The Virgin Suicides + Lick the Star

I came really close to importing the 2012 French blu-ray of Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides, even though it has forced French subtitles, so many times because it took forever for us to finally get another HD option.  But you know what?  Criterion may be slow, but they always seem to come around eventually.  And when they do, it tends to be worth it... if maybe a little green.  Let's see how this one came out.

Update 7/22/18 - 7/8/22: Four years later and we're into true 4k.  Criterion has just reissued their release as a 2-disc 4k Ultra HD/ BD combo-pack.

Suicides is Coppola's first feature, based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides.  She may've found her audience more with her second film, Lost In Translation, but between the two, this is the one I find myself going back to.  They share that same charming recreation of a moment in time that Coppola brings to all of her work, but maybe it's just the heft of the overt melodrama adding some lasting weight to this one.  It's the relatable tale of an implausible scenario, where a group of neighborhood boys try to penetrate the romanticized veil of five beautiful sisters who all took their own lives in a small 70s suburb.  The kids are all perfect, from the known (Kirsten Dunst) to the unknown, and the rest of the cast is full of heavy hitters like Kathleen Turner, James Woods and Scott Glenn.

Paramount first put The Virgin Suicides out on DVD back in 2000.  It was a pretty decent, anamorphic widescreen edition, and so that had been my sole copy of this film all the way up until 2018.  But then Criterion gave it a pretty sweet 4k restoration from the original 35mm negatives, and with all new extras to boot, including Coppola's first short film, Lick the Star.  Still, that was just a 1080p blu-ray release, so now that Criterion has entered the 4k market, it only made sense that they'd reissue this as a UHD.  It's now a 2-disc set, with just the film on the new UHD, and the BD is exactly the same as the 2018 one, in every way.

1) 2000 US Paramount DVD; 2) 2018 US Criterion BD;
3) 2022 Criterion BD; 4) 2022 Criterion UHD.

So, a couple of interesting things here... let's see, where to start?  I left the negative space around these first two sets of comparison shots to highlight a curious shifting AR on the DVD.  It's anamorphic, and essentially presented in a full 1.78:1, but with a little matting on the side making it about 1.77:1.  Or 1.76, depending on the shot, because sometimes there's matting on the left, on the right, or on both sides, just randomly throughout the film.  I assume they figured it didn't really matter since it was in the overscan area (remember, this was 2000), but it's a little weird.  Anyway, the subsequent BDs and UHD are presented in what we're assured is the original aspect ratio, 1.67:1, which gives us a little extra vertical information, and sometimes loses a sliver on the sides, depending on what the DVD is doing with its aspect ratio in any given shot.

Apart from that, the new 4k restoration is heaps clearer.  Maybe you don't see it so much embedded in the post, but click through to compare them full size, and you'll really see the difference, even on the 1080p blus.  Grain is very present and natural, and the distinction is pretty strong despite the fact that the compression's actually pretty decent for such an old DVD.  And the colors?  Well, it's hard to miss the heavy green shift in that first set of shots, but as you can see, that's not consistent throughout the film.  Or, at least, not to the same degree.  Just look at the second set of comparison shots with Danny Devito and a stronger bluer hue.  It doesn't scream "lime-flavored" like the other comparisons, above and below, but you can still see the additional yellowish green there, too, if you focus.  And if you were expecting the new UHD to come in and push the pendulum back in the other direction, no, they've stuck to their guns.

1) 2000 US Paramount DVD; 2) 2018 US Criterion BD;
3) 2022 Criterion BD; 4) 2022 Criterion UHD.

Now, this movie clearly plays with its colors and hues... there's a scene towards the end where a party is filtered to be very heavily and purposefully green.  But you can see, this blu leans into that yellowish green at all times; and given Criterion's recent history, really makes you wonder if they're at fault a little bit here.  But, with that said, it's probably not something you'd notice if you weren't doing a comparison or looking out for it.  There are some shots in this film where, taken out of context, Criterion really looks like they've gone off on a green bender alright.  But there are plenty of others where you'd say "there's no green push here at all!"  The colors just look improved over the washed and paler DVD.  So I'd say just don't let it bother you, and it's fine.  Clearly some creative decisions are inherent to the color correction process, and I guess Criterion's tastes just happen to run a little green.  And who knows, maybe so do Sofia's.

And whatever your thoughts on the color timing, you can't argue with the increased resolution of the 4k.  We've definitely gained ground in 2022.  Look how much smoother and unpixelated all that text is, and for the first time, I can read "VOLUME I" and "VOLUME II" on Devito's book cover.  Grain is more natural, too.  Whether you have a display big enough to appreciate it may be another matter.  But at least, with our close-up comparisons, you don't have to take it on faith that the picture quality on your latest upgrade is superior.

Audio-wise, all four discs give us the single English 5.1 mix, though it's bumped up to DTS-HD for the blus and UHD.  The DVD also had a French dub, and they all provide optional English subtitles.

In terms of special features, Paramount's DVD was already fairly decent.  Not exactly a packed special edition, but it included a really good, 23-minute behind the scenes doc that gave some really good, and sometimes funny, insights into the filming.  And they had a few other minor bibs and bobs, like the music video for the Air song that Coppola also directed, a stills gallery, insert and trailer.  Criterion kept all of that, so thankfully there's no need to hang onto your eighteen year-old DVDs any longer - yay!

And in 2018, they also created some great new stuff.  Primarily, they've put together an excellent new, 26 minute documentary with Coppola, Dunst, Hartnett and cinematographer Ed Lachman.  And possibly even more excitingly, there's an on-camera interview with the novel's author, Eugenides.  Then there's an interview with Tavi Gevinson, who runs a fashion website or something that was influenced by this movie?  I wasn't entirely clear on that, but she did have some good insights into the movie, effectively acting as a critic's take.  There's an attractive, fold-out/ leaflet style insert with an essay by novelist Megan Abbott, a second trailer and of course, there's Lick the Star.

It's a black and white, only fourteen minute short; but it's actually quite good and contains a lot of what makes Coppola's features so compelling.  This isn't like Todd Haynes' Suicide, where it might be interesting for devotees to get a peak at his origins, but that's it.  This is a surprisingly dark film about the cut throat social hierarchy of high school that I watch and enjoy for its own artistic merits, not just because it's some minor film history artifact.  In fact, it's not even the first time I've owned it on disc.  I suppose this is a bit of a deep cut, but it was originally included as "This Month's Short Film" on the 2003 Film Movement DVD of Hop.

2003 US Film Movement DVD.

What's Hop?  Oh, it's a completely unrelated, low budget Belgium movie about an immigrant boy and his father living in the country illegally.  They get caught and the father is deported, but the kid winds up living with some old, retired revolutionary white guy who teaches him the ways of terrorism in the most literal, make bombs to blow up buildings and make the government capitulate sort of way.  It doesn't sound like it, but it basically plays like a feel good movie, and after some bombings, the government brings the kid's dad back.  I think I'm making it sound more interesting than it is, though.  It's decently acted and directed, but it's the sort of move I've watched several times over the years because I keep forgetting what it's about.

As you can see, it's slightly window-boxed in the overscan area, leaving it with about a 1.83:1 aspect ratio.  It's got removable English subtitles and interlacing problems.  The only extras are the trailer, a booklet with brief notes about the film, and of course Lick the Star.

2003 US Film Movement DVD top; 2018 US Criterion blu bottom.

Because this was shot on rather gritty 16mm film, the old DVD was reasonably passable.  The only real issue it had was being interlaced.  But Criterion seems to have given this one a new scan, too, with ugly digital artifacting turned back into natural film grain. The aspect ratio has subtly adjusted from 1.30:1 to 1.33:1 (revealing tiny slivers around edges) and the contrast has been greatly improved.  Subtitles would've been nice, and I'm a little surprised that Criterion cheaped out on them; but otherwise it's a worthwhile upgrade for us few DVD owners and a really attractive presentation to all you first-timers.

I haven't bothered with screenshots for Lick the Star in 2022, because the BD is the exact same disc, and the short isn't included on the UHD.  So nothing's changed there.

So, the 2018 blu was a little controversial for its role the on-going Criterion green debate.  And the 2022 release has done nothing to settle or further it, except to show that Criterion was willing to double down on their timing... So there's still a little question mark there; but at worst, we're talking about a minor possible flaw on an otherwise terrific, top-notch release.  High quality scan, especially now that it's in full 3840p, with terrific new extras and even a restoration of Lick the Star.  It's a must for Coppola fans no matter how you look at it.

Is There Hope for Lars von Trier's Medea?

Before we get accused of becoming too caught up in the latest, high-end Ultra HD new releases and forgetting our exotic DVD origins, let's take a look at the dual releases of Lars von Trier's 1988 made-for-television classical drama, Medea.  Just two rare DVDs of a funky art film hardly anybody talks about anymore.  Could there be a future for it?

With Medea, Trier is directing an unproduced script by Carl-Theodor Dreyer, a fellow Dane who started directing in the silent era and is probably best known for Vampyr and The Passion of Joan Of Arc.  At the onset, that might not sound too promising.  I don't mean that as a knock on Dreyer, but Trier's artistic voice is probably most compelling as a screenwriter.  Sure, he's known for all sorts of directorial flourishes and technical innovations (uncharitably, one might say "gimmicks"), but it's really his writing that sets his greatest works above his peers.  So where does that dynamism go when he's dusting off an old script adapting an even older play?  Assuming I can trust wikipedia, Euripides first produced Medea in 431 BC, and that of course was based on an even older myth.

And admittedly, things here are slower-paced and free of the dark, sardonic wit we can otherwise expect from Trier.  But Medea is a powerful story - there's a reason it's been preserved and retold for centuries - and it's expertly told.  Trier stays pretty faithful to Dreyer's script, but he chucks the traditional Greek chorus that Dreyer had intended to retain, re-stages the story to a location that doesn't even try to be ancient Greece (there's a line where the king says he won't relent until the gates close behind Medea, when they're standing in a muddy of a tiny island that clearly has no gates in any direction) and utilizes some creative rear-projection that reminds us we're watching Trier, not Dreyer.  But then again, you'll probably be surprised how understated Udo Kier is here as Jason of the Argonauts.

Facets Video first released Medea on DVD in 2003, here in the US.DVDcompare says the Facets' "picture is VHS-sourced," but the back of the case claims it's "direct from the original video master."  The film doesn't have that classic shot on video look, but it probably was made on the cheap and at least edited on some kind of tape format.  Either way, as you'll see, it ain't pretty.  There are some shots where it's hard to even make out which character is on screen, though it's debatable how much of that is deliberate stylization.  It's even been suggested the image was intentionally downgraded to obscure the unnatural separations between the fore- and back-ground imagery in the rear projection shots.  I have to be honest, crushing the total image quality does help to mask the seams.  But is that the best this film can look?  Everyone talks about the Facets DVD and how ugly it is, but what about the later Raro DVD that came out in Italy in 2005 (and repressed in 2012, which is the edition I have)?  They seemed to turn it into more of a special edition, so I double-dipped to find out if things could be any better. 

2003 US Facets DVD top; 2012 IT Raro DVD below.

Well for starters, Raro is a shade darker than Facets.  Both discs are roughly 1.30:1, but that's rough because the edges of the frame actually shift slightly, even within a single shot.  I left the negative space around them so you can see how messy the edges are.  Raro's is a couple pixels wider, and in some shots reveals a bit more image (compare the bottoms of the second set of shots), but other times doesn't.  Either way, both discs clearly share the same grungy, murky, ugly master.   For the most part, the screenshots speak for themselves.  One detail you'll need me to tell you, though, is that on the Facets, every sixth frame is un-interlaced, while every frame is interlaced on the Raro, which I guess technically is a point in Facet's favor.  But it mostly just raises questions.  According to the back covers, the Facets is NTSC and Raro is PAL, just like you'd expect.  And test both video files in MediaInfo, that bears out.  But both editions seem to actually play at the same speed for 76 minutes, so something weird.  I guess one has been conformed to the other timing.  Considering how funky this disc looks anyway, what's one more little quirk?

Both discs present the film in its original Danish mono 2.0.  One point for Raro: the English subtitles are burnt in on the Facets, but both English and Italian subs are optional on the Italian disc.

Facets has no extras at all, not even a trailer or insert.  But Raro has a couple noteworthy goodies, starting especially with their interview with Massimo Fusillo, a literature professor.  This is actually a pretty great interview, especially for a second-hand expert (as opposed to one of the filmmakers with first-hand knowledge of working on the footage).  It's a tight fifteen minutes with no waffling or film clips.  He starts out telling us about the original play and earlier literary adaptations, including different that have been added to and removed from the story over the years.  Then he gets into the film, with good insight into its history and comparing it to Passolini's Medea from 1969.  Technically it's low-fi, with jump-cut editing, interlacing, the sound of air conditioning buzzing and framing/ lighting that seems more interested in Massimo's fax machine than the man himself.  But content-wise, it's just what we want from an expert, and other special edition producers would do well to take notes.

The only other on-disc extra is a silly thing where quotes from the original screenplay can be read on the menu screen, followed by two unsubtitled clips from the film, ostensibly so we can compare how Dreyer wrote it with how Trier shot it.  But without the subtitles, it's less enlightening than just watching the film itself, utterly pointless, and just feels like an attempt to flesh out the special features to make this feel more like a loaded special edition that it is.  On the other hand, though, Raro has provided an excellent booklet, in both English and Italian, with an essay by Gabrielle Lucantonio as well as reprints of various reviews, articles and Trier quotes on the film.  So that's worth having.

The fact that some frames aren't interlaced on the Facets disc suggests some, if not all, of the present interlacing this film suffers on disc isn't inherent to the original film elements.  Who knows what else is a flaw in the DVD presentation as opposed to the master?  Everything you read about this film suggests it must always look as terrible as it does, but this makes me wonder what kind of restoration is possible?  Even if it couldn't look like Lawrence of Arabia in 4k, it seems likely it could look better than it does presently.  I'd love to find out some day.  But in the meantime, the Raro's the way to go, if only for that interview.

Werner Herzog Documentaries and Shorts

Okay, I've been covering all the Werner Herzog collections with the best editions of his films throughout the run of this site.  And in the course of that, this box, Werner Herzog: Documentaries and Shorts, has been pulled into the comparisons over and over again.  It's the 24 film, 6 DVD boxed set that Herzog started selling exclusively through his own website in 2006.  And it's still relevant because, even after all these fancy special editions and restorations released all around the world, four films can still only be found in this set.  Specifically, they are: Jag Mandir, Wings of Hope, Bells From the Deep and I Am My Films.  That's two feature-length documentaries and one short documentary by Herzog, plus a full-length film documentary about Herzog, respectively.  Everything else has been released elsewhere, largely for the better.  So first, here's a direct link to the 21 films I've already covered previously on this site:

Herakles The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz The Flying Doctors of East Africa Land Of Silence and Darkness Fata Morgana Echoes From a Somber Empire La Soufrière The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner No One Will Play With Me Wodaabe: Herdsmen Of the Sun Bells From the Deep

Last Words Huie's Sermon Precautions Against Fanatics Herdsmen Of the Sun Handicapped Future God's Angry Man How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe The Dark Glow Of the Mountains Ballad Of the Little Soldier Lessons Of Darkness Portrait: Werner Herzog

...All of these films are presented better in other sets, mostly on blu-ray.  Even in the case of The Flying Doctors, which has yet to be released in HD anywhere, is still better on another edition (as an extra on Revolver's Encounters At the End of the World disc), because it isn't interlaced.  Everything in this boxed set is badly interlaced, which really hurts its viability.  Really, all that makes this set viable, are the remaining exclusive films.  But that is a critical exception.

Wings of Hope is a 1999 documentary I'm always surprised has never been more commercially available.  It feels like it would have more easy, mainstream appeal like Grizzly Man than any of his more eclectic, eccentric stuff like The Wild Blue Yonder or Precaution Against Fanatics.  It's the story of a seventeen year-old girl who was the sole survivor of a plane crash, who then had to survive for weeks, lost deep in the Peruvian jungle.  Herzog interviews her, then takes her on a journey to retrace her steps, even finding the wreckage still strewn about in the jungle decades later.  Yes, it's very much akin to Little Dieter Needs To Fly, a documentary so successful that Herzog later made a feature film about it for MGM starring Christian Bale.  But it's also very much its own distinct story, and Juliane Koepcke is a fascinating character in her own right.  It's really a wonder there wasn't even an Anchor Bay or New Yorker DVD of it in its time.

2006 .com DVD.

The box lists this as 1.33:1, but it's really more like 1.31:1, and like everything in this set, suffering serious interlacing problems.  Otherwise, though, the colors are strong and distinct, details are about as clear as you can ask for in standard def, and overall this looks pretty damn good for a 16mm documentary on DVD.  There's just the one English language stereo track with no subtitle options (instances of foreign languages spoken are over-dubbed by Herzog or an uncredited actress who speaks for Koepcke).

I have to admit, I can understand a bit more why 1991's Jag Mandir has never been commercially released outside of this set.  After a brief introduction by the man who staged the show and some explanatory narration by Herzog, this is a largely a single, filmed performance of the private theater of Maharajah of Udaipur.  The camera cuts and moves around, but the closest analog to this film in Herzog's film is still probably that AmEx presentation of The Killers' concert he filmed for Youtube.  After the opening, there's really very little of Herzog in this film, and your interest will be held or lost entirely by how interested you are in the central performance being captured.

For my money, this is a lot more fascinating than The Killers' show, and the final film feels more in keeping with Herzog's body of work just because this theater seems more in line with the sort of material he seems interested in pursuing.  But still, after the first couple of minutes, this could be the work of any random videographer who happened to be there that day.  And like that Killers film, Herzog fans who aren't interested in the particular cultural artifact might be satisfied to just watch the first ten or so minutes, and then switch it off when Herzog eases off and the "plain" show starts.  But it's certainly a much more colorful, varied performance than just watching some 2000's pop rock dudes standing around on stage, with a constantly rotating cast in a variety of exotic costumes performing a much broader variety of music and dance.

2006 .com DVD.

Again listed as 1.33:1, this presentation's even narrower at 1.27:1.  Otherwise, the story is just like Wings of Hope.  It's another 16mm film that mostly looks quite clean and distinct as far as standard def goes, but the interlacing is strong and harmful.  Casual viewers might think, hey, my player automatically deinterlaces everything it plays, so what's the problem?  But that's really just softening the image and making weird ghosting frames that creates a nasty judder whenever the camera pans.  You can't really fix interlacing after the fact, except in the cases of very specific pull-down issues and specialized software.  Otherwise, it's akin to using Motion Smoothing to "fix" a grainy image or other tinkering that really does more to damage the image than improve it.

Anyway, this film just features the one mono track, which is mostly clear apart from some natural room tone.  It has a few burnt in German subtitles, and removable English subs for the entire film.  Not that there's much talking at all in this movie.

Finally, I Am My Films is a 1978 feature-length documentary about Herzog, by Erwin Keusch and Christian Weisenborn.  It's largely based on a long, sit down interview with Herzog, though it's supported by many clips from the films he'd made by that point.  The clips play long and would have been a lot more exciting, I'm assuming, back when his films would have been very hard to see outside of a special theatrical screening.  But now that his fans have them all on disc or screening options at their fingertips, it's a bit of a tedious drag on the film's pacing.  It's not just quick inserts to illustrate what he's referring to; it's long stretches of scenes from his films being played uninterrupted.  So you might be tempted to fast forward through those.  But apart from that, it's a satisfying doc and early precursor to films like Noah Baumbach's celebrated DePalma.  There's also some nice behind the scenes footage from the filming of Stroszek, and it ends with Herzog playing a reel to reel recording of Klaus Kinski flipping out.

2006 .com DVD.

Credited as 1.33:1, this is more like 1.29:1, with the exception of a few, non-anamorphic widescreen clips of a couple of Herzog's features, like that first shot above, from The Enigma of Kasper Hauser.  The picture's a bit soft with yellowed colors, but that's quite possibly down to the original film.  The interlacing isn't, though, of course.  Some color correction might work wonders, but for an honest transfer of the original film to disc, this is just fine, apart from that interlacing.

The film is presented in its original German mono with optional English and Italian subtitles.

Documentaries and Shorts contains no extras for any of its films - except, I suppose, in so much as the films about Herzog, such as Portrait: Werner Herzog, can be considered extras themselves - not even trailers.  The DVDs are packaged in six standard amary cases housed in a thin slipbox.

I should also mention the Shock version of this box, which I wrote about more in depth here.  It's essentially an Australian copy, but with a couple additional films and discs, and minus some language options (mostly Italian subs).  Those additional films are all available elsewhere, and the Shock set is long out of print and very hard to find, but still possibly a preferable option, if you ever find yourself in the unlikely event of choosing between the two options.  The prospect of paying through the nose for either set isn't a pleasant one, but it is still our only option for the remaining hold-out exclusives.  Hopefully, Shout, BFI or another label will come through and restore these onto blu-ray, too.  But that's a big if and when.