519 Close-up

[swo17]

Now bumped to Blu, along with Everlasting Moments.

This is excellent news, but leaves so much unanswered--Did the complaining help? Are we going to have to complain like this every month? Have they been preparing a BD edition all along? Was this just a clerical error? If so, is the cleric being fired? And so on.

[Doctor Sunshine]

There's one way to find out. Let's do Munich. And we'll have to knock Red Desert down to DVD-only just to be sure. Who's with me? Make your voice heard!

[domino harvey]

I'm amazed this got bumped to Blu... Do we really wield such power?

[aox]

Now bumped to Blu, along with Everlasting Moments.

This is excellent news, but leaves so much unanswered--Did the complaining help? Are we going to have to complain like this every month? Have they been preparing a BD edition all along? Was this just a clerical error? If so, is the cleric being fired? And so on.

We could start complaining that Red Desert is being released on both Blu and DVD when it should only get DVD treatment, and see if they take away the Blu this time.

[Fierias]

the release dates were bumped back for both by two weeks, hinting, to me, that they weren't planning to do them in Blu, but will now need two more weeks to do so.

Also, could we be lucky enough that The Traveller will also be in HD?

[John Edmond]

Even my wallet will be happy for me if The Traveller is also in HD.

[captveg]

I'm amazed this got bumped to Blu... Do we really wield such power?

No. These releases take more than 3 months of planning.

[Tom Hagen]

If we actually wielded that kind of power through virtue of our bitching alone, we would not have that goddamn knife-and-fork Andre cover, the complete Rivette oeuvre would be out on Blu, and the Thomas J. Memorial "Eclipse Series 22: The Unseen, Unremembered Cinema of Sub-Saharan Africa" would now be a reality.

["membrillo"]

If this does get a Blu release, Criterion is doing the right thing, this transfer was begging for a Blu release.

[Oedipax]

Bravo, Criterion! I was going to just hang on to the Soda Pictures R2 (and, grudgingly, the R1 Facets) but now I have no choice but to buy this on bluray. Triple dipping on Kiarostami, what a world.

["membrillo"]

Now if we can just get "Through the Olive Trees" with english subs.......

[Napoleon]

If they had the rights for Blu (as now seems apparent), then the only reason these weren't originally announced as Blu must have been an oversight. This must be the 2010 version of the default aspect ratio from a few years back.

[ellipsis7]

It's fascinating that the materials - the negative - have been deemed suitable for a Blu release...

This could be a candidate for a first Criterion region-free Blu, I don't see obvious rights restrictions that would make it necessary to region code the Blu... CLOSE-UP out on R2 UK/IRL DVD from Soda Pictures, and does not have a standalone French release (although TRAVELLER recently was release on DVD by Les Films du Paradoxe)... Anyway neither are among the AK films handled by MK2... As far as I know CLOSE-UP is directly licensed from the filmmaker...

[Hail_Cesar]

It's fascinating that the materials - the negative - have been deemed suitable for a Blu release...

All the movies criterion release since two or three years are blu-ray ready...(All criterion with the mention ''New, restored high-definition digital transfer''.) When they did a numeric copy for ''remastering'' the image of a film and put it on dvd they transfered the masters in HD (or more?) because they thought about future generations and I guess it was better for working on the image...

I'm sure you can even transfert super 8 to HD.

[Dr Amicus]

I'm sure you can even transfert super 8 to HD.

Quite right - the BFI's Jeff Keen Blu Ray includes Super 8 material (and very nice it looks too!)

[ellipsis7]

It's just great that the CLOSE-UP negative is in such good shape twenty years on...

[zedz]

Fantastic news. The Soda transfer looked terrific, so I don't doubt the elements are up to it. And I'm 100% sure our complaints had no impact on the decision - it's only been a couple of days and I'm sure they can't turn around their production that fast. My guess is website goof or that the delivery date for the BluRay was unconfirmed at the time of posting (hence the slight release date shuffle).

[aox]

It's fascinating that the materials - the negative - have been deemed suitable for a Blu release...

All the movies criterion release since two or three years are blu-ray ready...(All criterion with the mention ''New, restored high-definition digital transfer''.) When they did a numeric copy for ''remastering'' the image of a film and put it on dvd they transfered the masters in HD (or more?) because they thought about future generations and I guess it was better for working on the image...

I'm sure you can even transfert super 8 to HD.

Do some searching... what you are saying is factual in what they hoped but the end was not what was desired. They have to start from scratch on everything.

[hangman]

It's fascinating that the materials - the negative - have been deemed suitable for a Blu release.

All the movies criterion release since two or three years are blu-ray ready...(All criterion with the mention ''New, restored high-definition digital transfer''.) When they did a numeric copy for ''remastering'' the image of a film and put it on dvd they transfered the masters in HD (or more?) because they thought about future generations and I guess it was better for working on the image...

I'm sure you can even transfert super 8 to HD.

Its been stated before, in one of the many blu-ray discussions in this board, that not all HD masterings of criterion is necessarily ready for blu-ray. The policy that stands is that its a case to case basis that needs to be evaluated, sure there are some that are good enough already but its not the norm for all transfers. Sides the whole ''New, restored high-definition digital transfer'' is pretty much up to debate considering that they slap those same words to films which seem to be direct ports, in terms of quality, to existing older versions found elsewhere (Jeanne Dielman or The Taking of Power by Louis XIV springs to mind). Perhaps they did do some tweaking here and there that would count for "new" but the degree to which is up in the air so I'd take that statement with a grain of salt.

I'm with Zedz on this one, chances it was either a goof or the delivery/pressing of the Blu was confirmed. Eitherway I'm excited for this release, and I was just about to buy the Soda DVD.

[AquaNarc]

Now where's the trilogy, an Eclipse documentaries box, and the other early features. Oh, and Taste of Cherry remastered and in Blu.

I'm not greedy, all I want is Where is The Friend's Home on blu. The other stuff would be wonderful, but I could die happy if the former were to happen.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Well this wraps up the top spot in Criterion awards 2010 for me but I wished they has squeezed in Le Pain et la Rue so I could offload the french dvd of Le Passager

[whaleallright]

A collection of Kiarostami's early films (mostly shorts, some of what the French call "moyen métrages" or 40- to 60-minute films) would be most welcome, but I think it has been very hard to source good elements on these. I am guessing that the inclusion of THE TRAVELLER here might suggest that such a set won't be happening any time soon.

I went to a screening of several of Kiarostami's shorts in Paris shortly before the first DVD release of his work by Paradoxe, and was told that the fairly battered copies screened were in some instances the only known prints outside of Iran. Does anyone know if the shorts available on the various Paradoxe DVDs from France have burnt-in French subtitles? If so, they are probably from these same prints.

It's really a shame that so much of Kiarostami's legacy seems to be tied up in rights issues and/or the difficulties in sourcing quality prints from Iran (a country where he isn't currently much in favor right now, in official and unofficial film-culture circles).

[ellipsis7]

During the Kiarostami London Festival in 2005, they put a lot of the subtitles on the rarer shorts and medium length pieces live from a laptop... The Les Films du Paradoxe discs have removable French subs.... You're right about the difficulty of sourcing prints... Hence my surprise and delight at the CLOSEUP Blu.... A few years back I had to lend my BFI VHS to colleagues to include a clip in their documentary, such was their difficulty in sourcing a print of CLOSEUP from Iran (this doc is an extra on the R1 ABC AFRICA from New Yorker)... It would be superb if the CC could put together a collection of the shorts, especially those rarer ones, which have not made it on to DVD anywhere...

[BWilson]

You guys talk about the shorts and early docs as if they're the only part of his catolgue that's hard to come by. How about Life and Nothing More and Through the Olive Trees? Major features that are nowhere to be found. Or is there a secret source for these that I'm unaware of?

[denti alligator]

You guys talk about the shorts and early docs as if they're the only part of his catolgue that's hard to come by. How about Life and Nothing More and Through the Olive Trees? Major features that are nowhere to be found. Or is there a secret source for these that I'm unaware of?

They are available in France.

However, you're right, we need English-friendly editions of these and Where is my Friend's House. These three would make a killer box set. Some of the finest film making of any decade.