Lanzmann's amazing, landmark documentary, all 10 hours, will be released on 8-19 by York Entertainment. Looks like it will be on 4 discs with a list of $150(ouch). DVD Planet & CD Universe have it for pre-order at 30% off.

I was wondering if this would ever come out on DVD. I saw this in the theater (over two days) back in the mid 80's for a class, "Faith and the Holocaust", at Santa Clara University. Very moving.

Sweeeeet! Great documentary.

$150.00 MSRP?! How can they justify that, and who's going to fork over that kind of cash for any one movie, even a great documentary?

This is actually being put out by New Yorker, not "York Entertainment" (DVD Price Search often mixes up the two).

I agree that the $150 pricetag is an outrage (consider that Marcel Ophul's 4-hour The Sorrow and the Pity retails for a more reasonable $50). It will only serve to limit its audience to the rich. Given it's historical importance, I hope that many public libraries (and a few independent video stores--doubt we'll see too many copies at the neighborhood Blockbuster) will buy copies for general circulation.

From a play, Paul Rudnick's "I Hate Hamlet", that I performed in once:

Jewish director Gary is offended by Andy's choice of a german agent

GARY: "LILLIAN! Godammit! Andy, I love her, but she's a war criminal! She's a ten-hour documentary waiting to happen!"

I have the R2 France version of this and would be interested in any differences.

Or the price will eventually be reduced. Even $50 for the 270 min. "Sorrow and the Pity" is exorbitant. The reasoning behind this is probably that so few people will be buying it, that jacking up the price grossly will make up for sloth-like sales. Many who may have otherwise bought it at a sensible price will now not bother.

I would be interested in any differences too. If it is substantially better than the R0 PAL version, I might consider an upgrade.

It's now on preorder at DeepDiscountDVD for a more reasonable $79.80, almost half off list price.

still ridiculous, it really is a shame that profit is a higher drive than exposure for important films.

I got shipping confirmation from DDD yesterday on this one.

I don't think it's a matter of profit. NO ONE is getting rich off this release. It's just a fact that there are going to be very few sales of a 9-hour holocaust documentary, so they have to price it appropriately.

2Fast2Furious can sell at Wal-Mart for 15 bucks because they are going to sell millions and millions of copies. The studio can price it lower. Stores can put it up as a loss-leader. Shoah has no such market.



I've received a shipping confirmation from DDD too. Great news.

I bought this last year from France and was wondering whether the enclosed book is translated into English... :-)

Rebuttal: Marcel Ophüls' 4-hour documentary about the Nazi occupation of France, The Sorrow and the Pity/Le Chagrin et la pitié, would seem to have a similarly small potential audience, yet it retails for a much-more-reasonable $49.98 (and sells for about $35 online).

I still smell greed on the part of Facets/New Yorker.

FYI - Netflix carries this title if you just want to rent it whenever you have a spare 9+ hours to kill.

Yes, the enclosed booklet is in English. However, without a direct comparison who knows if it's the same text or if this was produced soley for the R1 release...

Ah. If you know anyone that wants the French and wants to trade with the English comes out, pass 'em my way... Would sure be nice to understand what I'm reading! :-)

Quick question for all those who viewed Shoah:

Is it an intelligent holocaust movie (i.e., The Pianist)?

Or

Is it a melodramatic holocaust movie (i.e., Schindler's List)?

(Please don't respond if you're going to say something like, "The holocaust is too sensitive to ever be potrayed as anything less than tragedy, let alone melodrama, yadda, yadda, yadda..." Watch Schindler's List and you'll know what I mean.)

It's very much an "intelligent" holocaust movie, but it's a documentary, not a dramatization. Therefore, it's nothing at all like The Pianist. It's also nothing at all like a Burns documentary because they don't use archival footage. Instead, they interview people who were there (survivors, guards, etc.). I thought a series of interviews would be boring, but it's not like they're just sitting in a room with a camera in their face. For instance, the first interview is from a survivor or a particular masacre and they film him returning to the scene of the crime in modern day, talking about it as her walks around the area.

I haven't finished it watching yet (just came in the mail last week), but so far it's top notch filmmaking.

Thank you, thats all I wanted to know...

Just pointing out the DVDTalk review of Shoah.

Bringing this back for a reminder of anyone who has considered it - this is the time to order from DDD - it's in stock and with the
20% coupon can be had for under $64.

Just got through renting it via Netflix....disc two came in cracked twice....