The Masters of Cinema Series: Eureka! | Recent Updates

Hitchcock Comes to MoC

Mon, 23 Apr 2012, 13:06:46 GMT

Now available: our first-ever release of the work of Alfred Hitchcock, and it’s a beauty: Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) wartime Hitch, in the form of one 20th Century Fox feature and his two half-hour French-language works made in support of the Resistance — all beautifully restored and presented on the Blu-ray in 1080p HD.

<a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/lifeboat/“>Lifeboat</a> found Hitchcock challenging his dramatic skills with this self-imposed limit: tell the story of the ragtag assemblage of survivors of a Nazi-bombed ocean liner in a single setting — a lifeboat adrift in the middle of the sea. The result is a glorious success, a nail-biting suspenser with an entrancing female lead (fiery force-of-nature Tallulah Bankhead) which, in typical Hitchcock fashion, dazzlingly pulls out all the stops of pure cinema technique. Bon voyage concisely sketches a daring escape from behind enemy lines back to the home-front, shot through with the same wry humour that pervades Aventure malgache [Madagascan Adventure], a gripping tale of hidden identity and pirate radio in the milieu of a French theatre troupe. This pair of short works presages the economy and speed that would later distinguish Hitchcock’s own entries over a decade later in the popular Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series.

The release is accompanied by a 20-minute video documentary on the making of Lifeboat; a 12-minute excerpt from the audio record of François Truffaut’s epic 1962 interview with the director that would serve as the basis for Hitchcock/Truffaut; and a packed 36-page booklet including a new essay on Lifeboat by Hitchcock scholar Bill Krohn, and new essays on both of the propaganda shorts by Krohn, and French critics Arthur Mas and Martial Pisani — the first extended critical examinations of those works. The entire package is also available in a gorgeous SteelBook edition…

If that weren’t enough, also available now are our 1080p Dual Format upgrades of four Kenji Mizoguchi masterpieces: <a href = “http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/ugetsu-monogatari/“>Ugetsu monogatari with Oyû-sama</a>, and <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/sansho-dayu/“>Sanshô dayû with Gion bayashi</a>. Watch this space for more details about these remarkable, essential films.

MATTHEW According to Pasolini

Sun, 08 Apr 2012, 12:41:48 GMT

Now available on Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD): our edition of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1964 masterpiece, <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/the-gospel-according-to-matthew/“>The Gospel According to Matthew</a> [Il vangelo secondo Matteo].

David Hudson at The Notebook calls attention to some of the reviews of and writing surrounding our release <a href=“http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/daily-briefing-pasolinis-gospel”>here</a>, in the course of which he includes a quote from Martin Scorsese that nicely summarizes what makes Pasolini’s film so great:

“Up to that point, I had an idea to do a film on Jesus, in cinéma-vérité style, in the Lower East Side of New York with everyone wearing suits, a modern-day interpretation of the story we know. So I was moved and crushed at the same time by the Pasolini film because in a sense it was what I wanted to do. Jesus was played by a Spanish law student, and it was shot in the south of Italy… Pasolini’s use of faces was marvelous. It reminds me of Renaissance art even though it’s in black and white, and I love the music – the Missa Luba and Bach. Just compare his Christ with Jeffrey Hunter. He doesn’t act walking, he is walking; it’s not self-conscious and yet it’s very determined… I like [Pasolini]‘s Christ as a kind of conspirator. It was a revolutionary Jesus. In fact, at the time, people referred to him as a Marxist Christ. The strength of Matthew’s language comes out very clearly, and it’s purer because it doesn’t try to make it a straight story from beginning to end. There are no transitions between scenes, characters come and disappear, they reappear in no dramatic way. Yet the key to the whole picture is Jesus – how forceful He is and how He carries through. ‘Do not think I have come to bring peace on this earth. I have come to bring a sword… He who loves his father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me.’ This is not the stuff you usually hear on Sunday morning in church! He’s a very strong Christ, you’re either with him or against him, and some of the sermons do give you the sense of being yelled at and beaten down.”

Our HD restored transfer of the film is accompanied by Pasolini’s beautiful 1965 film on the surveying of locations for Gospel, Sopralluoghi in Palestina [Scouting in Palestine]. The films are further supplemented by the original trailer for Gospel, a 1963 newsreel extract about the production, a selection of outtakes from the original Sopralluoghi rushes, and newly translated optional English subtitles across the release. A 36-page booklet features a 1963 letter by Pasolini to Lucio S. Caruso of the Catholic Pro Civitate Christiana; a 2012-updated essay on the film by critic Pasquale Iannone; excerpts from a 1969 interview with Pasolini by Oswald Stack, on both Gospel and Sopralluoghi; an excerpt from the Book of Matthew; and rare archival imagery.

Later this month: Dual Format upgrades of Kenji Mizoguchi’s towering Ugetsu monogatari (with Oyû-sama) and Sanshô dayû (with Gion bayashi) — all in 1080p HD — and a Dual Format release of our first ever Hitchcock title in the Series: Lifeboat, accompanied by Hitch’s two rare wartime shorts: Bon voyage and Aventure malgache, all presented in 1080p.

Pasolini’s ACCATTONE

Wed, 21 Mar 2012, 11:23:25 GMT

Available on 26th March, 2012: <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/accattone/“>Accattone</a>, the legendary debut from the martyr of Italian cinema, Pier Paolo Pasolini.

By turns ragged and graceful, sacred and profane, Accattone charts the rise-and-fall destiny of Franco Citti’s eponymous street pimp, heroically resilient, tragically reliant on the fortunes of a prize whore and the general art of the scrounge.

Our Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) edition presents Pasolini’s film (referenced by Morrissey’s 2006 single ”You Have Killed Me” — clip viewable <a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9z0JVTuvq8">here</a>) in a luminous restored HD transfer. It is accompanied by the director’s 1965 feature-length essay documentary Comizi d’amore [Love Meetings], an exploration of Italian attitudes towards sex. Both films sport newly translated optional English subtitles, and are supplemented with their original theatrical trailers; a new feature-length audio commentary by Tony Rayns on Accattone rounds out the discs. The release’s 36-page booklet features a translation of Pasolini’s 1958 poem ”To a Pope”; excerpts from a 1969 interview with Pasolini by Oswald Stack about both films; a 1975 essay on Accattone by the director; Pasolini’s original 1964 treatment for Comizi d’amore; and rare archival imagery.

Out simultaneously: our new Dual Format edition of Pasolini’s masterpiece <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/the-gospel-according-to-matthew/“>The Gospel According to Matthew</a>, which will be highlighted in this space soon. Look for more Pasolini from The Masters of Cinema Series in the months ahead…

REPO MAN’s Always Intense

Tue, 06 Mar 2012, 10:20:32 GMT

Available NOW exclusively on a special director-approved Blu-ray in limited-edition ‘regular’ and SteelBook variations: <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/repo-man/“>Repo Man</a>.

Alex Cox’s gonzo po-mo cult classic debuted in 1984 — the perfect year to drop a schizoid, Pynchon-parallel freakout that’s as deft with offering up classical cinematic technique as it is weaving together time-machines, UFOs, and DIY punk ethics into a singular “lattice of coincidence”.

Blanks might get the job done too, but our release comes loaded and live: a new high-definition master of the feature in its original aspect ratio (with the original mono soundtrack in DTS-HD Master Audio, and optional English SDH subtitles) is accompanied by an audio commentary with Alex Cox and executive producer (of early fame with The Monkees) Michael Nesmith, casting director Victoria Thomas, and actors Sy Richardson, Zander Schloss, and Del Zamora; an all-new 2012 video piece directed by Cox offering further thoughts on the film; the legendary and complete “TV version” of the film as prepared by Cox for network television in the 1980s which incorporates deleted material and surreal overdubs in place of profanity; a retrospective video piece on the making of the film with Cox, producers, and actors; a roundtable viewing of deleted scenes from the film with Cox, Nesmith, real-life neutron bomb inventor Sam Cohen, and character “J. Frank Parnell”; an extended video interview with the great actor Harry Dean Stanton; and the original theatrical trailer. To top the package off, this limited edition includes a mind-blowing full-colour 44-page booklet called The Repo Code specially created by Cox for this release, incorporating all manner of hand-drawn Repo ephemera; we think it’s one of our finest booklets ever.

In late March, something completely different: two classic Pasolini features on Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) editions…

Imamura; 14 Dual Format Upgrades

Sun, 19 Feb 2012, 16:56:17 GMT

A busy release month for the Series! — Now available:

A Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) edition of Shôhei Imamura’s 1963 feature <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/the-insect-woman/“>The Insect Woman</a> [Nippon-konchûki, which translates in English to An Account of Japanese Insects] follows Sachiko Hidari’s Tome as she burrows through five decades of Japanese social upheaval and the conflicts of a volatile, violated life. Included in our edition alongside The Insect Woman as part of an Imamura double-feature is the director’s rarely seen 1958 Nishi-Ginza Station [Nishi-Ginza eki-mae, or In Front of West-Ginza Station], a rollicking B-comedy intermittently set to the tunes of ‘50s crooner Frank Nagai. The release is accompanied by a video conversation about The Insect Woman between Imamura and critic Tadao Satô, and a 36-page booklet containing essays on both features by Tony Rayns.

Following the destruction of much of our stock months ago in the London riots, we are proud to announce at last the renewed availability of 14 titles from the Series — all upgraded to Dual Format. They are as follows:

• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/sunrise/“>Sunrise</a> by F. W. Murnau 
• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/mad-detective/“>Mad Detective</a> by Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai 
• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/tokyo-sonata/“>Tokyo Sonata</a> by Kiyoshi Kurosawa 
• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/une-femme-mariee/“>Une femme mariée</a> by Jean-Luc Godard 
• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/for-all-mankind/“>For All Mankind</a> by Al Reinert 
• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/la-planete-sauvage/“>La Planète sauvage</a> by René Laloux 
• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/city-girl/“>City Girl</a> by F. W. Murnau 
• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/m/“>M</a> by Fritz Lang 
• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/profound-desires-of-the-gods/“Profound Desires of the Gods</a> by Shôhei Imamura 
• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/vengeance-is-mine/“>Vengeance Is Mine</a> by Shôhei Imamura 
• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/the-world/“>The World</a> by Jia Zhangke 
• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/the-burmese-harp/“>The Burmese Harp</a> by Kon Ichikawa 
• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/will-success-spoil-rock-hunter/“>Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?</a> by Frank Tashlin 
• <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/make-way-for-tomorrow/“>Make Way for Tomorrow</a> by Leo McCarey

And if all that weren’t enough, our special Blu-ray only limited edition of Alex Cox’s 1984 classic <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/repo-man/“>Repo Man</a> is also available now, in ‘regular’ and SteelBook variations. We’ll be devoting this space to more on Repo Man in the days ahead… but ’nuff said for now!

LE SILENCE DE LA MER on Blu-ray

Mon, 06 Feb 2012, 22:15:50 GMT

Out now from The Masters of Cinema Series: Jean-Pierre Melville’s beautiful debut feature, <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/le-silence-de-la-mer/“>Le Silence de la mer</a> [The Silence of the Sea] in a new Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) edition.

Melville’s independently produced film adapts the clandestinely penned 1942 novel by French Resistance fighter Vercors (the pen-name of Jean Bruller) into a stunningly paced, quietly poetic presentation of the story of a German soldier (Howard Vernon of Lang’s Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse and Godard’s Alphaville) billeted in the country home of an elderly gentleman and his niece (Jean-Marie Robain and Nicole Stéphane, both of whom would take turns in Melville’s brilliant follow-up rendition of Cocteau’s Les Enfants terribles). Conveyed through the delicate usage of voice-over and flashbacks, tensions play out and empathies form among the familial pair and the officer whose rich aesthetic sensibility and innate humanism place him squarely at odds with the agenda of his tyrannical superiors.

Le Silence de la mer constitutes the astonishingly assured start to a career that would later bring the world such revered masterpieces as Bob le flambeur, Le Samouraï, L’Armée des ombres, and Le Cercle rouge.

This edition presents the film in a new high-definition 1080p transfer (on the Blu-ray) licensed from Gaumont, accompanied by a video discussion with Ginette Vincendeau (professor of French cinema at King’s College London and author of Jean-Pierre Melville: An American in Paris) and, on the Blu-ray only, both a 41-minute 2010 documentary about the film called Melville Out of the Shadows and the original theatrical trailer. A 56-page booklet rounds out the package and offers writing by Vincendeau alongside an interview with Melville conducted by Rui Nogueira (author of Melville on Melville).

Coming soon: Alex Cox’s cult-classic Repo Man on limited edition Blu-ray (in regular and steelbook editions), and a Dual Format double-feature of Shôhei Imamura’s early Nishi-Ginza Station and the 1963 The Insect Woman.

TWO-LANE BLACKTOP on Blu-ray

Thu, 26 Jan 2012, 11:14:56 GMT

Out now from The Masters of Cinema Series: American auteur Monte Hellman’s classic of ‘70s cinema, <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/two-lane-blacktop/“>Two-Lane Blacktop</a>, available for the first time anywhere in a Blu-ray only limited edition and steelbook.

On this open road like a mainline deep into the consciousness of a country, a quadrangle of lonely-souled lovers — James Taylor, Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, Laurie Bird — hurtle in their ‘55 Chevy and gleaming GTO: a race against time, at the edge of the American night.

This director-approved edition includes a new, restored high-definition transfer of the feature, sporting both the original mono soundtrack and an optional newly remastered 5.1 mix, in addition to optional English subtitles for the deaf and hearing-impaired; an audio commentary by Monte Hellman and associate producer Gary Kurtz; On the Road Again: Two-Lane Blacktop Revisited, a 43-minute piece in which Monte Hellman revisits the film’s locations — directed by Monte Hellman, Gabriel Cowan, Brett Mann, and John Suits; Somewhere Near Salinas, a 28-minute interview by Hellman with singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson — also directed by Monte Hellman; Sure Did Talk to You, a 24-minute video piece featuring interviews with producer Michael Laughlin, production manager Walter Coblenz, and the director’s son Jared Hellman — again, directed by Monte Hellman; amazing archival screen-test footage of James Taylor and Laurie Bird; the original theatrical trailer; an optional music and effects track; and a 36-page full-colour booklet featuring a new essay about the feature by critic Brad Stevens and a vintage piece of reporting from the set by Shelley Benoit.

You can never go fast enough.

We’ve also just announced our latest titles for Q2 2012 (April, May, and June). They’re all live on <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/“>our Catalogue page</a>.

PUNISHMENT PARK on Blu-ray

Sat, 14 Jan 2012, 20:19:17 GMT

Happy New Year, everyone! We closed out 2011 with feelings of extreme gratitude toward our fans and our supporters for rewarding us with our best and most exciting year for the Series to date. Late-December and early-January saw The MoC Series rank significantly in Time Out London’s list of <a href=“http://www.timeout.com/london/feature/2055/the-top-50-dvds-of-2011-home”>the top 50 releases of 2011</a>, with placings given to Imamura’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/a-man-vanishes/“>A Man Vanishes</a> and <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/pigs-and-battleships/“>Pigs and Battleships + Stolen Desire</a>, our double-DVD-set of Lang’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/der-tiger-von-eschnapur/“>Der Tiger von Eschnapur</a> and <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/das-indische-grabmal/“>Das indische Grabmal</a>, Antonioni’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/la-signora-senza-camelie/“>La signora senza camelie</a>, Murnau’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/schloss-vogelod/“>Schloss Vogelöd: Die Enthüllung eines Geheimnisses</a>, Trumbull’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/silent-running/“>Silent Running</a>, Welles’ <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/touch-of-evil/“>Touch of Evil</a>, Ford’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/the-iron-horse/“>The Iron Horse</a>, Kobayashi’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/harakiri/“>Harakiri</a>, and, at #2, Pedro Costa’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/colossal-youth/“>Colossal Youth (+ Tarrafal, The Rabbit Hunters, and O nosso homem)</a>.

We were also extremely humbled to find that many of our releases received mention not only in <a href=“http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/dvds-2011.php”>the year-end poll from Sight & Sound magazine</a>, but also placed high in <a href=“http://www.dvdbeaver.com/DVDBlu-rayoftheYear2011.htm”>the major year-end poll from DVDBeaver</a> — with our release of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil_ winning not only Best Global Blu-ray Release of the Year, but also Best Single Overall Global Home Video Release of the Year!

So: sincere thanks to everyone for making 2011 such a success. We hope to continue the good work throughout 2012 and beyond — and, to that end…

We’ve just released our (gorgeous) 1080p HD revisitation of Peter Watkins’ galvanic 1971 film <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/punishment-park/“>Punishment Park</a> in a Dual Format edition. Watkins’ 92-minute feature represents a reaction to and critique of the American society and government of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s that spawned and casually digested such contemporary elements as the civilian and military massacres of Vietnam (Tet, My Lai, the whole of the war); the MLK + RFK assassinations; the Chicago Democratic Convention beatings and arrests; the Kent State massacre; and, most directly, the show-trial of the Chicago Seven. If Punishment Park still shocks, appalls, and agitates as much today as it did in 1971, it is due to Watkins’ canny and subversive appropriation of the cinema-/televisual-modes of the dominant paradigm (in ‘12 as ‘71), his implicit interrogation of the onlooker-documentarian’s (and end viewer’s) moral responsibility toward “the event,“ and his implicit understanding and ultimate transcendence of the limitations of traditional scripting and casting. It is due too to the fact that much of what Watkins captured/envisioned has either come to pass or, indeed, in the forty-one years since, simply has not changed.

Punishment Park underscores the nightmare-confusion of what is “actual” and what is ‘merely’ “plausible”.

The feature is accompanied by Watkins’ searing, cogent 29-minute direct-to-camera address Introduction to Punishment Park; an audio commentary by Joseph A. Gomez (author of the 1979 Peter Watkins); and a 40-page booklet that includes extracts from the 1971 press book (with a contemporary contribution from Watkins), an essay on the film by Gomez extracted from Peter Watkins (along with a 2005 postscript), and a 2005 self-interrogatory dialogue by Peter Watkins.

2011 was not without a hitch…

Thu, 29 Dec 2011, 19:25:16 GMT

As we recharge before leaping into our ninth year (a leap year), and now with more than 160 discs under our belt, it’s a good time to pause and reflect on the wild year. From the highs of releasing a series of dream projects which we’d been working on for years, to the low of having our entire stock destroyed by fire.

Since we released our first Blu-ray in 2008, we have struggled with the added work of creating two separate formats per film. This slowed down our small team considerably and was logistically frustrating (two items of inventory, two catalogue numbers / barcodes, two lots of complicated proofing, two of everything..). Within 18 months we were jumping the gun, and ignoring the installed DVD userbase, by moving to Blu-ray only releases, in the small hope that we’d help quicken Blu-ray adoption. The titles we released during this time were not big-hitters and the Blu-ray only policy frustrated as many people as it pleased. For the time being, it became clear that we had a two-tier system and we’d have to continue making both formats.

After trying <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/metropolis/“>METROPOLIS</a> with a Dual Format edition in late 2010, we moved to our current policy of Dual Format editions (a Blu-ray and DVD in the same package) with our two March 2011 Antonioni releases <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/la-signora-senza-camelie/“>LA SIGNORA SENZA CAMELIE</a> and <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/le-amiche/“>LE AMICHE</a> in an attempt to make the logistics slightly easier and cleaner for ourselves and the marketplace. This continued throughout the summer with our long-gestating silent (miracle) Blu-ray of Jean Epstein’s <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/coeur-fidele/“>COEUR FIDELE</a> and Imamura’s glorious-looking <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/pigs-and-battleships/“>PIGS AND BATTLESHIPS</a>, while at the same time releasing DVD-only editions where the master materials did not warrant the Blu-ray treatment for some reason (such as the astonishing <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/colossal-youth/“>COLOSSAL YOUTH</a>, shot on miniDV).

In August, the “London riots” saw the destruction of the Sony DADC warehouse in Enfield, where we — along with many other music and film labels — lost all of our stock. Work immediately focused on getting our entire catalogue back in print. Doing so allowed us to delete separate DVD and Blu-ray editions and to replace them with Dual Format editions. We’ve managed to get 6 of these out and the remaining 8 will be available in early February. During this time, we somehow managed to stay on track with our new releases too (<a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/harakiri/“>HARAKIRI</a>, <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/the-iron-horse/“>THE IRON HORSE</a>, <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/the-ballad-of-narayama/“>THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA</a>, <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/a-man-vanishes/“>A MAN VANISHES</a>, <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/silent-running/“>SILENT RUNNING</a>, and <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/touch-of-evil/“>TOUCH OF EVIL</a>)

We would love to not have to create DVD editions, instead, spending all our time on the beauty that is Blu-ray. Indeed, we are still looking at ways that we can again move to Blu-ray only editions. We often receive emails from people who “just can’t see what the fuss is about”, and often, on further questioning, it transpires they have had a terrible demonstration somewhere — such as running a Blu-ray player into a cathode ray tube (SD) television. If you love film, admire our editions, but haven’t taken the Blu-ray leap yet, we’d love you to please read <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/MoCwhyblu-ray2011web.pdf”>this document we prepared.</a>

We now have our 2012 slate mapped out, and if we can pull it off, it could be our best yet. We’ll be announcing our April, May, and June titles in mid-January. Meanwhile, full up-to-date details of what is out-of-print (OOP) and what is being upgraded can be found in our new printed catalogue which is also available <a href=“http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/MoCCATALOGUE2011_web.pdf”>here as a pdf</a>. Wishing a healthy and happy New Year to you all!

Five versions, Blu-ray only

Wed, 16 Nov 2011, 10:45:29 GMT

Out this month: Orson Welles’ final picture for the Hollywood studio-system: <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/touch-of-evil/“>Touch of Evil</a>, in a limited edition 2 x Blu-ray release containing the 1998 Reconstruction Version in both 1.85:1 and 1.37:1 aspect ratios; the 1958 Theatrical Version in both 1.85:1 and 1.37:1 aspect ratios; and the rediscovered 1958 Preview Version in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Controversy has raged for some time around which aspect ratio constitutes the “correct one” for the film; with this release, we’ve taken pains to present the film for the first time in all available presentations. (A full explication of the issue can be found in the accompanying booklet.)

A virtuoso work on every plane, Welles’ film charts the descent of newlyweds Mike and Susie Vargas (Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh) into a maelstrom of vice, corruption, and murder set spinning at the California-Mexico border by small-time gang-leader Uncle Joe Grandi (Akim Tamiroff) and toxic American police detective Hank Quinlan (Welles himself, in one of his most unforgettable characterisations). Plus: Marlene Dietrich, as a Gypsy madame: five minutes of total screen-time that amount to her most indelible, and exhilarating, post-Sternberg turn.

The versions of the film are accompanied by four separate audio commentaries: Reconstruction producer Rick Schmidlin on the corresponding feature; Schmidlin with Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh on the Reconstruction; scholar and critic F. X. Feeney on the Theatrical Version; and scholars and critics James Naremore and Jonathan Rosenbaum on the Preview Version. Also on-disc: the original 1958 theatrical trailer; two video pieces on the production of the film and the creation of the Reconstruction; and optional English SDH subtitles across all versions of the film. A packed 56-page colour booklet contains writing by François Truffaut, André Bazin, Terry Comito, and Orson Welles — along with full notes on the matter of the varying aspect ratios, and a comprehensive timeline of the film’s production and editing history.

Written in 1957, Orson Welles’ 58-page memo detailing his desired changes to the studio’s rough-cut can be downloaded as a PDF <a href=“http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/welles-memo.pdf”>here</a>.

We are receiving lots of emails each day about the unavailability of certain MoC editions. The London riots in August 2011 saw the destruction of the Sony DADC distribution centre in Enfield. Our stock, along with that of many other labels, was destroyed. MoC catalogue titles are slowly being reprinted or upgraded and will be available as soon as possible. New upgraded Dual Format editions of Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, City Girl, and Profound Desires of the Gods are already available, and M, For All Mankind, and Make Way for Tomorrow will be ready very soon.

Full up-to-date details of what is out-of-print (OOP) and what is being upgraded can be found in our new printed catalogue which is also available <a href=“http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/MoCCATALOGUE2011_web.pdf”>here as a pdf</a>.