578 The Complete Jean Vigo

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HerrSchreck
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#51 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue May 17, 2011 9:43 am

L'Atalante just sends me... lord just the sound of the score-- hell even the thought of it-- sees me levitate.

There's a silliness and a gloominess about the film that is just utterly unique; the silliness of the sense of humor, typified of course by Michel Simon's Pere Jules. From the moment following the wedding when he minces absurdly (running like his feet were tied together with short strings) back to the holy water at the church and with a look on his face like he was about to bust out laughing making the sign of the cross (and "God's deserted us," back on the barge a moment later), the film is filled with a sense of a long running inside joke between he and Vigo. Almost as though the two of them were laughing their way straight thru the film because of the stuff they were putting into it... almost like the silly atmosphere on the old days of the Stern show where Howard Jackie and Fred can barely keep together because of how funny they know the show is and what they're getting away with, a la one of the better Richard Simmons appearances.

I mean the film just had me in tears of hysterics, i e when Jules is going bananas with Parlo's dress while she's trying to pin it, asking Daste over and over and over again if he's going fishing (after jumping in the water looking for his wife). The thief cornered at the train station yelping and whimpering and jumping around like a spastic dog on methamphetamine. The performer at the little cafe (The Poultry Is Inside).

Meanwhile wrapping around all this absurdity is a cloudy, rusty, gloomy, yet sensual atmospheric, thick with fog and a heavy sense of the long ago and far away that for me is just absolutely seductive. When Parlo & Daste are separated from each other but simultaneously longing to jump each other's bones signified by these wonderful superimpositions over one another passing their hands over their own bodies, intercut with the two of them swimming in the canal. . . christ it's just sublime stuff.

Vaguely conjures a feeling not too dissimiliar to Rimbaud, another young poet with a very limited output who merges the intensely beautiful with the out-to-lunch.

I love all of Vigo-- the canon is an endlessly rewatchable series of confections that I periodically go back to to get refreshed by. The late twenties and early thirties were such a magical time in Paris-- Kirsanoff, Vigo, Gremillon, Epstein, Dreyer, Renoir, Cocteau just wonderful stuff. One could go on and on with the names.

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Jun-Dai
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#52 Post by Jun-Dai » Tue May 17, 2011 7:39 pm

I personally thought that the separated/longing superimpositions were over the top and awkwardly done. I was in stitches when Annette Insdorf in the video interview on the New Yorker disc said something to the effect that it was the most erotic scene ever filmed.

The film definitely does have some incredibly touching moments, but I don't really consider that one of them.

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ellipsis7
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#53 Post by ellipsis7 » Wed May 18, 2011 2:57 am

Re. the swimming sequence in L'ATALANTE, it's fascinating to compare the techniques Vigo used in TARIS to those used dramatically here...

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Tommaso
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#54 Post by Tommaso » Wed May 18, 2011 3:13 am

HerrSchreck wrote:L'Atalante just sends me... lord just the sound of the score-- hell even the thought of it-- sees me levitate.
Which reminds me: isn't it a good time now to get your exclusive audiocommentary out to us? ;) I really appreciated your take on "Menilmontant", btw, belated thanks for that.

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Cold Bishop
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#55 Post by Cold Bishop » Wed May 18, 2011 4:49 am

They have to reinsert the ice shot and the wrestling superimpositions!

Grand Illusion
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#56 Post by Grand Illusion » Wed May 18, 2011 7:15 am

Time to get rid of my New Yorker L'Atalante disc?

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A
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#57 Post by A » Fri May 20, 2011 1:57 pm

Cold Bishop wrote:They have to reinsert the ice shot and the wrestling superimpositions!
Don't think that will happen, as these bits were included in an earlier resto (1990), which has for some reasons been "disregarded" by the Gaumont people...

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MichaelB
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#58 Post by MichaelB » Fri May 20, 2011 2:22 pm

I'm firmly in the pro-L'Atalante camp (and agree 100% with everything Schreck says), but I've only ever seen it in 35mm - and the comments above suggest that this makes a significant difference.

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HerrSchreck
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#59 Post by HerrSchreck » Fri May 20, 2011 2:45 pm

Yes I was very pleased to recently get a DVDR from a friend of that older resto so I can have that excised footage (plus the different song at the end) for my own personal archive.

L'Atalante is just magnificent.
Jun-Dai wrote:The film definitely does have some incredibly touching moments, but I don't really consider that one of them.
I don't know if the scene (of sexual longing) is touching per se, (aside from what the actors are doing to themselves), but beautifully done and erotic I'd say it certainly is.

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zedz
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#60 Post by zedz » Fri May 20, 2011 3:58 pm

MichaelB wrote:I'm firmly in the pro-L'Atalante camp (and agree 100% with everything Schreck says), but I've only ever seen it in 35mm - and the comments above suggest that this makes a significant difference.
Ditto, and I'd been (probably obnoxiously) assuming that the nay-sayers must have missed the 35mm revival when it was circulating in the late 80s / early 90s. It's such a vital film, and like Zero de conduite it's 'moving', but in completely unexpected ways. They're films that love to trip you up by mixing registers and taking your breath away with moments that could be quirkily idiosyncratic, earnestly documentary or wildly poetic, sometimes rammed up alongside each other. For some reason that diversity works beautifully on the big screen, where even the most casual and intimate moment is made monumental and equated with the passages of sweeping impressionism. As Leos Carax recognized, what Vigo manages to do here is fashion a modern romantic myth out of a very eccentric bag of odds and ends, without flattening out the eccentricity.

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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#61 Post by karmajuice » Sat May 21, 2011 1:30 pm

I have had the Artificial Eye set for two years and still haven't watched it, and now Criterion releases this. Fuck.

Maybe a "in the distant future" purchase, if I adore the films once I finally get around to watching them.

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HerrSchreck
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#62 Post by HerrSchreck » Sun May 22, 2011 5:48 am

What's been pre-empting them all this time? What them furchrissakes!!!

karmajuice
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#63 Post by karmajuice » Sun May 22, 2011 6:48 pm

Region problems. My blu-ray drive isn't compatible with region-free software so I need to get an external DVD drive. Why I've put it off for so long I hardly know. But it's happening next paycheck.

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perkizitore
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#64 Post by perkizitore » Wed Aug 10, 2011 5:21 pm


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Tribe
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#65 Post by Tribe » Mon Aug 29, 2011 9:24 pm

According to Beaver, these all appear to be new transfers, and after comparing them to the Artificial Eye release, I tend to agree. These appear to be a marked improvement over the AE transfers, which were pretty darn good in the first place. I've never seen these look this beautiful.

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swo17
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#66 Post by swo17 » Wed Aug 31, 2011 11:42 am

Michel Gondry video tribute to Vigo (also available on the CC release)

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Tribe
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#67 Post by Tribe » Wed Aug 31, 2011 11:43 am

I loved that...I only wish it could've been longer.

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ptatler
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#68 Post by ptatler » Fri Sep 09, 2011 5:53 pm

Here's a little write up on both SUNSHINE and the VIGO set, written under duress.

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YnEoS
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#69 Post by YnEoS » Fri Sep 09, 2011 11:10 pm

Anyone else have trouble getting their DVDs out of the case? I've had some tough ones before, but for some reason here the DVDs seemed extra bendable, and I nearly had to bend my DVDs in half just to pull it out. Scared me half to death.

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knives
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#70 Post by knives » Fri Sep 09, 2011 11:36 pm

Look up a few posts.

neal
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#71 Post by neal » Sat Sep 10, 2011 1:08 am

By which knives means: Yes, people are talking about it over in the packaging thread.

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manicsounds
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#72 Post by manicsounds » Thu Sep 29, 2011 9:54 am

Can anyone comment on the 1998 Jean Vigo biopic? There is a DVD from Park Circus UK but can't find any reviews.

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htshell
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2011 4:15 pm

Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#73 Post by htshell » Thu Sep 29, 2011 3:29 pm

Extremely happy with this set. Love all the transfers, extras and graphic design.

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ellipsis7
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#74 Post by ellipsis7 » Thu Sep 29, 2011 3:49 pm

manicsounds wrote:Can anyone comment on the 1998 Jean Vigo biopic? There is a DVD from Park Circus UK but can't find any reviews.
Haven't seen it myself on basis of contemporaneous reviews such as this capsuled in Time Out...
Jean Vigo (1905-34) suffered from TB and paranoia. His anarchist father was murdered when Vigo was 12, and the event haunted him. Yet in a career that encompassed only three short scraps and one heavily compromised feature (L'Atalante), Vigo ensured his place in history as a poet of cinema. Best known for The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle, Julien Temple doubtless identified with Vigo the proto-punk and master metteur-en-scène, yet the character here, filtered through a gauzy screenplay, is an impetuous, immature prankster whose love for cinema seems to be a symptom of congenital irresponsibility. Constructed as a romance of sorts, the film begins with Vigo (Frain) meeting his future wife Lydu (Bohringer) in an alpine sanatorium, whisking her off to marriage and motherhood in Nice, and then abandoning her to his career. While Frain strikes a boyish, charismatic note, and Bohranger brings her trademark pursed soulfulness to Lydu, they're surrounded by as excruciating a contingent of channel-hopping Frenchmen as you'll find this side of TV's 'Allo, 'Allo.
And, yes, this review is far from perfect too in its summation of the man & his films!... Read Salles Gomes' book instead, for a proper attempt at a biog, written in 1957 but still the best source to date...

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Noiretirc
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Re: 578 The Complete Jean Vigo

#75 Post by Noiretirc » Mon Dec 19, 2011 1:53 am

I experienced L'Atalante just once many years ago and was underwhelmed. But I got this set recently anyway and Zero De Conduite just blew me away tonight. The influence on Truffaut and 400 Blows is obvious, but surely Fellini (and even Kubrick) bowed to this? There's a slomo scene towards the end involving white robes, feathers, a penis, smirks, triumph, and the scene basically sums up all of Fellini in 20 seconds. How Vigo got all of those kids to do those faces in that short scene is something that I will marvel at for years to come. Zero De Conduite is an endlessly fascinating little film.

I look forward to a L'Atalante redo.

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