I've been seeing confusing reports popping up here and there of a DVD edition of the great Italian film The Tree of Wooden Clogs. Can anyone substantiate if this is true or not? Is it out already? Are there English subtitles? What country is releasing it and where can it be purchased? Thanks

...Ermanno Olmi's L'Albero degli zoccoli is available on DVD in Italy - languages Italian & Bergamasque dialect, no subtitles, 4.3 full-screen, DD 2.0 mono...

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Actually I hope you're wrong Hendrik because I ordered it a couple of weeks ago and according to this site and this site it DOES have English subtitles and this site along with the first site say 1.85 (the first site says anamorphic). Now dvdland.it says it is set to release on jan 16th so maybe there was an earlier version? BTW with my limited research I ordered it from dvdland.it - it seemed to have the best price with shipping to us.

...ahh... those devil-may-care Eyetalians!... DVDIt must have been asleep at the wheel when preparing their site for this movie... hey! apparently the new two-disc DVD features not only an anamorphic transfer (although, for a non-'Scope' 1970s Italian movie 1.85:1 surely is too wide an AR - 1.66:1 would have been more appropriate), but a (dubbed) Italian dts soundtrack, too!... the Bergamasque soundtrack is also on there, in all its original mono glory (DD 2.0)... I'll bring the good news to my favorite UK site... thanks for the tips!

(thinks) RATS!... now I have to get that release... but how am I gonna pay next month's rent?... ah, fiddlededee... tomorrow is another day!...

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Hmm. Now I'm confused. So not only are there two different Italian DVD editions of this film, but I just confirmed that the UK company Nouveau is releasing a third edition in England in Feb! Is the general consensus that the 2-DVD Italian anamorphic edition the way to go here? Also, I'm just curious why dvdland.it lists the 2-DVD set but does not list it as having English subtitles.

I received my 2 disc copy from dvdland.it today and threw it in for a quick look. It is PAL Region 0 in 1.33 (OAR) with English subtitles, Italian 5.1 dts, and Bergamasco mono. Other subtitles: Italian, French, Spanish. The menu automatically defaulted in my player to English with English subtitles. There is an interview with Olmi, photo gallery, and trailer.

It's a fairly good transfer - a bit of gate jitter here and there, and some print dirt (not excessive) to be expected on the age of the source elements I imagine. There is a lot of film grain (after all it's a film!) but that is also to be expected as I believe it was shot in 16mm with fast film stock and natural light when possible. It does have a nice tonal range from black to white.

I listened to the Bergamasco Mono track only - Was that the original language of the film? I can't remember. It was clean and perfectly suited to the nature of the film.