This was a tense year for the DVD business, with sales of standard-definition discs declining and the market for the new, high-definition Blu-ray discs slow to take off. Still, the DVD divisions of the major studios, along with a growing group of dedicated independents, have continued to unearth treasures from the recesses of Hollywood vaults and international archives.
In the industry this segment of the market is known as “deep library,” to distinguish it from the shallow library of more exploitable, more recent films that stock the budget racks at supermarkets and drugstores. The deep titles represent riskier propositions than rereleasing “The Terminator” for the 12th time, and it’s hard to imagine there’s much of a profit margin (if any) for a major archival effort like 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment’s magnificent “Murnau, Borzage and Fox” box set.
Which is one reason it’s immensely gratifying to see the current management of the established studios taking the initiative to preserve their past and make it available again to a wide audience, including that large portion of the public without convenient access to a revival house or a museum film program. With the local television late show a thing of the distant past, and only a handful of cable channels programming older films, DVDs are the primary force keeping film history alive.
Warner Brothers has long been a leader in this area, and recently it has been joined by a serious program at Fox and a renewed effort at Sony-Columbia. It’s now time for Paramount and Universal to step up to the plate. Although both studios have produced isolated efforts of outstanding quality, they haven’t really explored the richness of their holdings. The Universal library in particular (which includes some 700 pre-1949 Paramount films acquired in the late ’50s) remains a maddeningly untapped resource.
Paramount and Universal have licensed a few of their films to the Criterion Collection, which remains the Tiffany of independent DVD producers. Criterion continues to produce high-quality discs packed with extras and carrying (justifiable) premium prices. But the most exciting Criterion releases of 2008 came from the company’s new no-frills line, Eclipse, which has been able to move beyond the established art-house classics into less familiar territory: silent films by the Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu; overlooked masterworks of the ’60s and ’70s by the Russian director Larisa Shepitko.
Another group of independents — Synapse, Dark Sky, Blue Underground, Mondo Macabro and others — have found a valuable niche in importing or reviving forgotten genre pictures. Kino International and Flicker Alley have established themselves as sources for first-class editions of silent films, and VCI Entertainment has continued to explore the B-pictures, Poverty Row productions and serials that entertained audiences in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. And there are other fine companies, like Zeitgeist, New Yorker and First Run Features, that specialize in more recent foreign films, documentaries and independent productions.
It’s in the nature of the movie buff never to be satisfied, and this one will continue to demand more and more, often quite unreasonably. (Hey, Sony — where’s that Lew Landers boxed set?) But that doesn’t mean I’m not deeply grateful for a year that has included releases as notable as these (in alphabetical order):
COME DRINK WITH ME The Weinstein Company’s Dragon Dynasty label specializes in spiffed-up editions of classic Asian action films; none is more classic than this 1966 King Hu film, which helped to start the modern martial-arts movie. ($19.97, not rated)
DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS: A MODERN MUSKETEER Fairbanks was a minor Broadway performer who became one of the first modern stars, thanks to the series of highly entertaining contemporary action comedies he made between 1915 and 1921, 11 of which are seen in this beautifully produced collection from Flicker Alley. ($89.99, not rated)
EASY LIVING Written by Preston Sturges and directed by Mitchell Leisen, this delightful comedy is about a downtrodden working girl (Jean Arthur) who is suddenly promoted into the world of wealth and celebrity when a fur coat falls out of the blue and onto her shoulders. The movie offers a tantalizing taste of the Paramount classics now under Universal’s control. ($14.98, not rated)
THE GODFATHER: THE COPPOLA RESTORATION The first two films in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Godfather” trilogy underwent a major digital restoration for this breathtaking new edition, available in both standard definition ($69.99) and Blu-ray ($124.99) from Paramount Home Entertainment. (R)
GRIFFITH MASTERWORKS 2 A superlative collection from Kino of mid- to late-period work from the father of American film, D. W. Griffith, including the Museum of Modern Art’s revelatory restoration of the road-show version of “Way Down East.” ($89.95, not rated)
HOW THE WEST WAS WON Thanks to Blu-ray, this Cinerama spectacular from 1962 is at last available in a home video version that suggests the sheer grandeur of the original release. (Warner Brothers, standard definition, $20.98; Blu-ray, $34.99, not rated)
KENJI MIZOGUCHI’S FALLEN WOMEN Of the many excellent sets issued by the Eclipse division of Criterion this year, this selection of four important films by Japan’s greatest filmmaker is perhaps the most essential. ($59.95, not rated)
MAN OF THE WEST MGM DVD has slowed down considerably, but it continues to explore the rich collection of independent productions that is the United Artists library, exemplified by this spare, philosophical 1958 western by Anthony Mann. ($14.98, not rated)
MURNAU BORZAGE AND FOX The big one for 2008: just as they did with the “Ford at Fox” collection in 2007, Fox Home Entertainment has raised the bar for home video releases with this set devoted to the work of F. W. Murnau and Frank Borzage, two more masters on the payroll of classical Hollywood’s most director-friendly studio. ($239.98, not rated)
SLEEPING BEAUTY Turn off the obnoxious “BDLive” interactive features, and you have a first-rate digital restoration of a late entry (1959) from Disney’s classic period, looking gorgeous in Blu-ray. (Standard definition, $29.99; Blu-ray, $34.99, G)
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