Truffaut on Fox Lorber - What the hell-?

[Dehrian]

Okay, this is really bothering me now. It would appear that most of Fox Lorber's Truffaut discs are pan and scan. 400 Blows, Jules and Jim, Shoot the Piano Player, and Antoine and Collete look to be widescreen. The rest, of which there are more than a few, are pan and scan, according to the packaging and all solicitations I've seen.

Criterion lost the rights to Fox Lorber so we could get this s---? Excuse me?

I couldn't even watch Antoine and Collete. The Fox logo at the beginning looked so bad I thought it was a bootleg someone had videotaped from a movie screen. I'm not joking. That's what it looked like.

There's got to be someone we can write to in order to get the rights back to Criterion. This is a travesty. These are some of the finest films ever made, and their presentation here is short of unwatchable. Anyone know if there's anything that can be done to reverse this?

[jb523]

Well, I haven't seen any of the other titles, but Shoot the Piano Player was one of the better Fox Lorber transfers that I've seen. In fact, the trailer for 400 Blows on Shoot the Piano Player was a better transfer than the same trailer on the Criterion collection, but that aside, if they are indeed pan&scan, then that is indeed a travesty, but unfortunately we probably won't be able to get a Star Wars-sized response. If you read the Criterion interview with the Digital Bits guy, you'll see that losing 400 Blows practically brought them to tears. I don't think anyone except Fox Lorber wanted this to happen.

I wonder about Fox Lorber (aka Winstar's) motivations on dvd. Do they really love the movies that they're putting out? I would imagine that they must, given their choices. But if they do, how could they possibly bring themselves to force such a good dvd to go out of print. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. Maybe if we can appeal to them somehow, we can get them to return the rights to Janus and allow Criterion to republish their disc. Any ideas?

If only Fox-Lorber's motives were as altruistic as we hoped

I'm afraid it most likely comes down to $$ for them -- and that is truly sad considering that there was a friendship between Truffaut and Mulvey the elder.

If anyone can think of anything to do to get our point across to F-L, aside from sending our tears in a jar [worked in "Crybaby"] -- I'm all for it.

I'm afraid I must totally disagree about the issue of pan-and-scan on Fox Lorber's Truffaut series! You are assuming that all of the later films were filmed in scope, but this is not true. Starting with "The Soft Skin" Truffaut does not use anamorphic formats, and the transfers all are presented in the appropriate (flat) ratios, with the correct letterboxing bars. I bought the entire series, and I must say I find the transfers quite good, and certainly, in no case, inferior to previous efforts. Sure, I wish Criterion had issued these (and I'm glad I snagged their "400 Blows"!), but please don't scare people off from these wonderful films by spreading these rumors!
Thanks

[Dehrian]

Wait a minute.

You mean that after Jules and Jim he abandoned widescreen and shot everything in 1:33?

Then why are some of the trailers they put on their discs for some of those supposed 1:33 films actually in widescreen if the films themselves are not?

You'll have to excuse me for jumping to conclusions, but the scenario you're presenting is bit unprecendented, and odd to say the least. Why would I assume he'd suddenly start using 1:33 right when his career was starting to take off?

As far as I can tell, The Soft Skin and Woman Next Door, for instance, were shot in 1:66, yet the DVDs are 1:33 according to the packaging, so if they're not pan and scan, then they're at least matted, so, in the case of the DVDs, we'd be seeing material not originally intended. In either case, this is not acceptable to me. The original Criterion LDs of these films, anyway, were 1:66. The Fox Lorber DVDs are 1:33. To me, Fox Lorber dropped the ball.

If you have information proving that the Criterion LDs were incorrectly formatted, please enlighten me.

By saying Truffaut used "flat" as opposed to "scope" formats, I did not mean 1.33, merely that it's not 2.35. The discs are approximately 1.66 as the Criterions were. In fact, since Fox Lorber is using Janus material, these may be the same video masters. My basis for making this statement, (where I didn't have a Criterion LD on hand), is comparisons to broadcasts on Turner Classic Movies, and IFC (which sported Criterion's banner at the beginning), which seem identical in material and ratio to the Fox Lorber discs. As to what subtleties Criterion/Voyager may have brought out of the material, I don't have an answer, but Fox Lorber has done a better job here than in some other former Criterion material (such as "Lola Montes", which is not very good at all). As to what the boxes state as to the ratio, don't believe everything you read.
Regardless of my feelings about Criterion losing rights to this material, you have to hand it to FL for bringing the 10 films out at once rather than over a period of years, as Voyager probably would have done.

[Dehrian]

Ah well, that's another matter, then. I was basing my opinions on the packaging. I couldn't find any reviews for the FL discs on the net, nor anyone who owned them, and since certain discs (such as Jules and Jim) stated they were widescreen while others (such as The Soft Skin) stated they were panned and scanned, I was undertstandably irate.

Thanks for setting me straight.

Speaking of Fox Lorber doing former Criterion titles...Is The Man Who Fell To Earth as good as Criterion in terms of picture and sound?

[jb523]

The Man Who Fell to Earth is the best-looking FL title that I've seen. It looks about as good as some of the not so good Criterion titles. The transfer is better than Black Orpheus or Seven Samurai but has nothing on any of the anamorphic Criterion transfers.

Fox Lorber pisses me off. I buy the films they release because I love them but feel cheated - they seem only marginally better than VHS versions. I get the feeling that no effort, outside of new subtitling, is made to take advantage of the capabilities of dvd. The worst I've seen - Godard's "A Woman is a Woman" the subtitles are almost in the middle of the frame and are as bad as 70's video tape. Why release such an obscure film if you didn't love it? And if you loved it you would have done it better. It's a mystery.

Thanks...I love the book of The Man Who Fell by Walter Tevis, but have only seen an obviously hacked TV version of the movie years ago. It's next on my list now. Even though they would have been better off with the book artwork instead of that cheesy DVD cover.

[jb523]

What can I say. Fox Lorber is horrible at putting out discs. Even when they have a decent transfer, the case artwork always sucks, there're no anamorphic transfers (to my knowledge), and not a hint of special features (except bios, and the trailers that come with the Truffaut). I am grateful to them for putting out great films on dvd, but it is a sort of bitter gratefulness. I will never forgive them for taking 400 Blows from Criterion (unless they give it back).

[jb523]

Also, another bitter note: My Life as a Dog is the wrong AR

[Yoda]

Ok can someone give me a breakdown b/w the two different versions of "the 400 blows" (criterion and fox lorber)

tell me how the video quality, sound quality and extras for the two films compare.

THANKS

[mahavishnu]

Well hey, Criterion is too busy releasing Beastie Boys videos. What you gonna do?

[TheJeffy]

Originally posted by jb523:


Also, another bitter note: My Life as a Dog is the wrong AR

Yep, and even Showtime has shown this properly at about 1.66:1 in the past. Another problem with that disc (and some other FL titles) is their lack of a time readout. I find it very annoying to just see 'PLAY' on the display.

I have 4 or 5 Fox Lorber titles, simply because they are otherwise unavailable on DVD, and I've been disappointed with them all to some degree. If they sold them a little cheaper it might not be so bad, but their prices seem on par with Buena Vista and Paramount titles. (Meaning a little more expensive than other companies)

I think all of mine except My Life as a Dog have the subtitles burned into the film rather than being optional too.

Jeff