Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film (1 Viewer)

[TimJS]

The Kino August release Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema Of The 1920's & 1930's is, apparently, just a teaser for Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film a 7 disc behemoth streeting before the end of the year in the USA (early ought-six elsewhere) from David Shepard & Bruce Posner.

Article from Masters of Cinema :



Tim

 

[Derek Estes]

I have actually seen this as a retrospective at the NW Film Center. Parts of it were fascinating, particularly the program titled The Devil's Playground. After that the retrospective was very hit or miss, the Light Rhythms kept putting me to sleep, I'm glad they exist, but I don't need to ever watch them again. I am excited that this will be available, it was 3 years ago when I saw these, so I'm surprised to hear about them again. One of my favorite parts are The Tell Tale Heart, which I found very chilling, and a clip from a film titled Furies that was incredible. I must recommend watching these films.

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

Do you mean that this will be rehashed in the upcoming box-set or that there is more to come in the same vein via the upcoming release?

Should we hold off on purchasing this DVD and wait for the 7-disc box set or are they completely seperate in terms of content?

 

[TimJS]

Marco:

I don't have specific knowledge of contents other than what is posted, so cannot rule out duplication. But given what has been published, I would be surprised if there is any duplication.

My intro was meant to be "in the same vein..."

Tim

 

[TimJS]

Jack's post has the details here .

Tim

 

[TimJS]

Or you can go to the official site which has clips & pdf downloads.

Tim

 

[Brian PB]

I compared the contents of Kino's 2-disc Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and '30s with Image's upcoming 7-disc Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1894-1941 to document the overlap.

In BOTH collections
Anémic cinéma (1931/Duchamp)
Autumn Fire (1931/Weinberg)
Ballet mécanique (1924/Léger)
Even -- As You and I (1937/Barlow, Hay, Robbins)
H2O (1929/Steiner)
The Hearts of Age (1934/Welles, Vance)
The Life and Death of 9413 a Hollywood Extra (1928/Vorkapich, Florey)
Manhatta (1921/Strand, Sheeler)
Le Retour à la raison (1923/Ray)


In Kino but not in Image
La Coquille et le clergyman (1926/Dulac)
Emak-Bakia (1926/Ray)
L'Étoile de mer (1928/Ray)
La Glace à trois faces (1927/Epstein)
Lot in Sodom (1933/Watson, Webber)
Ménilmontant (1926/Kirsanoff)
Les Mystères du château du Dé (1929/Ray)
Regen/Rain (1929/Ivens)
Rhythmus 21 (1921/Richter)
Romance sentimentale (1930/Eisenstein, Alexandrov)
Symphonie diagonale (1924/Eggeling)
Le Tempestaire (1947/Epstein)
Überfall (1928/Metzner)
Le Vampire (1939/Painlevé)
Vormittagsspuk/Ghosts Before Breakfast (1928/Richter)


In Image but not in Kino
146 films---too many to list


Note: The films in the Kino set do not appear to have undergone any significant restoration or clean-up. The Image set is produced by David Shepard, who searched for the best available elements and completed varying degrees of restoration for each film.

 

[Patrick McCart]

The following also appear in the Treasures from American Film Archives sets:

The Fall of the House of Usher
Themis
Skyscraper Symphony
A Bronx Morning
Stewart Home Movies

 

[Mark Zimmer]

It's not clear to me how Duchamp, Leger and Man Ray's European-made films (in French, moreover) qualify as "American films". They seem like dubious inclusions on an already packed set.

My review of the Kino set is on digitallyObsessed:

http://www.digitallyobsessed.com/sho...w.php3?ID=7543

The scope of the Shepard set seems fairly daunting; the two Kino discs of this material, while frequently very well done, can be exhausting and I don't know if I can stand to review seven....

 

[WillardK]

Thanks for the link to your informative review, Mark. The comparison run-down from Brian and Patrick is helpful as well. I've got the Kino on order and won't hesitate to pick up the Image set when it's available. I've been waiting/hoping for this sort of release for some time.