upcoming screenings of classic movies!

[drinkanddestroy]

The Film Forum page links to some nice articles about the festival and Spags in general.

For a great history on the politics of Spags, check out the long NY Review of Books article http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/jun/01/when-westerns-were-un-american/

 And regarding the prints that will be screened, check out the Wall Street Journal article http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303807404577434560174114798.html (if you are blocked by WSJ's subscriber wall, just Google the title "wrangling spaghetti westerns on the archival plains"; when you Google it, you will usually be able to view the article free).

According to this article, they actually tracked down archival prints of these movies, which in some cases are Italian with English subtitles. Seems like the programmer is really dedicated. I guess this article brings good news for those of you concerned about the screenings' purity

[dave jenkins]

1) No, I don't go to movies on my own.

It's not a movie, it's just a panel discussion.

[drinkanddestroy]

It's not a movie, it's just a panel discussion.

I don't go to any events on my own, to be more specific (or more general, depending on how you wanna look at it  )

[drinkanddestroy]

for anyone who goes to any of these screenings/panel discussions: here may be a good chance to recruit Spag fans to these boards! Make some cards with the website printed on it and give 'em out to serious people 

[dave jenkins]

The Film Forum page links to some nice articles about the festival and Spags in general. In particular, check out the Wall Street Journal article http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303807404577434560174114798.html (if you are blocked by WSJ's subscriber wall, just Google the title "wrangling spaghetti westerns on the archival plains"; when you Google it, you will usually be able to view the article free).

No, you get the opening paragraph, then a come-on to subscribe. Why don't you help us all out by cut-and-pasting the article into this thread?

[drinkanddestroy]

No, you get the opening paragraph, then a come-on to subscribe. Why don't you help us all out by cut-and-pasting the article into this thread?

if you type the words "wrangling spaghetti westerns from the archival plains," a version should come up on Google with an "article free pass." (I know every trick about WSJ articles cuz I subscribed there for 6 years, till recently). But for you lazy folk, I'll copy and paste it.


WSJ May 30, 2012 By BRUCE BENNETT

Actor Tony Musante recently described the making of Sergio Corbucci's 1968 Spaghetti Western "The Mercenary" as a series of revelations and discoveries—beginning with the 11th-hour announcement that the film was to be shot entirely in Spain rather than in Rome, where Mr. Musante and his wife had already rented an apartment. Never mind that the story took place in Mexico.

Forty-four years later, simply tracking down a usable print of a film like "The Mercenary" involves a similar element of international intrigue. So when Film Forum repertory programmer Bruce Goldstein began assembling an entire season of vintage Spaghetti Westerns for an upcoming program, he knew he was embarking on an adventure.


"This was the most difficult series I've ever put together," Mr. Goldstein said of "Spaghetti Westerns," Film Forum's three-week survey of the genre that will present 26 entries beginning Friday.

For the man who has programmed Film Forum's consistently hard-to-find, out-of-print, and otherwise esoteric offerings for the past 25 years, that's really saying something. In an effort to prepare a season of Italian Westerns—some renowned, others recondite—he compared notes with other vintage-film exhibitors. A preliminary discussion with the British Film Institute proved especially instructive.
"I asked them if they ever tried [programming] Spaghetti Westerns," he said. "They said, 'Yes, but we failed.'"

That such a failure was even possible for one of the world's leading film archives is a testament to the unique challenges of assembling a program of Italian-produced and internationally financed, cast and distributed low-budget films. Just like in the spaghetti west, the world of film exhibition is about the dollars, or at least the bottom line. Prints are often scarce, and even when they can be found, shipping costs can be prohibitive.

According to series co-programmer Giulia D'Agnolo Vallan, the worldwide search for presentable examples of the uniquely violent and kinetic genre yielded "prints coming from Italy, Germany, a collector in New Jersey and some American filmmakers."

The quality of some of the prints made the usual archival detective work of vintage-film exhibition doubly challenging. "We not only had issues with prints not being stored properly and the negatives not being protected, but the actual stock is not very good to begin with."
 
While Spaghetti Westerns were dismissed by many contemporaneous American critics and old-guard Hollywood filmmakers as being, in Ms. Vallan's words, "extreme and flamboyant and potentially offensive," they were, and have remained, beloved in Italy. So much so that many of the prints in Film Forum's survey were found alongside the work of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti in Italy's national film archive, CSC-Cineteca Nazionale.
 
"Our major partner in this is the Cineteca," Mr. Goldstein said.

There was, of course, a language barrier to get over. Into the 1980s, Italian films were post-dubbed, even in their own language—a fact Mr. Musante discovered on the "The Mercenary" set where, unlike on American sets, assistants didn't call for quiet and technicians and set visitors spoke aloud during takes.

"I had no idea that at the time the Italians didn't record direct sound," he said. "Six months after we wrapped shooting, I was in a dubbing studio in New York, re-recording my part."

Depending on which country a print was bound for, a Spaghetti Western could be re-voiced in any number of languages. "In Italy the first language they would dub would be English," said filmmaker William Lustig, whose home-video imprint Blue Underground contributed to Film Forum's series. "Then they would do French, Italian, German, Spanish. They called it 'the F.I.G.S.'"

Even for the domestic Italian prints, Film Forum had to factor in the cost of custom computer-generated subtitling. "For the Italian prints we have a technician actually in the [projection] booth with a laptop from opening to close monitoring the screening," Mr. Goldstein said.

For many of the more obscure titles in the series, ownership has changed hands, lapsed, or reverted into a bewildering mass of credits. In the 1980s, en route to near bankruptcy and eventual privatization, the Italian national film studio Cinecittà was, Ms. Vallan said, "falling apart when Italian Westerns were in their main era." With no clear future in sight and home video and cable still a decade away, "it was very much about individual producers and short-term alliances in between countries," she said.

Navigating the maze of ownership copyrights necessary to screen any commercially produced film proved to be one of the retrospective's biggest hurdles. "It's a particularly convoluted world that we've had to penetrate," Ms. Vallan said. "With some films, the original copyrights have expired or have not been renewed for theatrical [presentation]."

Mr. Goldstein homed in on 1968's "The Great Silence," Corbucci's spectacularly downbeat clash between Mormons and bounty hunters, as an example of the scavenging necessary to produce the series.

"Let me tell you the provenance of that," he said of a film boasting lead actors of French, German and American origin and locations in north Italy. "We're borrowing a print from Cineteca that's got German and English subtitles, a German [exhibition rights] license, and was filmed in the Dolomites."

A version of this article appeared May 30, 2012, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Lassoing Westerns In Archival Plains.

[dave jenkins]

So now we know that The Great Silence will be a print with English and German subtitles.

I wish they would tell us which ones are the Italian prints. Archival prints can be in very bad shape.

[drinkanddestroy]

dj, it looks like some of your dreams will be realized. the final sentences of the final article linked to on the Film Forum page from (GreenCine Daily http://daily.greencine.com/archives/008257.html ):

"The digital projections of Django and The Big Gundown are among the better shown there so far, but many films are on 35mm, a last-chance-to-see for New Yorkers. Dig in."

[drinkanddestroy]

Archival prints can be in very bad shape.

I don't know jack about film, but I am reasonably confident in saying  that a) the Film Forum is not gonna restore the archive films just for this festival; and b) in general, you may have to choose between sacrificing 35mm authenticity or the better digital images. You can't expect archival prints to look as sharp as digital ones, even if the film does look more authentic for the hardcore fan.

[dave jenkins]

I don't know jack about film, but I am reasonably confident in saying  that a) the Film Forum is not gonna restore the archive films just for this festival

Where does it say that any of these were restored? We know that OUATITW has been restored, but none of the others. The digital ones have presumably been tweeked on telecine, but as I said, why spend 12.50 to watch what is essentially a projection of a Blu-ray that you can buy for 16 dollars?

I guess I'd be willing to take a chance on some of the archival film showings if I knew for sure they were in Italian with subs.

[moviesceleton]

Now, after carefully looking over the Film Forum's calendar, I see that the notation "DCP" has been attached to the entry for this film. Any idea what this means? Digital Camera Projection?

Digital Cinema Package, the new standard in digital cinema. In other words, most likely a 2K projection.

[drinkanddestroy]

Why would someone ever pay significantly more to see a movie in theaters (I think it's $13 in Manhattan now) than at home? Cuz you get the "theater experience" with big screen with surround sound etc. Even if they are merely playing a dvd on a larger screen with big sound, the theater feel always makes a movie much more enjoyable.

Even though The Film Forum's screen is supposed to be small,  I am sure it will be a considerable upgrade over my 32" tv at home. So the only question for me is whether the sound is good. If it has a good theater sound, it'll be just fine. If it doesn't have the nice, booming theater sound, then it's not worth it. (Like the theater at Lincoln Center where we saw OUATIA; the sound was so low I could hardly hear the movie!)


Now, you add to that the fact that many of these are "cult movies" and there is a good chance that the theater will have a lot of hardcore enthusiasts like us, and we may never get another chance like this. I think it's worth dropping $12.50 once just to see how it is and then decide if I wanna attend more screenings. (If you are concerned about what prints they will show, why not call the theater and see if you can reach someone who can give you an answer to your questions).

[drinkanddestroy]

Head Down: didn't you go to one of the screenings? Can you tell us as much as possible about the screening and answer some of the questions people have? Like, which movie did you see, how did it look, language/subtitles, screen size and sound, etc.? (Oh, and does the theater smell okay? A bad "old theater smell" makes me sick!)

Grazie!

[Head Down]

I went to see "The Mercenary" the other day, and the print looked really good...it was an English dub,  and it was a cleaned up 35MM I believe.  From what I understand only "The Big Gundown" is in Italian, the rest are in English, and none of them are digital (from what I've read).

I also read somewhere that "Face to Face" looked a little rough, and that the programmer at Film Forum called this "the most difficult retrospective I've ever put together" due to the shape some of the films are in (quoted above, actually...just realized that).

In terms of paying to see films you already own, I understand that argument completely.  However, in this case, i find it easier to ignore - I just hope I can get over there again!

[dave jenkins]

I went to see "The Mercenary" the other day, and the print looked really good...it was an English dub,  and it was a cleaned up 35MM I believe.  From what I understand only "The Big Gundown" is in Italian, the rest are in English, and none of them are digital (from what I've read).

This is not what Film Forum's calendar says. TBG is DCP; the titles supplied by Blu Underground are projected from an HD source.

Good to hear that The Mercenary looks good. Since its a newly struck 35mm print that may be one of the ones to see.