Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s
by Roger Barlow, Harry Hay, LeRoy Robbins, Man Ray
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Actor: André de la Rivière, Harry Hay, Kiki of Montparnasse, Robert Desnos, Roger BarlowDirector: Harry Hay, LeRoy Robbins, Man Ray, Roger Barlow
Brand: Kino International
Writer: Robert Desnos
Cinematographer: Hy Hirsh
Cinematographer: Man Ray
Producer: Man Ray
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Original Language); German (Original Language); Swedish (Original Language)
Format: DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 360 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-08-02
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: 4022
Studio: Kino Video
Product features:
- AVANT-GARDE-EXPRMNTL CINEMA 20'S & 30'S (DVD MOVIE)
DVD Reviews of Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s
DVD Review: No Real Respect for their Material
Summary: 2 Stars
Back in the early 1990s, I stumbled upon a Kino VHS version of Metropolis, and decided to watch it with a couple of friends. Even as a teenager with a penchant for radical/experimental music, the soundtrack was so abysmal that we ended up watching the entire movie on mute. In 2003, my girlfriend at the time purchased a Kino DVD edition of Lang's "Spies" for me for my birthday; again, the audio was so bad that we promptly returned the film and put the money towards a nice dinner. The fundamental failures of Kino can be readily comprehended in comparing their version of Metropolis to the recent release by Criterion - Criterion is meticulous in its restoration of movie classics and in its supporting documentation; the quality of their product is throughout superior - from the packaging to the accompanying literature, to the supplemental material. In fact, Criterion, discovering that a score had been produced specifically for Metropolis, went so far as to both reconstruct and use this score in their re-issue of the film. If I understand correctly, they are now putting out another version of Metropolis, using recently found and restored footage, bringing it closer to its original form.
By comparison, there is something simply cheep and shoddy about Kino's products. How they come upon the rights to so many great films, or access to great movie collections, I don't know. What I do know is that they seem to have absolutely no respect for the films that they distribute. From the quality of the video, to the canned, electronic and mind-numbingly bad audio, to the packaging; everything in the Kino releases of classical film bespeaks quick profits for poor quality products. Given my now nearly 20 year history with this company, I must be a dupe for believing that they will ever respect the content of the materials that they are producing.
Needless to say, I gave Kino one more shot when I saw this collection of Avant-Garde Cinema, which I hoped to use specifically in addressing avant-garde film techniques in a class I'm teaching next semester. The collection does contain some hard-to-come-by classics, and the three-disk collection is relatively comprehensive, considering the source. I cannot express how disheartened I was (fingers crossed, hoping that this once, Kino would get it right), when I received the same poorly packaged product (the DVDs were already bouncing around inside the sealed, plastic-wrapped containers), and started playing the first disc. As usual, the video quality was relatively poor, and my ears were once more assaulted by some of the worst, low-budget racket I've ever heard. In certain instances, the scoring is entirely mysterious (especially in experimental silent FILM, where it is precisely the visual nature of the work that was intended to be the subject), in other instances, it is entirely inappropriate.
So passes another great disappointment at the hands of Kino, who might do better simply pumping out the kind of low-budget classic kitsch camp films that they seem to be fitted for producing, instead of staining truly great works of cinema with their incompetence. This said, for people interested in this kind of cinema, I say, do not let the low price point of Kino's products sway you - you get what you pay for. So much is online that the decision to purchase a physical copy of these films should be driven by a desire to own an artifact that preserves and respects the content in high-resolution and with appropriate documentation and sensitivity to the original works. In other words, save up and invest in a higher quality edition, possibly by Criterion, if offered, or some other distributor who is invested in film, in the history of film and in digitally preserving, restoring and presenting great film in an appropriate format.
Description of Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s
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