Oh, am I friggin' happy today!!!!!
http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=359
Look at the cover art, magnificent!!!! I love the Criterion Collection. Period.
Thanks for the news, although for me the elation is mixed with regret at having only 6 months ago shelled out $40 for the French mk2 version. It looks like the Criterion has everything from the mk2, with the possible exception of the French trailers for other Kieslowski movies (which weren't even accessible from the mk2's English menus). Additional stuff for the Criterion is the commentary by Annette Insdorf, the interviews with Slawomir Idziak and Zbigniew Preisner, and the booklet of essays. Enough there to cause me to double dip on this one, given that Kieslowski's my favorite director. (This seems to be the season for double dipping for me -- yesterday the new Apocalypse Now arrived in the mail, I already have the Criterion Seven Samurai 3-disc set on order, and now this.)
One thing I wonder about is whether the Criterion DLOV will include the American version ending. It would be nice to have, at least as an extra. For the time being I guess I'll have to hold on to my copy of the US videocassette.
-- TopFrog
I didn't know anything about an American version ending. Strange that an art house film would have a different ending for the U.S. market than the rest of the world. Is it something that Miramax insisted on, ala Cinema Paradiso? I have only seen the VHS copy of DLOV so I guess I've seen this version and never realized there was another one, apparently the one Kieslowski intended.
I'm wondering about the technical aspects of the transfer? Will Criterion use their own or will they make an NTSC version of MK2's transfer? MK2 made a fabulous transfer and evidently rendered the unusual color hue of the movie very faithfully. If Criterion is doing their own transfer, restoration, color correction, etc. I hope they render the movie's color hue the way it was intended.
Another thing I wish Criterion would do: instead of the 2.0 Dolby Digital audio track, which is apparently the only one we're going to get, make the audio a full-fledged PCM 2.0 track. This would really enhance Preisner's extraordinary orchestration.
Criterion hinted in their July monthly newletter that they would be releasing Kieslowski this Fall but didn't say what title(s) would be included. I couldn't decide whether I wanted them to release DLOV or The Decalogue. I hope some day somebody releases The Decalogue after a major restorative effort, unlike the two half-assed double dips that Facets Video foisted on us.
From Kieslowski on Kieslowski (after explaining his idea, never implemented, to have many slightly different versions of the film, a different one for each cinema):
"As it is there are two versions of Veronique because I made a different one for America. We see a man emerge from a house which we already know and he calls, 'Veronique! It's cold. Come inside.' 'Dad!' Veronique says and runs to him. And cuddles up to him. That's the ending for America. It's obvious that that's the family home. You know that the man's her father. But as I've said, it hadn't been clear to the Americans before that he was her father. Maybe it was some other man fiddling around with the timber. How can you know?"
As you can see the American ending is just two extra shots tacked on to the European version. It's not a mutilation of Kieslowski's work -- he did go back to add the shots himself, although one gets the sense from the passage that he did it only because he needed to make it obvious for the benefit of obtuse Americans.
-- TopFrog
Additional stuff for the Criterion is the commentary by Annette Insdorf
Thanks! How great. I'm a huge Kieslowski fan, and Irene Jacob is my dream girl. Imagine how happy I am.
shareThat's great news...thanks for the info
shareI wrote to Artificial Eye to let them know how much anticipation there was on IMDB and on other sites for this film and they finally released it in Europe. I'm glad we're not being left out in the cold Stateside. Great big thanks to Criterion for the US release and to you for getting the word out. I haven't a single Criterion disc in my collection yet due to the premium prices (albeit, on premium products). But I'd be only too happy to make Veronique the first purchase from their catalogue.
share Probably the most reasonably priced place to buy Criterion Collections DVD's is at http://www.dvdplanet.com. For example, you can go there and preorder The Double Life of Veronique for $23.97, which is probably the cheapest you'll be able to find that title. http://www.dvdplanet.com/details.cfm?info=HVD001929
It's about time! Great!!!! It can finally part with the VHS, even though my video recorder is not even hooked up anymore.
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