The Annotated Kino Catalogue

[Scharphedin2]

Diary of a Lost Girl is available in a better (restored) version from Gaumont France in the Louise Brooks coffret (not available separately, includes Pandora's Box and Prix de Beaute.)

Thank you for these comments davidhare. Could you tell us a little more about this set. I have had my eyes on it, but I do not believe there is anything to accomodate a non-French speaking person. Does it carry German and/or French intertitles? Would you say that the set is still of interest, if someone has only a cursory understanding of French?

[HerrSchreck]

I'm not sure that there was another restoration of this film beyond the recent restoration of the film by the Cinemateque, Cineteca Bologna/LImagine Ritrovata, FWMStiftung, etc, which added ten minutes of previously censored footage, which is featured on the Kino dvd. It's probably, like PRIX DE BEAUTE, an R2 of the same material.

[Scharphedin2]

I have updated the catalogue with comments and links to reviews, etc. for another 50 titles or so.

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed to this effort.

[Matt]

I can attest to the strange problems afflicting Betty. I don't think it is simply PAL speedup. The whole film seems to be playing at a much faster speed than a simple 4% acceleration would account for. The transfer is also really terrible - lots of video noise. I can't really accurately describe what the problem is as I've never seen this on any other DVD, ever. I could only watch a few minutes of the film before I had to turn it off.

[Tommaso]

Diary of a Lost Girl is available in a better (restored) version from Gaumont France in the Louise Brooks coffret (not available separately, includes Pandora's Box and Prix de Beaute.)

Thank you for these comments davidhare. Could you tell us a little more about this set. I have had my eyes on it, but I do not believe there is anything to accomodate a non-French speaking person. Does it carry German and/or French intertitles? Would you say that the set is still of interest, if someone has only a cursory understanding of French?

It has German titles with optional French subs. If you can read German, go for it. Otherwise wait for the forthcoming MoC release.

[Tommaso]

Just an additional quick note of praise for "Sir Arne's Treasure", which I finally managed to watch yesterday evening. This is an amazing film in its creation of a brooding, wintery atmosphere and totally unusual camerawork for the time (moving camera five years before "The Last Laugh", amazing location photography). As Peter Cowie points out in his as usual excellent introduction, it has the feel of an Ingmar Bergman film forty years avant la lettre ("The Virgin Spring" already came to my mind when watching it before I heard Cowie's comments). Incidentally, Sven Nykvist was a pupil of Stiller's camerman, J. Julius.
The transfer is one of the best I ever saw from Kino: no ghosting I was aware of (may I assume that the SFI gave them an NTSC transfer from the beginning ?), very fine restoration all around, and very intense colours (perhaps even too strong in places), and a truly wonderful soundtrack that would perhaps even work without the images. The replaced intertitles must be noted, but they quite nicely redid them using a medieval kind of typo. Would be interesting to have a comparison to the original ones, though. So, all in all: one of the most amazing silent discoveries for me in recent times. I will get me the two other Stillers soon and report back as well

[HerrSchreck]

Just an additional quick note of praise for "Sir Arne's Treasure", which I finally managed to watch yesterday evening. This is an amazing film in its creation of a brooding, wintery atmosphere and totally unusual camerawork for the time (moving camera five years before "The Last Laugh", amazing location photography). As Peter Cowie points out in his as usual excellent introduction, it has the feel of an Ingmar Bergman film forty years avant la lettre ("The Virgin Spring" already came to my mind when watching it before I heard Cowie's comments). Incidentally, Sven Nykvist was a pupil of Stiller's camerman, J. Julius.
The transfer is one of the best I ever saw from Kino: no ghosting I was aware of (may I assume that the SFI gave them an NTSC transfer from the beginning ?), very fine restoration all around, and very intense colours (perhaps even too strong in places), and a truly wonderful soundtrack that would perhaps even work without the images. The replaced intertitles must be noted, but they quite nicely redid them using a medieval kind of typo. Would be interesting to have a comparison to the original ones, though. So, all in all: one of the most amazing silent discoveries for me in recent times. I will get me the two other Stillers soon and report back as well

The disc is pretty nice, the movie is fabulous (I've been like a broken record since the film came out on dvd as to what a revelation it was). But the transfer is pretty much on a par with the vast bulk of their silent catalog (incidentally there is ghosting on the dvd if you step-frame it, you'll see a perfect example of how preconversion issues don't have to be an interference if you don't go looking for it); the Griffiths, the Fairbanks, the Paul Leni's, Lang's, Mamoulians, Murnaus NOSFER. & TARTUFFE, the other Stillers, the 4 EDISON discs, the BLUE BIRD, and so many more. It's pretty much on a par with the vast bulk of their silent catalog.

ARNE is absolutely sublime, so haunting, so full of power. Bursting with aesthetic power, moving, poetic, like a medieval text brought to life with no loss of poetry & power in the translation to the screen.

Incidentally Tom, don't use DER LETZE MANN as your yartdstick for moving camera-- the teens were full of moving camera from Griffith to the Italians to Bauer to Walsh, etc. What Murnau & Freund can only, truly claim to have revolutionized was subjective moving camera... i e uses of camera moves to imply psychological states or subtextual implications. Not simply getting close in on a character for conventional punctuation or maintaining a vantage point with a moving character. Moves that are not immediately explainable via the basic veneer of action onscreen. Even the window-pulleying of the camera in LETZE, seemingly backward tracking from the horn is not "mysterious" in meaning, though innovative it is instantly identifiable as to it's purpose. As is the drunken staggering of the camera viz Freunds strapping the camera to his chest (though this is "more" subjective than the horn "note").

A perfect example of truly subjective camera is the wheeling of the camera past Jannings and the hotel housekeeper as he's being led down the hall on the way to the linen closet to retrieve the towel stack, etc, prior to his descent down to the lavatory assignation. This, as opposed to the whirling and staggering and otherwise inventive, colorfully playful uses of the camera which embroider the film's mise en scene, is a far more subjective and psychological-- and mysterious-- use of the camera. That simple tracking forward past the characters, leaving them behind to acquire no apparent new subject matter, for that briefest moment, landed like a mortar into the collective minds of the filmmaking community. We can still sit today and debate what that move signifies... the same way we can debate the endless reverberations of that mysterious device, as in TAXI DRIVER when a badly heartbroken & severely deteriorating Travis is on a pay phone in some anonymous building lobby talking to Betsy-- post-porno movie date-- asking her out for coffee, asking if she got the flowers, her claiming she's been sick, etc... and the camera tracks away from Travis , completely leaving the character to acquire nothing of "obvious", primary singificance, until it ultimately acquires the view of the long hallway out to the street.

This kind of deep, heavy, subjective poetry via moving camera truly got it's start in LETZE MANN.

[Tommaso]

Yes, Schreck, you're of course completely right about the subjective use of the camera in Murnau (and great examples you mention) which of course is quite a different thing from simply moving the camera around. I still find that circling camera movement in the prison scene in the Stiller quite amazing for the time, as it so perfectly creates the feeling of impending menace and the attack on the watchman to follow. In this respect one could talk here of the use of movement as creating a psychological state (although not yet in the Murnau sense you're talking about).

(I've been like a broken record since the film came out on dvd as to what a revelation it was).

Indeed, it is completely unbelievable that it is (was) so totally unknown until now. I totally agree with your other comment about it being like a medieval text brought to life. I guess a lot of the effect is due to the fact that it almost complete avoids melodramatic acting (particularly in the female protagonist's part), thus it keeps the 'objective' distance so necessary to achieve that effect of watching something from long ago. The final procession looks like something coming straight out of Beowulf in its archaic splendour. That doesn't of course mean it's emotionless, but it never tries to 'push' you into a certain direction. This is perhaps what it shares with Bergman's films (all of them, not just the medieval ones).

[Lemmy Caution]

Scharphedin2, superb job.
Kino has an impressive catalogue.
I only pick up titles blindly from Criterion and Kino.
[Of course, I'm in China so it's not that big an investment].
It'll take me a while to digest all of the info in this Kino thread.
Good stuff.

I have 2 Gaumont Louise Brooks' with only German or French inter-titles. So good to hear that MoC is coming out with a new version. MoC and Artificial Eye are pretty solid.

[HerrSchreck]

Yea that reverse whirl in front of the tower prison guard, it's one of the most beautiful tracking shots in the whole of the teens. When I saw that shot, along with the free looseness of the actors playing the three Scots when leapfrogging in the tower cell.. and all of the location shooting in the deep Swedish winter in 100% authentic medeival (or at least very very very old if not legitimately from the middle ages) locations, I knew I was in for a treat... even still I didn't anticipate such an incredible masterpiece standing right alongside all of my favorite French & German & American (and Rus & Italian) silents. It immediately jumped into my top ten silents of all time.

Just thinking of the funerary procession at the end across the ice gives me goose bumps & gets me misty. Even the idea of a god tearing up the ice behind the procession, which could have been so completely hokey & religious-cornball, moved me to the marrow in Stillers hands. I thought the score, and the wonderfully poetic translation of the intertitles, came together with the images for a truly, truly elevated cinematic experience. Absolutely the core and essence of all the reasons I love silent films so much more than talkies, right there in that movie. Timeless.

[zedz]

Indeed, it is completely unbelievable that it is (was) so totally unknown until now.

I am, of course, absolutely in tune with the praise for this film, but this is an issue worth looking at: the mysterious continental drift of movie canons. Sir Arne's Treasure, along with The Phantom Carriage, was a mainstream, acknowledged silent masterpiece for much of cinema history, routinely cited alongside The Last Laugh, Metropolis, Passion of Joan and The Gold Rush. You'll find both titles in any generally respectable, comprehensive 'best cinema' list published before the 1980s. Those two films conventionally stood in for the entirety of Swedish silent cinema (which certainly did that amazing period a disservice: personally, I'm fonder of Sjostrom and Stiller's more intimate films).

What's happened since is that neither film has had anything like the same profile or level of accessibility as those others, and I suspect that in the home video era (and specifically the DVD era), questions of home availability have overwhelmed the canon-forming processes of the pre-video era, where you'd read about the great films of the past for years before you'd get a single, fleeting opportunity to actually see them.

This increased accessibility of classic cinema is fantastic, but there's a tendency to assume that if a film was worth seeing, it would be available. We've even seen this expressed in this forum from time to time with disheartening 'all the great classics have now been released - whither Criterion?' posts.

It's wonderful that Kino have finally given this 'lost' classic another grab at the brass ring of fame, and it's even more exciting when DVD facilitates the discovery of masterpieces that were overlooked in the pre-video era. At least the former category ('lost' classics) are easier to identify.

[Lino]

Inspired by this thread and my own personal love of all things Münchhausen, I ordered the Kino DVD and watched it yesterday.

Well, add this one to the recommended list. Apparently, reviews tell me that it's a port from the german edition (extras and all) and miles ahead in quality from the current UK Eureka one. I haven't seen the latter, but what you do get in the Kino is goodness all around.

First of all, Agfacolor must be the darndest film stock to get a proper restoration out of. There are times where the results are far from perfect but considering the elements they had to work with in the first place, they achieved miracles. This one was restored by the F. W. Murnau Foundation and as always they went to extremes to provide us the ultimate DVD presentation of this film to date. And it often looks glorious! What colors! What scenery! What costumes! What special effects!

As an aside, Münchhausen being known as the Lying Baron, that makes him the perfect candidate of a film -- as someone once said, film is 24 frames per second of lying, or something like that. And isn't that the gospel truth?

In my household, me and my brothers all loved his stories ever since a book (with the original Dore illustrations, by the way) entered our home and captured our imaginations forever. So it was with grand anticipation that I went to see the Terry Gilliam version, back in the 80's. I loved it so much that it has remained my favorite film of his to this day. Since then, I've been able to watch two more Münchhausen film versions: the Karel Zeman one (wondrous and otherworldly in its own right and it's a real shame that no english subtitled DVD of this film exist today) and a short animated feature that comes as a bonus with the Kino DVD of the german film version (quite graphic in parts, as violence is concerned!).

So, if you love fantasy films with a healthy dose of humour and imagination, give this one a go. I give the Kino DVD two thumbs up, as another reviewer might have said.

[Tommaso]

Inspired by this thread and my own personal love of all things Münchhausen, I ordered the Kino DVD and watched it yesterday.

Well, add this one to the recommended list. Apparently, reviews tell me that it's a port from the german edition (extras and all) and miles ahead in quality from the current UK Eureka one. I haven't seen the latter, but what you do get in the Kino is goodness all around.

Is this really identical with the German version? I thought the German is a double dvd with an extra 50 minutes documentary about Agfacolor (which the Eureka is missing). I have the Eureka, as it was released two years before the German version came out, and I am damn pleased with it. Looks absolutely gorgeous (colours and all), and if Kino/Transit have improved on this, they must have done a miraculous job. Apart from this, absolutely essential viewing for any film buff I'd say. The use of colours and fantasy reminds me of Ludwig Berger/Michael Powell's 1940 "Thief of Bagdad", which I believe is the greater film, but still: a marvellous achievement, especially considering the wartime circumstances under which it was made. This was an utter prestige project of Goebbels, and it shows in the effort that has been put into it.

[colinr0380]

I'm still working through Filmbrain's blog and came across his review of The President's Last Bang. It is not about the Kino DVD release, but the film itself is reviewed and highly recommended and would be worth including on your list.

There is also an excellent interview with Im Sang-soo.

[Ashirg]

Oblomov comparison. Kino vs Ruscico.

[Tommaso]

Two additions to this thread, somehow dormant recently:

Contraband (Powell/Pressburger): A thoroughly enjoyable film, with a lot of fine humour and excellent cinematography, though clearly not quite up to their later standards. As often with Powell, there's a little undercurrent of playful sadism noticeable. No glue man this time, but the chairbound Valerie Hobson might raise an eye (if nothing else)
That Kino dvd comes from a very decent print, but again I think they did not quite do justice to it. The image is a little soft in places, and bright whites appear blown out more than once. This is clearly video sourced (tiny horizontal lines are noticeable in some very dark scenes), and the blacks are never really black (which is sad in a film which so much relies on darkness). Sound is fine. All in all, not a bad dvd, but certainly not as good as the print itself would have allowed. Guess I'm spoiled by Institut Lumiere's "49th parallel".....

Prix de Beaute: This has already been dealt with in detail in several places, but I have to say that the speed-up on this version is really disturbing and made me almost dizzy from time to time. No idea what happened: this is probably PAL sourced, but the French dvd of this (which I haven't seen) runs 95 min., whereas this NTSC disc runs 88 min. The speed-up should have been the other way round, of course. So in addition to normal PAL speed-up we get an additional speed-up, I would guess what we see runs at least at 29 frames per second, and the result is clearly unacceptable. Otherwise it looks very good, but in this form I find it close to unwatchable.

[Scharphedin2]

THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE-- ignore the pulpy title which makes you think it's some minor crime programmer; this film easily ranks side by side with THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, scriptwise, as being filled with gem after gem after gem dialog. Searing performances, particularly the lead (his name escapes me now, he was the military investigator in THE 3RD MAN, and this is generally regarded as his best performance), and the photography is as brilliantly hyper-noir as shadowy alleys, dripping water, foggy countrysides, prison bar shadows, gloomy bar halflights and wet streets soak this thing to the bone. Absolutely positively one of the best (and most bafflingly overlooked) crime dramas Ive ever seen, and the disc presents a very nice looking print on an interlaced disc that could be slightly better, but still and all nonetheless, the film and the disc will knock you completely backwards with a broken jaw. All three of these films are absolutely positively must-own's for any serious collector of the obscurest masterpieces nobody knows about.

I saw this last night based on Schreck's recommendation a long time ago, and the film completely lived up to what the above promises. It is another visciously dark entry in the noir cycle, . There is a moment at a saw mill, where the sound of the buzzing saws bleeds into the soundtrack to heighten the sense of danger and menace (completely reminded of something of the early industrial music movement of late '70s/early '80s). Another scene, depicting the heavy viciously beating up a young lady, plays out as a short experimental film within the film, with the footage being warped, ripped and spun around. The effect is simply shocking, and comes completely unexpectedly.

An excellent little film that I really recommend.

[MichaelB]

With the usual caveats that:

1. these are ancient reviews (mostly written 1999-2000, nothing less than five years old);
2. these were almost all written when the Kino version was the only release available (for instance, there's no way I'd now favour its The General over MK2's glorious edition);

...here are my DVD Times reviews that haven't been mentioned:

East Side Story
Faust (Svankmajer)
Go West
The Mirror
The Sacrifice
The Saphead
Seven Chances

And other comments on titles I've seen but haven't formally reviewed:

The Brothers Quay Collection: With all due modesty, since my BFI set came out I don't think anyone would challenge the claim that the Kino version is now totally redundant - and in any case it's OOP. I was highly amused by Digitally Obsessed's claim that the picture quality of that set is flawless - I hope no-one shows that reviewer the BFI transfer of Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies (anamorphic progressive PAL versus letterboxed interlaced NTSC) as his head might well explode.

Collected Shorts of Jan Sankmajer: I'm slightly baffled by Myra Breckinridge's comment on the Svankmajer shorts discs, as they're all in the original Czech when they have spoken dialogue at all - the one short with an English track, Jabberwocky, isn't actually featured in this set, and in any case this is the original language. So I think this comment was intended to apply to the DVD releases of the features Alice and Faust, only one of which is on Kino. Also, there's an alternative French edition of the shorts already on Chalet Films, and of course the BFI's hopefully definitive set will be released during 2007 - I can already confirm the inclusion of Jabberwocky and Leonardo's Diary, which aren't on any of the Kino discs.

Colour of Pomegranates/Paradjanov: A Requiem - A review of Kino's Paradjanov discs will appear in the next Sight & Sound (Feb 2007 coverdate), where I conclude that they're generally inferior to the competition from Ruscico, Films sans frontières and Columbia in Japan (the latter disc is startlingly good, and demolishes HerrSchreck's claim that the Kino picture is the best that was possible).

Legend of the Suram Fortress/Ashik Kerib - Kino currently offers the only way of seeing Legend of the Suram Fortress without voiceover, but in all other respects Ruscico is superior. The PAL version of Ruscico's Ashik Kerib is the finest Paradjanov release to date (any film, any label).

The Ossuary and Other Tales - can't fault this for rarity value, and it was great to see things like The Castle of Otranto (bizarrely titled The Otrants Castle on the packaging, but correctly on the disc itself) with subtitles for the first time, but the PAL-NTSC transfers are almost an object lesson in how not to do it. I'm happy to confirm that every title on this disc will be included in the BFI's upcoming set - in native PAL.

Tales from the Gimli Hospital - I'm puzzled by the comment that my review's reservations about the film are because I'm not on its wavelength. Actually, they're because while I recognised exactly what Maddin was trying to achieve, I had to be brutally honest about the all too obvious fact that his lack of cash and experience worked against him. (In fact, Maddin is even more masochistically self-critical in his commentary). Also, the Beaver review is almost exclusively about the technical aspects: there's very little substantive comment about the content of the film or extras.

Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl - eclipsed by MoC's edition of The Holy Mountain, which includes the entire documentary as a very generous extra.

[Tommaso]

Thanks as always, Michael, for your comments. As you mention the Kino disc of the Brothers Quay shorts, do you have their disc of "Institute Benjamenta"? I know its OOP anyway, but I might buy it at the inflated ebay prices if I knew it was flawless...

[Scharphedin2]

Thanks for the links and comments Michael. I will revisit this little project sometime (in the near) future, and include these.

I was putting this together over the course of a couple of days last summer, and chased down as many reviews as I could find, skimming them, and adding links to a selection of reviews that I felt would give someone an idea of the quality of both film and DVD.

Looking at the way I presented the links to the DVD Times and DVDBeaver reviews, I can see why you are puzzled, and I have changed the wording. By way of an explanation, although I do not remember exactly: Beaver's review is much less detailed and informative (about the film) than yours, but it is also more immediately enthusiastic. The comment about the "wavelength," I am sure came from Tooze's comment about the inherent defects of the soundtrack, which he says adds to the mood of the picture, and are intentional. I apologise, if I misread and/or misrepresented you.

[MichaelB]

Beaver's review is much less detailed and informative (about the film) than yours, but it is also more immediately enthusiastic. The comment about the "wavelength," I am sure came from Tooze's comment about the inherent defects of the soundtrack, which he says adds to the mood of the picture, and are intentional. I apologise, if I misread and/or misrepresented you.

Actually, my comment on the soundtrack was:

The sound is the original mono, and there's not a lot to say about it: like most Maddin soundtracks, much of its scratchy awfulness is entirely deliberate, so it seems a little unfair penalising it on those grounds (though others have been less generous: the Toronto Film Festival turned the film down because of its poor sound, despite protestations that it was supposed to be like that). All I can do is confirm that it sounds exactly like what I heard in the cinema, and since the transfer was personally supervised by Maddin himself, it's safe to assume that it's exactly what he wants.

Believe me, I am absolutely on the film's technical wavelength (I've discussed this film on separate occasions with Maddin himself and his producer Greg Klymkiw) - my reservations are entirely artistic. And I thoroughly recommend this DVD: although I can think of several Maddin films I'd favour over this one, I can't fault Kino's presentation, which was actually far in excess of what I thought possible given the low-budget 16mm original.

[Scharphedin2]

Thanks as always, Michael, for your comments. As you mention the Kino disc of the Brothers Quay shorts, do you have their disc of "Institute Benjamenta"? I know its OOP anyway, but I might buy it at the inflated ebay prices if I knew it was flawless...

Tommaso, just in case you don't know, Zeitgeist will re-release it soon. Depending on how urgently you want to see the film, it may be smart to wait.

[Scharphedin2]

Beaver's review is much less detailed and informative (about the film) than yours, but it is also more immediately enthusiastic. The comment about the "wavelength," I am sure came from Tooze's comment about the inherent defects of the soundtrack, which he says adds to the mood of the picture, and are intentional. I apologise, if I misread and/or misrepresented you.

Actually, my comment on the soundtrack was:

The sound is the original mono, and there's not a lot to say about it: like most Maddin soundtracks, much of its scratchy awfulness is entirely deliberate, so it seems a little unfair penalising it on those grounds (though others have been less generous: the Toronto Film Festival turned the film down because of its poor sound, despite protestations that it was supposed to be like that). All I can do is confirm that it sounds exactly like what I heard in the cinema, and since the transfer was personally supervised by Maddin himself, it's safe to assume that it's exactly what he wants.

Believe me, I am absolutely on the film's technical wavelength (I've discussed this film on separate occasions with Maddin himself and his producer Greg Klymkiw) - my reservations are entirely artistic. And I thoroughly recommend this DVD: although I can think of several Maddin films I'd favour over this one, I can't fault Kino's presentation, which was actually far in excess of what I thought possible given the low-budget 16mm original.

You make me feel bad... For what it is worth, I think your review is excellent -- thorough, detailed, written with objectivity, and clearly a recommendation of the film and the DVD. The list was put together with an aim to present a good set of references for anyone not very familiar with the films themselves or Kino's releases (like myself at the time). I already agreed that my use of the word "wavelength" in linking the two reviews was wrong and unfair to your review of the disc, and I promptly removed it with my apologies.

[Tommaso]

Tommaso, just in case you don't know, Zeitgeist will re-release it soon. Depending on how urgently you want to see the film, it may be smart to wait.

Thanks, Sharphedin, I didn't know! Great! After having watched the BFI set I of course want to see "Benjamenta" immediately, but if they re-release it soon, I will be glad to wait. I guess they will certainly improve upon the initial release.

[HerrSchreck]

Colour of Pomegranates/Paradjanov: A Requiem - A review of Kino's Paradjanov discs will appear in the next Sight & Sound (Feb 2007 coverdate), where I conclude that they're generally inferior to the competition from Ruscico, Films sans frontières and Columbia in Japan (the latter disc is startlingly good, and demolishes HerrSchreck's claim that the Kino picture is the best that was possible).

You're a serious man Mike. Demolished me says:

Don't be silly (or A Pumped-Rocky-Doing-Situps melodramatic). I said that the print represents period analog color transfer from no budget labs for a no budget film that the authorities despised. The man was thrown in jail furchrissakes. You're talking about an ancient touring print that actually managed to include an almost properly structured edit of this Soviet-hated film. This guy was considered so decadent as to be a virtual pornography of creativity.

Ever watch tv or go to the shithouse Times Square or outer boro movies in the late sixties or 70's and see a garbage no budget fillm? That's how the films looked good portion of the time. Ever see a technicolor western, or even something like MARY POPPINS on TV or on a dupey tape from decades old exposures/duping? Do you know how far from original technicolor we've come from the very vintage of the films, when contemporary? We year by year-- with digital color correction, edge enhancement, contrast boosting, grain zapping, etc-- edge further and further away from seeing what audiences saw when they went to the theaters to see the films we so lionize.

Of course going back to original negs or first gen, re-exposing, wetgating, with extensive color timing adjustment & correction is going to be a revelation with such an abused film relegated to the shitheap. Obviously. I never meant the Kino couldn't be improved upon, I meant that the disc probably looks identical to the print that was provided, and probably not very far from the color of the original prints.. i e short of taking liberties with the reels provided by god knows who, the trasfer represents the film on the then-only-available reels of this most obscure of directors. The fact that there are thousands of people buying this man's films-- and pretending to know what they're seeing-- in all the major dvd markets around the globe is very very very new...