Bertolucci Day! 1900 and THE CONFORMIST coming 12-05-06
 

Finally R1 gets these masterpieces! Not much detail yet, but 1900 will be a 2-disc set with a MSRP of $19.99, and the single-disc CONFORMIST has a MSRP of $14.99.

http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_ite...earchID=144247

http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_ite...earchID=253141

Here is the existing thread for the Conformist...

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=477088

1900 uncut? It says Not Rated...

Paramount released the longer cut theatrically with the NC-17 rating. I am sure they want more chains to stock this without said rating.

It's too bad Paramount didn't release the shorter version, along with the longer cut since I have read that Bertolucci fine tuned and prefers the former version to the 6hr cut.

I have never seen 1900 and I mostly like all movies with both Deniro and Depardieu, so I may blind buy 1900.

It's a very interesting film. Some highly controversial parts...you'll see DeNiro and Donald Sutherland when they were pretty young.

If you enjoy films of a big scope, that are kind of all over the place, you'll probably like it. I would compare it to something like "Once Upon a Time in America". Not quite that good, but very ambitious. Certainly not the kind of epic we're used to these days...it's not heavy on sentiment.

I really liked 1900 when i saw it about a year ago...I think i saw the 4+ hour version on two VHS tapes i got from the library...
There is some shocking violence, nudity and sex but I was surprised at how watchable the film was and how fast it went by....
I agree with the above comparison to Once Upon A Time In America and it also remeinded me in some ways of The Tin Drum and Reds..
But 1900 is a great film that most people seem to have never even heard of. I can't wait to add it to my collection...

Whoa! I had no idea about either of these.

It's been a very long time since I've not known of a dvd release that I'd be interested in so close to it's release date.

I may in fact pull a blind buy on 1900 after reading comments by indiephantom and chris_sc77, I love epic masterpieces, and the cast in this just sounds excellent and it has an english audio track.

Some review are up.

The Conformist:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s2180conf.html

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDRe...conformist.htm



And 1900:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews15/1900.htm

Thankyou Dr. Mantle, 1900 looks amazing judging by those screenshots and so does The Conformist. I will buy these today for sure!

Fucking yellow subtitles?
What the hell?
Fuck you Paramount!

I would honestly rather have a shitty transfer with white subs than the other way around. God damn it!

Havn't yet watched the film but i sampled the video and it looks rather good...
I bought this at Wal-Mart at midnight before they even put it out on shelved i went through the boxes of new dvd's and sure enough I found about 10 copies of 1900 in a box.
Price was only $14.44 + tax.
Can't believe they are selling this film at Wal-mart because of the content in the film espescially considering they will not sell CD's with the parental advisory sticker.
Truly amazing.

I stopped at Best Buy and WalMart in Wethersfield and Wallingford on the way home. No one had any copies of either. Anyone seen any at any CT stores?

I went ahead and bought 1900 and The Conformist. These are blind buys for me. I have not gotten through 1900 yet but the transfer is outstanding (perhaps because of my unfamiliarity with the film). The yellow subs did not bother me, I have tried to watch this with the english audio but Depardieu's english audio sounds so fake to me (having seen him in english speaking roles, it sounds so strange). So I went ahead and went from subtitles back to the english audio track and I may continue to do that. BTW, the discs for 1900 are like all recent Paramount DVD's and have the grey disc. Still working on 1900, but so far it's a great sweeping epic production and i am enjoying it.

Those screenshots have me drooling for The Conformist. My copy is on order and hasn't gotten to me yet but I can't wait. This is an incredible, incredible film and it looks like Paramount has done it justice.

This disc should make me a very happy camper. :)

Did you stop at the Best Buy on the Berlin Turnpike? 1900 shows up as being in stock at that location.

watched The Conformist last night, my head is still spinning from the visuals and the narrative structure :)

but I take it this was heavily dubbed post production ? Because otherwise, I had really bad sync isues on the italian track.

I bought both the Conformist and 1900 yesterday. These are both blind buys for me but I don't think that I will be dissapointed with either one of the purchases.

As with virtually all Italian films pre-80's (and a good deal of them right up to the present), it was dubbed and wasn't shot with sync sound.

Now one might argue that one should watch this film with Italian audio, but I prefer to watch it with the French track. As a french speaker, and since I'm used to his voice, I'd much rather hear Jean-Louis Trintignant's real voice.

excentris,

thanks for confirming that. I guess Paramount should be commended for including so many audio options.

Yeah, like most Italian productions (everything from Fellini to Argento), the Bertolucci films are post-sync'd. I have no idea why, but sync-sound never caught on in Italian films. I don't like it.

I haven't yet watched the "1900" DVD, but I'm planning to watch the first 1-1/2 hours or so in Italian, and then switch to English (alot of Italian extras in the first half).

I watched "The Conformist" over the weekend, with an eye towards switching between the Italian and French tracks. I think Italian works best for most of the film, even though Trintignant speaks his lines in French throughout. However, I highly recommend that you switch to the French track for all the scenes primarily between Trintingnant and Dominique Sanda ("Anna"... you know, Professor Quadri's wife), as both actors speak their lines in French. Most of the other main characters (Giulia, Professor Quadri, Manganiello) are speaking Italian, and this tends to work best in any scenes where they're a big part. Especially Giulia, as the French dub makes her sound even more shrill and annoying. Fortunately, the audio can be switched on the fly, and I definitely encourage viewers to make that switch for those scenes in the middle of the film between Anna and Marcello. And I think the French track sounds better - in general terms with respect to overall sound quality, not lip-sync - than the Italian.


EDIT: Also... the subtitles. Sigh. Yellow. Ugly. And placed too high in the frame. If your DVD player has a function that allows you to move the subs, I'd recommend doing so. Storaro uses every inch of the frame, and many shots have heads quite low, and the poor placement of the subs is very distracting. I moved mine down "-14" on my Panny S77 (not sure what measurement that "14" entails, but that's quite a difference from the usual "0").

goddamnit! I hated the yellow subs for 'Das Boot' (yes I know that was a TriStar/Columbia title). Way to go Paramount... shit. Yellow subtitling is beyond annoying.

"And placed too high in the frame"

Yellow subtitles only bother me on black and white films, not so much in colour films, but I definitely noticed the above. There were times when an actor's face were covered in subs. Too big as well.

If you can make them lower and also change the font to a smaller size, it's well worth it.

Generally speaking, yellow subs are better because if there's a white or bright background it's hard to read white ones. I haven't seen these discs yet but whatever subs are used, they should be as low in the frame as possible so as not to obstruct the picture.