Oh, well, I'll just have to look forward to the Facets edition...
Listed on the Arrow Films website.
Great news! But one wonders how far off the Criterion edition might be.Exterminating Angel and Viridiana
Great news! But one wonders how far off the Criterion edition might be.Exterminating Angel and Viridiana
Koch Lorber is releasing Olvidados, and my guess is they might have more Mexicans up their sleeve.Langlois68 wrote:I expect Criterion to live up to their reputation and give us a Bunuel Mexican boxset. They may be the only compnay in the world who can.
It was already aired last year, and was confirmed as having the Janus logo, as noted in this threadCobalt60 wrote:The Exterminating Angel is on TCM on 06/15, so keep and eye out for that Janus logo.
am i the only one who think this is Bunuels most overrated film? saw at least a dozen Bunuel movies in the cinema last year and i hade really high expectations before i saw this and was really disappointed.Ashirg wrote:DVD Times review of Exterminating Angel
this has been my first and only Bunuel film and despite not being familiar with the director's work I couldn't possibly call this film a masterpiece. It's long and meandering and takes absurd to a whole new level, of course all of this could and likely was intended by the director but it doesn't make for an enjoyable viewing experience-- rather I feel like I'm being punished. I'm positive there's more of a depth here that I'm unwilling to go into but there's nothing that makes me want to, and if I wanted to see a real scorching of the complacent, bourgeois upper-class I'd watch The Rules of the Game insteadalfons416 wrote:am i the only one who think this is Bunuels most overrated film?
Roger Ebert wrote:The dinner guests arrive twice. They ascend the stairs and walk through the wide doorway, and then they arrive again--the same guests, seen from a higher camera angle. This is a joke and soon we will understand the punch line: The guests, having so thoroughly arrived, are incapable of leaving.
This is true - I noticed this straight away. The correct order of shots is that the servants are leaving but see that the guests are entering the hall so they hide in another room. The guests then enter the hall, the host calls his butler and the guests go up the stairs. It then cuts to the servants in the other room who begin to leave thinking that the guests have gone upstairs but then the guests enter the hall again so they retreat back into the other room. We then see the guests entering for a second time, the host calls his butler and the guests go up the stairs.davidhare wrote:In the opening scenes, as the servants are making moves to escape the house, and just before the guests arrive, Bunuel appears to have filmed one group of servants getting ready in a couple of shots and then after another couple of shots of the hosts, repeats the same "escaping servants" sequence with shots from different camera setups. Something like an intentional Ed Wood-like "continuity error."
I used to but no longer have a British VHS version which - relying on memory - did indeed have this "extra" couple of shots. But the Arrow R2/AVChannelR4 source, eliminates them.
He also recalls how his chief cameraman said to him that there was something very wrong because the scene was in there twice without realising that this was intentional.'In life, as in film, I've always been fascinated by repetition' ... 'There are at least a dozen repetitions in The Exterminating Angel' ... 'Another repetition occurs when the guests enter the hall and the host calls his butler twice; in fact, it's the same scene, but shot from different angles.'
No, you're quite right - I'm being far too lenient. I'm wondering how widespread this problem is. Has anyone seen a real print of the film as opposed to just a video copy and if so did it have the scene intact? I have a feeling that many prints of The Exterminating Angel may have the scene cut.davidhare wrote:The godammed discs WONT suffice
I once saw a screening at a repertory cinema, and noted that scene as a classic Bunuel-ism. Cutting it makes about as much sense as removing the opening of Un chien andalou because a barber would never cut an eyeball in real life.vogler wrote:Has anyone seen a real print of the film as opposed to just a video copy and if so did it have the scene intact? I have a feeling that many prints of The Exterminating Angel may have the scene cut.
Care to expand? Are we talking poor picture quality, poor subtitles or both?Don Lope de Aguirre wrote:I am not sure if this is the right place to be posting this or if this is common knowledge but the R2 Yume Pictures Nazarin is an abomination!!
You've piqued my interest now; to be honest I've never seen any Bunuel film between L'Age d'or and Los olvidados, or indeed the latter and Viridiana. Certainly, I don't think he ever made a below-par film post-1960 (with the possible exception of Tristana, which seemed like a weaker retread of Viridiana), so perhaps the earlier ones are just as good (even Robinson Crusoe?).davidhare wrote:Subida al Cielo is one of the greatest of all Bunuels!
Let's put it this way: when I first saw the image I almost gasped... It might not be quite as distracting on a regular widescreen TV but I really had to make an effort just to finish the film! It's a DVD from another age almost...Care to expand? Are we talking poor picture quality, poor subtitles or both?
Yume also have 'The Great Madcap' and 'Ascent to Heaven' coming up on their books, both of which are supposed to be pretty minor Bunuel (not that I've seen them).
I've not seen many of his Mexican films, but all I have seen were worthwhile. I think that, after Los Olvidados, my favorite is Nazarin, which strikes me as a warm-up for Viridiana but told from a male point of view (i.e., the main character trying live a pure Christian life outside the Church is a priest rather than a novitiate nun). At any rate, you'd probably find it an interesting point of comparison for both Viridiana and the later Tristana.Gropius wrote:Certainly, I don't think he ever made a below-par film post-1960 (with the possible exception of Tristana, which seemed like a weaker retread of Viridiana), so perhaps the earlier ones are just as good (even Robinson Crusoe?).
I haven't seen close to all of the Mexican films, but they're by far my favourite period for Bunuel (and you can throw in the non-Mexican films from the same era, like La Mort en ce jardin and Viridiana). There's a demonic resourcefulness in his twisting of traditional forms and low-budget production constrictions into highly personal and perverse expression.Gropius wrote:You've piqued my interest now; to be honest I've never seen any Bunuel film between L'Age d'or and Los olvidados