Kino International

[chico76]

Kino International has some great releases. They concentrate mostly on silent and foreign titles, but they have always featured great quality and supplements. It irks me that Criterion gets supreme recognition while Kino just sort of sits there. I rarely see them mentioned on forums or review sites. Is there no love for Kino?

Kino International

[murphywmm]

This is kind of weird, because previously I had only heard bad things about Kino... mostly in regards to their transfers. However, I've not actually seen a Kino disc (their movies usually have a different distributor in Canada) so I can't judge it for myself.

[manicsounds]

Kino have some good and bad, but nothing extremely exceptional.
you can say that the restoration on Metropolis was great,
but it wasnt Kino that did the restoration.

[Welles and Ford Fan]

They deserve credit for actually releasing titles that are not very "commercial". The releases may not be top-notch in terms of quality, but at least they release what they release.

For example, their Keaton collection deserves kudos for its completeness, however, the recent Image release of The General/Steamboat Bill, Jr is far better with a stunningly remastered The General.

[asphodel5]

Originally Posted by chico76

I rarely see them mentioned on forums or review sites. Is there no love for Kino?

I've often wondered the same thing. From time to time, I post their press releases and calendar information here, but there is a rarely a reply, so I don't go out of my way to post things. I think that my most recent thread had to do with their upcoming slapstick collections.

In general, I think that they have their heart in the right place, but the technical elements can be lacking. Their catalog has always been interesting, but many of their discs are mediocre. I think that one reason why people jump on the Criterion bandwagon is the assured quality. You may hate the film, but with the exception of some of their earliest releases you are assured a great presentation. With Kino, it is hit and miss. The recent ones do seem to be better in general. Some of their discs are pretty wonderful: Metropolis, The Blue Angel, Love Me Tonight, and the Man Who Laughs. Others, like the Wong Kar Wai discs and a lot of the "obscure" titles look mediocre at best. I'm generally pretty bold with my blind buys, but I don't like to buy Kino discs blind. They can be very disappointing. Now that I have netflix, I've been going through their catalog at a reasonable pace. I give a lot of my impressions in the "what movie to did just see" thread, but they are never "proper" reviews because I don't feel like putting in the time to formalize them.

I think that people also shy away from them because many of their releases are incredibily obscure. People complain about "obscure" Criterion releases by Renoir, Bergman and Fellini, so it isn't surprising that they have no interest in modern African films, films produced under the third reich or the Fanny trilogy. I guess that some exposure would help, but it may be that anyone with any interest already checks their site regularly. Those who don't, wouldn't care to start.

As far as recent Kino releases go, I was very pleased with Schlondorff's "Circle of Deceit" and their expanded Kieslowski releases. I wasn't pleased with Dog Days as a film, but the DVD was passable. Their recent Middle Eastern releases were better than expected. I was disappointed with Liliom (French Lang film) and La Habenera (German Sirk) both A/V wise and movie wise. They were interesting to see once, but I don't imagine that many people would find them compelling enough to view frequently. I HATED "Junk Food" for a number of reasons. I am very excited about the Fanny discs (very long wait ) and curious about their upcoming Korean, Nazi and Kieslowski releases.

Do you think that a regularly updated release thread would be helpful here? This one would work, or someone could start another one with that specific focus.

[KSC2-303]

You obviously never saw their "Come and See" releases.

Yes, releases. Plural.

The first one was a doozy. They took a two and a half hour movie and spanned it over 2 dual layer DVDs. Yes, you heard me right. As if that wasn't bad enough, the a/v quality was pretty much tantamount to a second gen VHS copy.

So they "fixed" it with another release. 1 DVD with improved a/v. The problem is the a/v is still pretty bad (especially the audio), and they removed all extras, replacing interviews and Russian propaganda pieces about German barbarism with, get this, a 2 page (well, 1 paragraph with in a large font over 2 pages) quote from Sean Penn about how great this movie is.

Maybe every other Kino release under the sun is great, but first impressions are what count, and they REALLY fucked up with this one.

And asphodel, what "nazi" movies are you talking about?

[asphodel5]

Originally Posted by KSC2-303

And asphodel, what "nazi" movies are you talking about?

Before James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster Titanic, the Hollywood Titanic of 1953, the 1958 British film A Night to Remember, and the 1997 Broadway musical Titanic, there was the Nazi German film Titanic. A Tobis production begun in 1942, this production nearly sank as decisively as the doomed ocean liner. The film’s director, Herbert Selpin, infuriated with the slow second-unit shooting in the port of Gdynia, was overheard making remarks damning the German army. Reported to the Gestapo, Selpin was arrested and later found hanging in his prison cell, the victim of an arranged “suicide.”

In April, 1943, the film was banned by the Berlin censors for German release because of its terrifying scenes of panic, all too familiar to German civilians undergoing nightly Allied bombing raids. After extensive cutting, Titanic was released in occupied Paris and a few army installations. The film was seen in Germany finally in late 1949, but banned a few months later in the Western sectors (though not in the Soviet zone, because of its unmistakable anti-British-capitalist theme).

Technically, this Titanic is an excellent catastrophe film; its shots of the ship sinking were later used by the 1958 British film without credit. Somewhat true to the facts—though peppered with fictional good Germans both on and below deck, in steerage—the film ends with a trial scene that aquits the White Star Line management, followed by a final slide denouncing England’s “eternal quest for profit.” These packed a powerful propaganda punch; cut from the postwar prints, they have been restored for this Kino on Video version.

Original 1912 Newsreel Music composed and performed by Donald Sosin
White Star Line promotional film, offering a tour of the Olympic, Titanic’s sister ship Music composed and performed by Donald Sosin
Theatrical Trailer
Photo Gallery
Excerpts from the Pressbook
Optional English subtitles

AND



In early 1943, just as Nazi Germany began its collapse with the surrender at Stalingrad, the famed Ufa Studios released an elaborate super-spectacle to celebrate the company’s 25th anniversary. Produced at the enormous cost of 6.5 million Reichsmarks, and filmed in Agfacolor, MÜNCHHAUSEN was the bizarre Nazi response to such extravaganzas as Britain’s The Thief of Bagdad and Hollywood’s The Wizard of Oz, both of which were jealously admired by Propaganda Minister Goebbels. Starring Hans Albers, the hypnotic, blond superstar (who kept a Jewish lover safely in London), and a bevy of female stars, the film was meant to divert a German public—and those in occupied Europe—then experiencing aerial bombardment as well as extensive military casualties.

This lavish, impudent, adult fairy tale takes the viewer from 18th-century Braunschweig to St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Venice, and then to the moon using ingenious special effects, stunning location shooting, and a rich color palette, supervised by cameraman Konstantin Irmen-Tschet, who had worked for Fritz Lang in earlier Ufa films. Escaping the grim reality of the time with the illusion of luxury and pure fantasy (and a lovely score by Georg Haentzschel), MÜNCHHAUSEN daringly glorifies a braggart and liar, and was scripted by the banned Jewish author Erich Kästner under a pseudonym. The Nazi censors deemed the film “artistically” but not “politically” valuable; perhaps the sight of a man-hungry Catherine the Great (Brigitte Horney), topless harem girls, and a vacation-pretty Venetian Grand Canal in glorious color were thought a bit rich for audiences under grim wartime restrictions.

For this release by Kino on Video, MÜNCHHAUSEN was digitally restored by the F.W. Murnau Foundation.

Making of documentary with comments by the director of the F. W. Murnau Foundation
Original theatrical trailer
Animated short film: “Die Abenteuer des Baron Münchhausen - eine Winterreise” (1944)
Photo gallery
Examples of Agfacolor restoration: Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten (1941)
Excerpt from the Agfacolor film Die Fledermaus (1944)
Pop-culture gallery of Münchhausen images Optional English subtitles


Both of the them come out on 7/20. Assuming that Neflix carries them, I'll see them that week. If they don't, I probably won't see them. I can't imagine that I would want to see them more than once. They do sound like interesting oddities, so I figure that they'll be worth the rental.


No, I never saw "Come and See". I heard very good things about the film, but I was scared away by the horrible DVD reviews.

[AfroRouge]

The "new" Come and See is fair, but it could be a lot better. It's on par, or maybe slightly better, than Kino's edition of Tarkovsky's "Mirror". In other words, it's a pretty pathetic treatment of an incredible film.

Still, C&S is worth picking up. It's one of the great psychological war films, a surreal nightmare.

I'm hoping they do a smash-up job on Bunuel's "L'Age d'Or" being released in November.

[Surf Monkey]

Kino's Metropolis is amazing. Probably the best title in their catalog.

[tvboy]

Eisenstein's STRIKE is also an incredible transfer for it's age.

[asphodel5]

I decided that I'll use this thread to post the details of upcoming Kino releases. Of course, if anyone beats me to them, you can feel free to do the same. Since the company doesn't tend to lead to as much swooning as Criterion, I imagine that the replies will be light (hence sticking to one long running thread).

So, here is the August slate:
FOUR EARLY FEATURE FILMS FROM ACCLAIMED FILMMAKER KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI NOW AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME ON DVD.






Kino on Video is proud to release for the first time on DVD, four internationally acclaimed feature films from Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski (THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE). All four films will be available to the general public on August 17, 2004, and each title will be priced at $29.95 on DVD and VHS. Among hours of previously unseen special features, each DVD in this series will bring recent interviews with cinematographer Slawomir Idziak, filmmaker Agnieszka Holland and previously unavailable short documentaries directed by Kieslowski––"The Office" (B&W, 1966, 5 min) and "Talking Heads" (B&W, 1980, 16 min).

All written and directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski, THE SCAR (1976), CAMERA BUFF (1979), NO END (1985) and BLIND CHANCE (1987) are the most important works of Kieslowski’s early feature-film career––and his most significant steps towards a career shift from documentary to fiction films. With the completion of THE SCAR in 1976, Kieslowski left behind 10 years of “cinema of consciousness” and ventured into the realm of feature-length fiction filmmaking. "I'm frightened of real tears," he once said. "In fact, I don't even know if I have the right to photograph them." (Kieslowski on Kieslowski).

Kieslowski’s early and late fiction-film phases are separated by the10-chapter epic DECALOGUE–-two of these episodes, A SHORT FILM ABOUT KILLING and A SHORT FILM ABOUT LOVE, were expanded into feature-length films now available from Kino on Video. BLIND CHANCE, NO END, THE SCAR and CAMERA BUFF are four of the five feature films Kieslowski directed before dedicating two years of his life to the DECALOGUE series. After finishing work on the DECALOGUE, Kieslowski directed other four feature films ––THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE (1989) and the THREE COLORS TRILOGY––before a premature death in 1996. These four late works are widely seen as more lyrical, and less explicitly political, reassessments of some of the same themes explored in the four early films now available on DVD and VHS through Kino on Video.

Available for the first time on VHS and DVD, THE SCAR depicts an earnest Party member thrown in the middle of a political battle when he decides to take charge of re-opening a forlorn chemical factory. In CAMERA BUFF, a tragicomedy about a man’s fascination with the cinematic medium and an 8mm movie camera, Filip Mosz (played by Jerzy Stuhr – Kieslowski’s THREE COLORS: WHITE) becomes the official photographer for the local Party and eventually reaches an irreconcilable deadlock with his wife and friends––choosing the lure of moving images over the people who once completed his life.

In NO END (1985), like in THREE COLORS: BLUE, Kieslowski focuses on the story of a woman who abruptly loses her husband and fails to escape from her memories and the consequent suffering. An exemplary display of Kieslowski’s ability to combine political references––the banning of Solidarity and the installment of martial law––with personal and spiritual elements, NO END is a story of social chaos in circular feedback with emotional pain.

Finally BLIND CHANCE (1987), Kieslowski’s last feature film before the DECALOGUE, is an exploration on chance and destiny. As the film’s hero races down a platform, the film blossoms into three successive scenarios in which Witek's catching or missing his train spawns three completely different futures.

THE SCAR (1976)

Kryzysztof Kieslowski's feature film debut, THE SCAR presages his future triumphs CAMERA BUFF and BLIND CHANCE in its even handed social critique and richly personal characterizations. A former documentary filmmaker, Kieslowski here weaves a story of contradiction, compromise and hypocrisy that is both objective and incisive. As a drama of the shifting fortunes of a massive rural factory project, THE SCAR pits community against government, environment against industry and ambition against responsibility.

"Is everything under control?" demands an ambitious small town Polish Communist official preparing to receive a delegation from Warsaw. At stake is a large fertilizer factory contract that would mean hundreds of jobs for a dirt poor rural province. But winning the contract creates more problems than it solves as politicians, environmentalists, displaced citizens and journalists alike inadvertently plumb the gap between rigid state socialism and the anarchy of human nature. Builder turned reluctant factory director Stefan Bednarz' "quiet conscience" becomes the moral center of a sprawling, Altmanesque human tapestry of greed, petty conspiracy and self-righteous grudge holding.

Kieslowski packed THE SCAR with the vivid characters, lucid imagery and honest ambiguities that would go on to define his 80's and 90's triumphs. Whether in the adversarial relationship between Bednarz and his journalist nemesis, the mother-hen buffoonery of Bednarz' local political counterparts or the selfish flailing of Communist Party underlings and workers, THE SCAR is a trenchant and sensitive portrait of a society hopelessly mired in its own ideology.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Interview with Cinematographer Slawomir Idziak
Interview with Filmmaker Agnieszka Holland
Interview with Sound Engineer Michal Zarnecki
"Concert of Requests" (B&W, 1967, 15 min) A short film by Krzysztof Kieslowski In Polish with English subtitles
Kieslowski Filmography
Theatrical Trailer
A Kieslowski Trailer Gallery (5 Trailers)
Optional English subtitles
Enhanced for 16x9 TVs
CAMERA BUFF (1979)

"Suffused with Kieslowski's dry wit and intelligence," (Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader), CAMERA BUFF (1979) is Krzysztof Kieslowski's (THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE) tragi-comic meditation on filmmaking. Self-reflexive by nature, this fictional film about a documentary filmmaker is commonly referred to as a watershed in Kieslowski's transition from documentary to fiction filmmaking. "I'm frightened of real tears," Kieslowski once said. "In fact, I don't even know if I have the right to photograph them." (KIESLOWSKI ON KIESLOWSKI)

This ethical question becomes becomes central in the life of Filip Mosz (Jerzy Stuhr – Kieslowski’s THREE COLORS: WHITE), the main character in CAMERA BUFF. Happily married and economically stable, the film’s humble hero buys an 8mm film camera with the intention of filming his newborn child--and capturing the moment of attainment of a lifelong dream. But when a powerhouse director of the town’s local factory recruits him to film an important board meeting, Filip's fascination with the medium grows into passionate dedication. At the command of a larger film unit and networking to enrich his career, Filip eventually reaches an irreconcilable deadlock with his wife, friends and the director who previously supported his cinematic ambitions.

CAMERA BUFF mirrors Kieslowski's complex relationship with "reality" and its possible representations. Through Filip's often comic need to capture "life as it is," Kieslowski denounces the myth of objectivity at the base of Cinéma Vérité. More than implying that there is no engagement with reality that can leave it untouched, Kieslowski suggests that the very act of seeing is in itself a moment of creation.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Interview with Filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi
Interview with Filmmaker Agnieszka Holland
Interview with Kieslowski Scholar Annette Insdorf
"Talking Heads" (B&W, 1980, 16 min) A short documentary by Krzysztof Kieslowski In Polish with English subtitles
Kieslowski Filmography
Theatrical Trailer
A Kieslowski Trailer Gallery (5 Trailers)
Optional English subtitles
NO END (1985)

Never before available on U.S. DVD, NO END (1984) stands as the "most explicitly political" (Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader) film ever written and directed by filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski (THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE).

Seen as the predecessor to THREE COLORS: BLUE (1993), NO END also focuses on the story of a woman coping with the sudden death of her husband. But while BLUE works as a cinematic utterance of a psychological state, NO END exemplifies Kieslowski's career-long interest on the connections between individual psyche and the politics of collective institutions. In the film, a woman's loss exists in constant dialogue with Poland's labor turmoil of the 1980s and the formation of the independent trade union "Solidarity."

Antek was one of the few lawyers willing to take on political cases in a period of enforced martial law. Upon his unexpected death, Antek's wife Ulla struggles to cope with her grief, but eventually takes on the task of finding another attorney to take over one of her husband’s cases and defend a man jailed for leading a labor strike. After connecting a colleague from Antek’s past with the prisoner’s wife, a series of mysterious signals make Ulla believe that Antek is warning her about the man chosen to replace him.

Featuring a haunting score by long-time collaborator Zbigniew Preisner (THREE COLORS TRILOGY) and riveting performances by its leading cast, Kieslowski creates in NO END a moment of mourning for both Ulla and a nation disenchanted with its present and future possibilities.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Interview with Cinematographer Jacek Petrycki
Interview with Actress Grazyna Szapolowska
The Office (B&W, 1966, 5 min) A short documentary by Krzysztof Kieslowski In Polish with English subtitles
Kieslowski Filmography
Theatrical Trailer
A Kieslowski Trailer Gallery (5 Trailers)
Optional English subtitles
Enhanced for 16x9 TVs
BLIND CHANCE (1987)

Strikingly modernist and compulsively watchable, European film master Krzysztof Kieslowski's 1982 BLIND CHANCE has profoundly influenced cinematic storytelling for nearly two decades. Kieslowski (THE DECALOGUE, A SHORT FILM ABOUT KILLING) blends his trademark passion for character and poetic imagery with a boldly novelistic narrative conceit. BLIND CHANCE transcendently illuminates the intersection of fate, coincidence and choice.

Facing an unclear future, Witek, an earnest young Polish medical student, chooses to put his education on hold. With his head full of the promising and ominous portents of his new adult life, Witek hurries to catch the last train to Warsaw. But as he races down the platform, BLIND CHANCE blossoms into three successive scenarios in which Witek's catching or missing his train spawns three completely different futures. Whether as an idealistic Communist Party member, an ambivalent dissident or a devoted healer and husband, the young Pole's destiny is shaped by the unhappy youth threatening to hobble him, the troubled present poised to engulf him and, in Kieslowski's words, "the powers that meddle with our fate."

Through three complex lives, actor Boguslaw Linda portrays Witek with an effortless magnetism remarkable even for a Kieslowski film. Actor and director's commitment and vision succeed in creating three entirely different portraits each as compellingly real as the next. Made on the eve of Communist crackdown in Poland, BLIND CHANCE was suppressed for nearly seven years. Kino is proud to present this underseen masterpiece for the first time on US DVD and video.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Interview with Producer Irena Strzakowska
Interview with Filmmaker Agnieszka Holland
Interview with Kieslowski Scholar Annette Insdorf
"Workshop Exercises" - A short film by Marcel Lozinski
Kieslowski Filmography
Theatrical Trailer
A Kieslowski Trailer Gallery (5 Trailers)
Optional English subtitles
Enhanced for 16x9 TVs



GOLDEN AGE OF HUNGARIAN CINEMA

25 Fireman's Street



Comic, melancholy, ribald and hallucinatory, 25 Fireman's Street is both a groundbreaking entry into the New Hungarian Cinema of the seventies and a timeless, intoxicatingly rich moviemaking triumph. Director István Szabó (Mephisto, Sunshine) masterfully evokes everything from Borges to Buñuel to Proust as he freely blends rich characterizations with visionary surrealism and kitchen sink realism.

On one hot summer night, the residents of a Hungarian apartment house slated for demolition restlessly revisit their haunted pasts as they face an uncertain future. In a gently turning kaleidoscope of dream imagery, regret-laden nostalgia and painstakingly intimate detail, the looming wrecking ball pales in significance to the accumulated experiences each dreamer revisits. Pre-war prejudice, occupying Nazis and Stalinist deprivations all come and go as each tenant’s backward glance yields moments of aching sensuality, infectious exuberance and catastrophic loss.

Through an affirming cascade of poetic wanderings through lives lived to the fullest, 25 Fireman's Street plots a personal map of Hungary’s fortunes from the Hapsburgs to the Soviets. Conjuring up a subconscious netherworld of metaphor made real, Szabó and his cast paint faces on the impersonal canvas of recent Eastern European history to create a tapestry of personal histories shaped by war. Combining sure-handed storytelling with visual enchantment, 25 Fireman's Street marries the whimsically ethereal with the tragically concrete. Presented here for the first time on DVD, Kino On Video proudly offers an unforgettable cinematic nocturne that has remained as inspiring and innovative as it was upon first release in 1973.


ADOPTION




A central film from revered Hungarian auteur Márta Mészáros (the Diary trilogy), Adoption powerfully contrasts the destinies of two modern Hungarian women brought together by the essential need for simple human contact. Photographed in a restrained black and white style and featuring performances of unusual subtlety and honesty, Adoption was awarded Best Picture at the 1975 Berlin Film Festival.

Widowed, financially secure and involved with a married man, forty-three year old Kata yearns for the motherhood she instinctively knows will push her out of personal ambivalence. Though having little in common, Kata befriends Anna, a rebellious teenage girl consigned to a woman's shelter and unaccustomed to anything more than perfunctory charity. In spite of mind games and harsh words, an unlikely bond grows between the two women. Kata's yearning for the clarity of motherhood inadvertently exposes the vulnerability underneath Anna's cynical bad-girl exterior. As their relationship grows, Kata probes the limits of her middle-aged limbo just as Anna resists the suffocation of a youth stripped of hope.

Rich in candid characterizations and sincere poignance, Adoption coaxes possibility from desperation and tenderness from neglect. Exploring deep personal yearnings with graceful nuance while indicting a cruel patriarchal social system without any mention of politics, Adoption is both an earnest drama and a realist gem. Arguably the most prodigious woman director in the history of cinema, with over sixty films to her credit, Adoption reflects Márta Mészáros at the height of her powers.


FATHER



A young boy's vivid imagination liberates him from the grim realities of war-torn Hungary in Father, an enchanting fable that evokes the childhood wonder of The 400 Blows and Cinema Paradiso,

Ever since the death of his father, young Tako (Dani Erdélyi) has filled the paternal void with a series of fantasies in which his father (Miklós Gábor) is envisioned as a partisan freedom-fighter, a cultured world traveler and a decorated hero. When he reaches manhood, Tako (now played by András Bálint) struggles to live up to the heroic image he crafted, even as he discovers a world in which valor has little place. But he cannot relinquish the comforting daydreams, and as the fantasies he harbors become more elaborate, the mythic father becomes a heroic protector of the Hungarian Jews during the Nazi occupation.

By depicting Tako in the wake of Wold War II and on the brink of revolution in the 1960s, acclaimed filmmmaker István Szabó (Mephisto, 25 Fireman Street) mirrors the confusion of childhood with the turmoil of political upheaval. The result is a simple ode to the human spirit, and a memorable tribute to survive in the face of adversity.

[pharoahdance]

Anyone familiar with those earlier Kieslowski discs? I am only familiar with his Dekalog and on period of films.

[asphodel5]

Originally Posted by pharoahdance

Anyone familiar with those earlier Kieslowski discs? I am only familiar with his Dekalog and on period of films.

I'm in the same boat, but assuming that they are available, I'll rent all four from netflix as soon as possible. I'll post my reactions (and screenshots if you want) after I see them. I'd hope that someone here een them before. I'd like to know which should be a top priority. Otherwise, I'll just see them in chronological order.

[BADBRAD]

I like KINO. They have released some interesting titles, and they have released the only good DVD edition of METROPOLIS.

[BubbleGumUK]

I will certainly look into getting Münchhausen!

[asphodel5]

KINO ON VIDEO TO RELEASE TWO DEFINITIVE CINEMATIC ADAPTATIONS OF SOPHOCLES’ ANTIGONE AND EURIPIDES’ THE TROJAN WOMEN FOR THE FIRST TIME ON DVD.

Kino on Video is proud to release for the first time on DVD two cinematic adaptations of two classic tragedies from the canon of Greek mythology––both centering on the struggle of women against patriarchal forces. Starring four-time Oscar® winner Katherine Hepburn (THE LION IN WINTER), Oscar® winner Vanessa Redgrave (JULIA), Oscar® nominee Genevieve Bujold (ANNE OF THE THOUSAND DAYS) and renowned Greek actress Irene Papas (Costa Gavras’ Z), Michael Cacoyannis’ THE TROJAN WOMEN (1971) is the most critically acclaimed adaptation of this classic, anti-war Greek tragedy.

Also part of this series is a filmic adaptation of Sophocles' ANTIGONE, the story of Oedipus’ daughter and her journey of defiance, loyal kinship and moral disgrace––Antigone’s father was also her brother, as Oedipus was married to his mother. Part of one of the most studied and revered tales ever written in Western civilization, ANTIGONE was definitively translated to the big screen by director George Tzavellas in 1961, and now can be appreciated in an all-new DVD exclusively released by Kino on Video. Each title will be available to the general public on September 7th, 2004, with a SRP of $29.95 on DVD.

Based on Euripides' play, originally written and produced in 415 BC, THE TROJAN WOMEN is a fictionalized portrayal of the post-war conditions endured by the women of Troy. The real city of Troy, depicted by Homer’s Iliad in the 8th century, was destroyed around 1180BC in what is believed to have been a long battle over the control of the Dardanelles, an important water passage between the Mediterranean and Black seas. Seven centuries later, Euripedes used Troy’s real story as the source of inspiration––and background––for his anti-war reflections.

On the most recent English translation of THE TROJAN WOMEN, scholar and theatre director Nicholas Rudall wrote on the context in which the play was originally written: "One year before the first performance of The Trojan Women, in 415 B.C., Athenians had invaded the island of Melos, which was Greek but determined neutral in the war between Athens and Sparta. Athenian forces captured the island, put the men to death, and enslaved the women and children. This barbaric act provoked the people of Athens; Euripides’ play thrusts us into the presence of the pain of innocent victims of war."

The legend of Antigone has been a constant source of inspiration for theorists (Hegel, Lacan, Julia Kristeva), filmmakers (Volker Schlöndorff’s episode in Germany in Autumn) and painters (Fulchran-Jean Harriet, Mark Rothko). When ANTIGONE starts, Oedipus’ sons have slain each other in battle and Antigone is the only one left alive––even Oedipus has died. Compelled to give proper burial to one of her brothers, Antigone courts death and fights against King Creon, the man who denies funeral rites to her dead brother.

More than a feminist tale of empowerment, ANTIGONE is a story of resistance against patriarchal forces and a foundational tale in Western civilization. In her book Antigone’s Claim, Kinship Between Life and Death (2000), Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature Judith Butler––famous for questioning, in her book Gender Trouble (1990), the idea of gender as an essence and for developing a vocabulary of performance connected to the very existence of gender––asks how different would psychoanalyses, and its consequential influence on notions of kinship, be if it had taken Antigone, rather than Oedipus, as its point of departure.

Butler, like many others, find these classic narratives and consequent mythologies foundationally linked to the formation of western thinking. That is one of the reasons why the project of understanding and redefining these stories' legacies still is critical.

Director George Tzavellas' powerful adaptation of ANTIGONE is then a unique chance to become familiar with Sophocles' original text and at the same time, a rare opportunity to think of the ways in which the legend of Antigone still influences our contemporary notions of ethics, mourning and affect.



For this ambitious screen version of one the most powerful works of classic Greek theater, director Michael Cacoyannis (ZORBA THE GREEK, THE CHERRY ORCHARD) "unleashes the talents of four of the screen's most exciting actresses" (NY DAILY NEWS). Four time Oscar® winner Katherine Hepburn (THE LION IN WINTER, A DELICATE BALANCE), Oscar® winner Vanessa Redgrave (JULIA), Oscar® nominee Genevieve Bujold (ANNE OF A THOUSAND DAYS) and Greek screen legend Irene Papas (ANTIGONE, Z) seamlessly mesh into an unprecedented ensemble cast that "one could never hope to see on stage" (Pauline Kael, NEW YORKER).

After their ten-year siege, the victorious Greek army seeks to curse those Trojans whom fate has yet spared. Separated from their children, denied their mourning and destined for slavery, the women of fallen Troy huddle within the parched wreckage of their once glorious city. Beautiful Cassandra (Bujold) is betrothed against her will despite her vanishing sanity. Andromache (Redgrave) discovers her son is to be executed to end her royal bloodline. Helen (Papas) desperately wields the arrogant beauty that leveled a city as she pleads for her life. But it is Hecuba (Hepburn), widowed queen of Troy, whose enduring dignity and unfaltering strength makes cowards of Troy's captors.

Building on his famed New York stage adaptation, Cacoyannis shepherds this extraordinary cast through a richly cinematic rendition of Euripides' definitive anti-war drama. With a score by Mikis Theodorakis that rivals the spare intensity of his music for Z, THE TROJAN WOMEN is both a re-energized and evocative denunciation of human cruelty and a passionate chorus of redemption and survival.



Sophocles' immortal tragedy ANTIGONE receives a definitive cinematic interpretation in this 1961 film. Irene Papas (Z, THE TROJAN WOMEN, THE GUNS OF NAVARRONE) heads a cast of over 500 actors of the Greek stage and screen, joined by soldiers and horsemen of the Greek Royal Guard. Performing in the original Greek, Papas and, in particular, Manos Katrakis as the tyrannical Theban king Creon, embody Sophocles' timeless themes with earthy conviction and irresistible passion.

In the aftermath of a bloody civil war that fatally pitted both her brothers against each other, Antigone (Papas), daughter of Oedipus, picks through the carnage outside the gates of Thebes in search of her fallen siblings' bodies. Vowing to bury both men, Antigone defies a direct edict from Thebes' King Creon that Antigone's rebel brother remain unsanctified for having led the insurrection. Antigone's defiance of Creon and devotion to her shattered family divides the city of Thebes, threatens her sister's betrothal to Creon's son and invokes the wrath of a king willing to defy the gods themselves to satisfy his selfish vengeance. But by condemning Antigone, Creon unwittingly dooms himself to a sentence far crueler than any punishment he could inflict on his enemies.

While remaining faithful to the original text, director George Tzavellas interprets ANTIGONE as an intimate black and white epic that recalls Orson Welles' MACBETH and Laurence Olivier's filmed HAMLET. As relevant now as it was in the Fourth Century BC, ANTIGONE's rich tapestry of complex characters pushed to the limits of loyalty, savagery, love and fate comes vividly to life in this superior film adaptation.

[asphodel5]

I just finished with the third of last week's Hungarian releases. My reviews are here: http://www.wehateyouandyourhorrendou...ns-street.html

http://www.wehateyouandyourhorrendou.../adoption.html

http://www.wehateyouandyourhorrendou...08/father.html

I'll continue my Kino kick later in the week. Two of the Kieslowski's are on their way (the most recent ones). I'm hoping that I can get the other two + Blind Shaft (an Asian film) by week's end. I can post links then or you can just check for yourselves.

[pharoahdance]

Asphodel5, which of the Kieslowski dvd's did you grab? I got Blind Chance and Camera Buff, and was pleasantly surprised at both the quality of the films and the dvd. I'm not too great at film analysis , so I'll be eager to read your thoughts.

[asphodel5]

I should get "No End" tomorrow and "Blind Chance" the day after. The other two are at the top of my queue. 3 of my current rentals should get back on Thursday, so I expect to get those by the weekend. I'm not sure about "Blind Shaft". I'm thinking about doing a Catherine Deneuve marathon next week, so that would supercede most everything else.

I saw the two expanded Decalogue discs earlier this Summer and I was also pleasantly surprised. I'm glad to hear that his new batch is also of good quality.

[theta]

I generally like Kino when I buy them, but honestly, they're Criterion prices without Criterion quality; often the discs are sparse and sometimes the transfers can be disappointing, although one can level the same charges at Home Vision Entertainment, which is Criterion's second string. On the other hand, they also release more discs and are willing to put REALLY obscure stuff out there; my version of "Conspirators of Pleasure" is from Kino.

[manicsounds]

L'Age D'Or (The Golden Age) by Luis Bunuel
will be released by Kino on November 24th.

incredible news for lovers of the Avant Garde,
and also of course for Salvador Dali fans too.

link: http://www.kino.com/video/item.php?film_id=693