalls, and agitates as much today as it did in 1971, it is due to Watkins’ canny and subversive appropriation of the cinema-/televisual-modes of the dominant paradigm (in ‘12 as ‘71), his implicit interrogation of the onlooker-documentarian’s (and end viewer’s) moral responsibility toward “the event,“ and his implicit understanding and ultimate transcendence of the limitations of traditional scripting and casting. It is due too to the fact that much of what Watkins captured/envisioned has either come to pass or, indeed, in the forty-one years since, simply has not changed.

Punishment Park underscores the nightmare-confusion of what is “actual” and what is ‘merely’ “plausible”.

The feature is accompanied by Watkins’ searing, cogent 29-minute direct-to-camera address Introduction to <b>Punishment Park</b>; an audio commentary by Joseph A. Gomez (author of the 1979 Peter Watkins); and a 40-page booklet that includes extracts from the 1971 press book (with a contemporary contribution from Watkins), an essay on the film by Gomez extracted from Peter Watkins (along with a 2005 postscript), and a 2005 self-interrogatory dialogue by Peter Watkins.

As we recharge before leaping into our ninth year (a leap year), and now with more than 160 discs under our belt, it’s a good time to pause and reflect on the wild year. From the highs of releasing a series of dream projects which we’d been working on for years, to the low of having our entire stock destroyed by fire.

Since we released our first Blu-ray in 2008, we have struggled with the added work of creating two separate formats per film. This slowed down our small team considerably and was logistically frustrating (two items of inventory, two catalogue numbers / barcodes, two lots of complicated proofing, two of everything..). Within 18 months we were jumping the gun, and ignoring the installed DVD userbase, by moving to Blu-ray only releases, in the small hope that we’d help quicken Blu-ray adoption. The titles we released during this time were not big-hitters and the Blu-ray only policy frustrated as many people as it pleased. For the time being, it became clear that we had a two-tier system and we’d have to continue making both formats.

After trying <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/metropolis/“>METROPOLIS</a> with a Dual Format edition in late 2010, we moved to our current policy of Dual Format editions (a Blu-ray and DVD in the same package) with our two March 2011 Antonioni releases <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/la-signora-senza-camelie/“>LA SIGNORA SENZA CAMELIE</a> and <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/le-amiche/“>LE AMICHE</a> in an attempt to make the logistics slightly easier and cleaner for ourselves and the marketplace. This continued throughout the summer with our long-gestating silent (miracle) Blu-ray of Jean Epstein’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/coeur-fidele/“>COEUR FIDELE</a> and Imamura’s glorious-looking <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/pigs-and-battleships/“>PIGS AND BATTLESHIPS</a>, while at the same time releasing DVD-only editions where the master materials did not warrant the Blu-ray treatment for some reason (such as the astonishing <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/colossal-youth/“>COLOSSAL YOUTH</a>, shot on miniDV).

In August, the “London riots” saw the destruction of the Sony DADC warehouse in Enfield, where we — along with many other music and film labels — lost all of our stock. Work immediately focused on getting our entire catalogue back in print. Doing so allowed us to delete separate DVD and Blu-ray editions and to replace them with Dual Format editions. We’ve managed to get 6 of these out and the remaining 8 will be available in early February. During this time, we somehow managed to stay on track with our new releases too (<a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/harakiri/“>HARAKIRI</a>, <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/the-iron-horse/“>THE IRON HORSE</a>, <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/the-ballad-of-narayama/“>THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA</a>, <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/a-man-vanishes/“>A MAN VANISHES</a>, <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/silent-running/“>SILENT RUNNING</a>, and <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/touch-of-evil/“>TOUCH OF EVIL</a>)

We would love to not have to create DVD editions, instead, spending all our time on the beauty that is Blu-ray. Indeed, we are still looking at ways that we can again move to Blu-ray only editions. We often receive emails from people who “just can’t see what the fuss is about”, and often, on further questioning, it transpires they have had a terrible demonstration somewhere — such as running a Blu-ray player into a cathode ray tube (SD) television. If you love film, admire our editions, but haven’t taken the Blu-ray leap yet, we’d love you to please read <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/MoCwhyblu-ray2011web.pdf”>this document we prepared.</a>

We now have our 2012 slate mapped out, and if we can pull it off, it could be our best yet. We’ll be announcing our April, May, and June titles in mid-January. Meanwhile, full up-to-date details of what is out-of-print (OOP) and what is being upgraded can be found in our new printed catalogue which is also available <a href=“http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/MoCCATALOGUE2011_web.pdf”>here as a pdf</a>. Wishing a healthy and happy New Year to you all!

Out this month: Orson Welles’ final picture for the Hollywood studio-system: <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/touch-of-evil/“>Touch of Evil</a>, in a limited edition 2 x Blu-ray release containing the 1998 Reconstruction Version in both 1.85:1 and 1.37:1 aspect ratios; the 1958 Theatrical Version in both 1.85:1 and 1.37:1 aspect ratios; and the rediscovered 1958 Preview Version in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Controversy has raged for some time around which aspect ratio constitutes the “correct one” for the film; with this release, we’ve taken pains to present the film for the first time in all available presentations. (A full explication of the issue can be found in the accompanying booklet.)

A virtuoso work on every plane, Welles’ film charts the descent of newlyweds Mike and Susie Vargas (Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh) into a maelstrom of vice, corruption, and murder set spinning at the California-Mexico border by small-time gang-leader Uncle Joe Grandi (Akim Tamiroff) and toxic American police detective Hank Quinlan (Welles himself, in one of his most unforgettable characterisations). Plus: Marlene Dietrich, as a Gypsy madame: five minutes of total screen-time that amount to her most indelible, and exhilarating, post-Sternberg turn.

The versions of the film are accompanied by four separate audio commentaries: Reconstruction producer Rick Schmidlin on the corresponding feature; Schmidlin with Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh on the Reconstruction; scholar and critic F. X. Feeney on the Theatrical Version; and scholars and critics James Naremore and Jonathan Rosenbaum on the Preview Version. Also on-disc: the original 1958 theatrical trailer; two video pieces on the production of the film and the creation of the Reconstruction; and optional English SDH subtitles across all versions of the film. A packed 56-page colour booklet contains writing by François Truffaut, André Bazin, Terry Comito, and Orson Welles — along with full notes on the matter of the varying aspect ratios, and a comprehensive timeline of the film’s production and editing history.

Written in 1957, Orson Welles’ 58-page memo detailing his desired changes to the studio’s rough-cut can be downloaded as a PDF <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/welles-memo.pdf”>here</a>.

We are receiving lots of emails each day about the unavailability of certain MoC editions. The London riots in August 2011 saw the destruction of the Sony DADC distribution centre in Enfield. Our stock, along with that of many other labels, was destroyed. MoC catalogue titles are slowly being reprinted or upgraded and will be available as soon as possible. New upgraded Dual Format editions of Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, City Girl, and Profound Desires of the Gods are already available, and M, For All Mankind, and Make Way for Tomorrow will be ready very soon.

Full up-to-date details of what is out-of-print (OOP) and what is being upgraded can be found in our new printed catalogue which is also available <a href=“http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/MoCCATALOGUE2011_web.pdf”>here as a pdf</a>.

Out this month: the long-awaited Blu-ray debut of SFX master Douglas Trumbull’s eco-visionary sci-fi classic <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/silent-running/“>Silent Running</a>. Trumbull’s picture is that rare specimen which captures the essence of two zeitgeists: from the moment of its 1971 debut and on into our contemporary period forty years later, Silent Running’s prescription for better natural commune diffuses with tender urgency.

This limited edition, Blu-ray only director-approved release features an exclusive new HD 1080p restoration of the feature (with optional English SDH subtitles); a full-length audio commentary by Trumbull and actor Bruce Dern; an isolated music-and-effects track; the 50-minute 1972 on-set documentary The Making of <b>Silent Running</b>; 31-minute and 5-minute video pieces with Trumbull; an 11-minute conversation with Bruce Dern; the original theatrical trailer; and a lavish 48-page full-colour booklet featuring rare photographs and artwork from Trumbull’s personal collection, and recollections of the film’s cinematographer, special designs coordinator, and composer.

We are receiving lots of emails each day about the unavailability of certain MoC editions. The London riots in August 2011 saw the destruction of the Sony DADC distribution centre in Enfield. Our stock, along with that of many other labels, was destroyed. MoC catalogue titles are slowly being reprinted or upgraded and will be available as soon as possible. New upgraded Dual Format editions of Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, City Girl, and Profound Desires of the Gods are already available, and M, For All Mankind, and Make Way for Tomorrow will be ready very soon.

Full up-to-date details of what is out-of-print (OOP) and what is being upgraded can be found in our new printed catalogue which is also available <a href=“http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/MoCCATALOGUE2011_web.pdf”>here as a pdf</a>.

Also out this month: our limited edition Blu-ray only release of Orson Welles’ towering Touch of Evil. Stay tuned.

We are receiving lots of emails each day about the unavailability of certain MoC editions. The London riots in August 2011 saw the destruction of the Sony DADC distribution centre in Enfield. Our stock, along with that of many other labels, was destroyed. MoC catalogue titles are slowly being reprinted or upgraded and will be available as soon as possible. New upgraded Dual Format editions of SUNRISE, CITY GIRL, and PROFOUND DESIRES OF THE GODS are already available, and M, FOR ALL MANKIND, and MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW will be ready very soon.

Full up-to-date details of what is out-of-print (OOP) and what is being upgraded can be found in our new printed catalogue which is also available <a href=“http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/MoCCATALOGUE2011_web.pdf”>here as a pdf</a>.

Due to the influx of emails that continue to reach our inboxes on the subject of availability of catalogue titles, we’re repeating this note from a previous News update: “Many of our titles available from online retailers such as Amazon are presently listed as unavailable, out-of-print. Fear not! Following the Sony DADC fire in early August, we have been steadily preparing new Dual Format editions for the titles whose previously separate Blu-ray and DVD stock was destroyed in the blaze. As mentioned in last month’s News update, we’ll be making the following releases available again shortly, now as Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) releases exclusively: Sunrise and City Girl by F. W. Murnau; Profound Desires of the Gods and Vengeance Is Mine by Shôhei Imamura; The Burmese Harp by Kon Ichikawa; Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? by Frank Tashlin; La Planète sauvage (aka Fantastic Planet) by René Laloux; For All Mankind by Al Reinert; Tokyo Sonata by Kiyoshi Kurosawa; Mad Detective by Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai; Une femme mariée by Jean-Luc Godard; The World by Jia Zhangke; Make Way for Tomorrow by Leo McCarey; and M by Fritz Lang.”

Now available — two much-awaited films by Japanese filmmaker Shôhei Imamura.

First: the unclassifiable and long-out-of-circulation 1967 <a href=“http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/a-man-vanishes/“>A Man Vanishes</a> (whose Japanese title is Ningen jôhatsu, or The Unexplained Disappearance of a Human Being). It’s a documentary about the disappearance — or, one might say, the dropping-out from society — of a Japanese salaryman named Tadashi Ôshima (his representing a single vanishing among thousands such in the Japanese late-‘60s — a phenomenon widespread enough for the media to lend these lost individuals the singular designation of ”jôhatsu”) and a documentation of the inquiry’s gradual slide into a director-sanctioned manipulation of the principals and the events that surround the inquiry of the disappearance… — in short, a head-spinning investigation into the ontology of filmic, sociological, and biographical “truth.” Our DVD-only edition of Imamura’s classic film sports a new high-definition restoration of the feature with a new English subtitle translation; the original theatrical trailer for the film; a new and excluisve 18-minute video interview about the film with Imamura scholar Tony Rayns; and a 9-minute video interview with Imamura conducted by his son, filmmaker Daisuke Tengan. Also included in the release is a 36-page booklet featuring writing by Imamura in 2004 about directing the film; remarks from 1975 by filmmaker Kirirô Urayama, who assisted in the editing of the film; Japanese magazine clippings from 1967 pertaining to the phenomenon of jôhatsu and the production of Imamura’s film; a critique of the film by Nagisa Ôshima; and rare archival stills.

And then for something completely different in the Imamura corpus — a work which also stands as one of the director’s most famous films: <a href=“http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/the-ballad-of-narayama/“>The Ballad of Narayama</a> [Narayama bushikô], the winner of the Palme d’Or for Best Picture at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. Imamura revisits material first adapted by Keisuke Kinoshita (of <a href=“http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/twenty-four-eyes/>Twenty-Four Eyes</a> fame) in order to calibrate a gorgeous “family drama” constructed from keen observations on the nature of aging, self-sustenance, and compassion for one’s fellow man. We present The Ballad of Narayama in a special Dual Format edition (including both Blu-ray and DVD versions of the film) featuring a new, restored HD presentation with new and improved English subtitles, and supplement it with an exclusive new 20-minute video interview with Tony Rayns, and four original Japanese trailers which include behind-the-scenes footage. Also: a 44-page full-colour booklet containing a 1983 director’s statement by Shôhei Imamura; a newly translated 1983 interview with Imamura conducted by Max Tessier; the newly translated production diary for the film kept by producer Jirô Tomoda; a wide selection of rare production stills; and facsimile imagery from the film’s original Japanese press book.

This concludes the most recent leg of our “Imamura season” — still in anticipation of our forthcoming Dual Format release of <a href=“http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/the-insect-woman/“>The Insect Woman and Nishi-Ginza Station</a>.

Next month: our holiday-season releases: Douglas Trumbull’s <a href=“http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/silent-running/“>Silent Running</a>, and Orson Welles’ <a href=“http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/touch-of-evil/“>Touch of Evil</a>. Until then — happy harvest.

I bought my first Mac in 1992 (an Apple Macintosh LC with System 6) from a Libyan man in Manchester. It cost a fortune, but perhaps a bit less than it ought to have because it had Arabic installed as the system language and was pretty impenetrable. Within an hour of getting it home I’d installed the new System 7 from floppies. This initial hurdle, quickly overcome, has typified my experience with Macs ever since. They’ve enabled me to do an enormous amount of work quickly: at university (pre-internet), making music and art, and particularly in the last 8 years making DVDs and Blu-rays for the MoC Series. I could go on and on and on, but everything we do here is entirely enabled by Macs, we love them, and I feel a strong urge to pay tribute to Steven Paul Jobs for making everything happen. His passing, a giant loss. —Nick Wrigley

Apple’s works more or less parallel my time alive, from the mid-/late-1970s to the present day. As a grade-school student in northeast Pennsylvania, the Apple II models represented time away from regular classes to take part in Oregon Trail sessions which proved endlessly more compelling than my time spent in Mrs. Novak’s west-facing homeroom rotely memorizing the correct spelling of “embarrassment” (which, I assure you, came easily enough both then and throughout subsequent years). In high school I had a class in which we were given full access to Macintoshes; we were taught the ins and outs of Hypercard, in order to craft proto-multimedia works. It was around this time that I devoured Steven Levy’s Insanely Great about the founding of Apple and the later creation of the Macintosh. Levy’s book was published concurrent to my fascination with all things “cyberpunk”: Front 242 records, my subscriptions to Mondo 2000 and the newly founded Wired magazine…: thus, computer-enabled music, and the Apple- and Adobe-ushered era of digital graphic design. How could suppositions still exist that the Mac was a “terminal interface,“ an arcana-medium whose inherent tenet was the alienation of “the people who didn’t get it”? Away with that: the Mac was a creative tool for those who abhorred arcana and wanted only to express — whatever, and everything, that means. I had no idea at the time how broad, and profound, would be the implications of this tool — that it would, indeed, reconfigure the very notion of “tool” (like the bone giving way to the space-station) and in so doing reshape the texture of modern living. From the brilliant iMac designs (at the moment of the “comeback” which all Apple adepts could only have dreamed of, c. 1996), to the iPod, iPhone (astonishing), and then iPad, Steve Jobs set a standard of excellence, and sent forth a rebuke to received wisdom, which will, and must, forever inspire the creative individual, and empower the human vessel for whom life is difficult enough without needless exposure in the course of daily tasks to a sense of alienation provoked by the objects and exigencies that demand his or her attention. As Nick has stated, the MoC Series — and much of what we personally and individually cherish — would not have been possible without Steve Jobs’ vision, tenacity, and — important (and symbiotic with the genius of Jonathan Ive) — TASTE. From the most recent works of Jean-Luc Godard or Chris Marker or Jean-Marie Straub or practically every filmmaker currently working whom we all revere — through to the artists in every discipline (using music apps or simple word-processing) and the friends and commerce with which we take part daily in grand exchange, the mark left by Steve Jobs on the modern world can only be assessed as: incalculable, and: staggering. And so Steve Jobs is dead — but, as he brilliantly expressed in his 2005 Stanford address: death is merely ”life’s change-agent.” —Craig Keller