Review(s): DVD Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s
Kino's scores suck
The musical accompaniment for most of these seminal avant-garde films is very bad. A previous reviewer mentioned that it was done by "the best in the business." Well, I am of the opinion that, unfortunately, there are not enough interesting minds in that business (silent film scoring), or at least not enough employed by Kino Video, to make for a competent collection.
There is electric guitar (Creed-style riffing!!!). There is arbitrary "Frenchy" sounding music. And yes, there is even some dreaded Casio keyboard "vox" effect.
Who could possibly think that keyboard "vox" was a good idea? Not me.
These films, like all those Kino releases, are rare and under-appreciated, and worth owning on DVD because this is the only way you'll get them. I only wish Kino appreciated them enough to pair the films with either a) historically accurate or b) competent scores.
Excellent Survey of the Heroic Period of AG Films
King Video gets my "Excellence in Film Arcania" award for this series of avant-garde films form the 1920s and 30s. This is a "must own" for fans of the heroic first period of experimental filmmaking. The technical quality of the transfers is excellent- a rarity among titles in this genre. The music mixed with the silent films mostly works. The one exception is the track for Ballet Mecanique- the original score by Anthiel exists and is much more appropriate. One can only hope there is an audience for these poetic and wonderfully innovative films.
Superb Cinema
these films are extremely high quality time capsules of cinema art. combining documentary footage with fictional situations in some. paris in the 30's. hollywood in the 30's. these are unique and wonderful. Film as poetry, experimental uses of film. these films especially menilmontant and les mysteres du chateau du de are imaginative and mysterious art works. they are beautifully photographed, Non narrative cinema the films are hypnotic and powerful. some more than others. Beautiful black and white photography done by the likes of Man Ray, Kirsonov etc.
I cannot recommend these films high enough to the lover of great photography, painting and film.
Related DVD's Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s
The contents below are from unseen-cinema; they include the contents of a 160-page softcover Series Catalog, which is sold separately, but I think you would want. This is clearly a labor of love; though I can't imagine trying to watch all this in a month of Sundays, I could see dipping into it from time to time.
=====================================
Disk 1: THE MECHANIZED EYE
Experiments in Technique and Form
The dynamic qualities of motion pictures are explored by cameramen and filmmakers through novel experiments in technique and form. Early cinematographers James White, "Billy" Bitzer, and Frederick Armitage display experimental shooting styles that wowed audiences. Other independent companies further image manipulation through creative... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Orson Welles DVD Release Date: Released the 18 October 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $99.99 Your Price: $79.99YOU SAVE $20!
Buy it
Un Chien Andalou remains a startling artifact suggesting ways in which film can express the subconscious. The result of Luis Bunuel's collaboration with Salvador Dali, the 17-minute, 1929 film was designed expressly to shock and provoke. Opening with the canonical eyeball-slashing sequence and divided into baffling "chapters", this is a work of art obsessed with religion, lust, decay, violence, and death. Un Chien Andalou isn't simply one of the great works of the surrealist movement, but a segment of cinematic DNA that irrevocably altered the aesthetics of film. In its tangled corridors you find the seeds to the disappearing-mouth bit in The Matrix, the carcasses strewn through Peter Greenaway's A Zed and Two Noughts and pretty much the entire oeuvre of David... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Simone Mareuil - Pierre Batcheff Director(s): Luis Buñuel DVD Release Date: Released the 28 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.95 Your Price: $14.96YOU SAVE $4.99!
Buy it
The diffinative surrealist masterpiece OF ALL TIME. Banned for 50 years/Andre Brenton said :"L'AGE D'OR" says it all and all others must follow!!! If you love surrealism you must see this film!!
If you don't get it, see it till you do. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gaston Modot - Lya Lys Director(s): Luis Buñuel DVD Release Date: Released the 23 November 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $24.95 Your Price: $22.46YOU SAVE $2.49!
Buy it
Edison - The Invention of the Movies is a four-disc treasure trove of 140 of the first moving pictures ever seen, spanning the birth of cinema from 1891-1918. The collaboration between Kino Video and the Museum of Modern Art includes 14-second-long camera tests, early special effects, street scenes, humorous shorts, and "The Great Train Robbery," widely considered the world's first blockbuster. Arranged chronologically, the films gradually improve in technical sophistication and narrative complexity while providing riveting glimpses of American culture 100 years ago. Highlights include the slyly edited "The Gay Shoe Clerk," the phantasmagoric "Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend," and a film of social justice called "The Kleptomaniac." Contemporary sensibilities will be challenged by... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 22 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $99.95 Your Price: $89.96YOU SAVE $9.99!
Buy it
...for the infamous Madacy. Although not at a low price, but for the lack of quality this studio can compete for botched releases.
Since I already got "Entracte" (bundled with "A nous la liberte" from R. Clair as well) in a very finely restored print and running more than 20 min., I have a very good example for comparison : this one, aside from an image absolutely garbled, run only 14 min (one might think being luckier if it was yet shorter, so to lessen one's misery). If the ratio shorter length/lack of quality is the same for the 3 other shorts, at this price I think FBI and other copyright enforcers should as well get some studios respecting the customers' rights to get what they're paying for.
Regarding "Anemic Cinema", it won't entertain anyone but... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Eric Satie DVD Release Date: Released the 26 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $24.95 Your Price: $22.46YOU SAVE $2.49!
Buy it
