DVD oddities: L'Inferno (1911) w/Tangerine Dream
mikeg...@gmail.com
couple of weeks ago, a British DVD of an Italian silent, and couldn't
restrain myself from ordering one immediately, partly because I assumed
it would be region 2 and I'd be the only kid on the block to have seen
this funny thing, although as it turns out, that wasn't the case. But
anyway...
It is a 1911 film of Dante's Inferno, from Italy, with music by the 70s
synthesizer music kings Tangerine Dream, no less. You can see some
samples (pretty tantalizing, and the movie lives up to them) here:
http://www.linferno.com/trailer.htm
Let's start with the good part first. This is quite a wild movie, in
its own 1911 title-tells-you-everything-and-then-you-see-it-acted-out
kind of way. It's all your favorite bits from the Inferno-- Francesca
da Rimini and her lover, Ugolino noshing on the archibishop's skull,
the fecal pool, a giant Lucifer munching on Brutus-- depicted very much
as in the Doré illustrations, or rather, in a Melies-style live action
rendition of the Doré illustrations. The movie is full of wonderful
Melies-like effects, and one of the real surprises is how many
different techniques are used-- there are people in devil costumes
cavorting about while feet stick out of holes in the ground, Cerberus
appears to be a rather nicely crafted and operated puppet (who
nevertheless seems related to the dog in the 1924 Peter Pan), while the
scene of the lustful being whipped through the air is even done in
Gilliam-style cutout animation, so far as I could tell. There's a
wonderful naive charm to a lot of this, and the scale of the renditions
of bits of Hell (complete, in most cases, with large numbers of nearly
naked people writhing about) is genuinely impressive. Though the plot
is no more involving than "Virgil points out something, and then he
points out something else," it's no Cabiria dramatically, the visual
variety and novelty of the staged scenes kept me quite captivated
throughout.
Then there's the bad, or at least cheesy part-- music by Tangerine
Dream! Yes, this is a DVD for all those who thought the Moroder
Metropolis was one of the great moviegoing experiences of their lives.
Actually the dreamy, trippy Tangerine Dream sound would have been okay
if not for the fact that IT HAS LYRICS! They've even set some of the
language of the titles to lyrics, or else other times they'll take what
a great poet like Virgil or Dante is presumed to be thinking and turn
it into 70s-style pop music banalities. I turned it down low enough
that I couldn't make out the words, and that got me through it, but you
may wish to put on something else entirely for musical accompaniment.
As far as the quality goes, the opening titles and the booklet inside
talk big about a restoration based on material they got from BFI and
LOC, but I see little sign that they did anything beyond make a nice
video transfer. Quality-wise, it's not bad for 1911, somewhere perhaps
a little lower than our friends here would want to release but
watchable enough, well above "dupey" most of the way. I expected the
disc, which I ordered from Amazon UK, to only be region 2 and PAL but
bizarrely the one I got-- which was shipped from Florida-- is code free
and NTSC. So in theory this thing has, I guess, an American edition
and that's what I have, although none of the usual places seems to be
selling it. Maybe you have to buy it at a Tangerine Dream concert, if
there are such things.
Anyway, I enjoyed it but once is enough, so I've put mine on Ebay; if
you'd like to see it, then it can be yours (and after you watch it you
can sell it to the next curiosity-seeker!) At the very least, check
out the link for the trailer and get a taste of it, it's quite unusual.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6389879632
J. Tati
Nicheflix.com has it for rent, for those who don't want to pay the
purchase bucks (just the rental bucks)
Haven't seen it yet, thanks for the comments.
ML-78
soundtrack is terrible. I don't think there are any trouble getting the
DVD - I ordered mine from bensonsworld.co.uk, also a UK store, and
received an NTSC version as well. I guess this is just how the DVD is -
has anyone got a PAL edition of this?
In fact it's a bit of a shame it only seems to come on NTSC because
according to the insert it was mastered on PAL Digibeta, meaning a
conversion took place. This also explains the motion blur which
occasionally occur.
Despite these complaints I'm glad I got it since it's the only chance
I've had of seeing this movie.
ML-78
mikeg...@gmail.com
version in the UK, but I also find it hard to believe that they go to
the trouble of deciding which version I should have based on my
address....
ML-78
> Well, I find it hard to believe that they're only selling an NTSC
> version in the UK,
I guess that's the case unless someone can say they actually own a PAL
version of this disc. After all anyone can play NTSC while releasing a
PAL version will some unable to see it. A French company like Blaq Out
release NTSC for example.
> but I also find it hard to believe that they go to
> the trouble of deciding which version I should have based on my
> address....
I'm pretty sure they don't do that, otherwise I should have received a
PAL version.
ML-78
mikeg...@gmail.com
sense, but I had no idea that was the case.
J. Tati
Is it possible to have PAL and NTSC as duelling layers on the same disc?
I've seen it on seperate sides before, at least.
I did get a copy of "Drole de drame" from France (the Editions
Montparnasse one, before it came out on HVE) and IT ended up being NTSC
and region free, despite the labelling on the disc and jacket!
mikeg...@gmail.com
MPAA-disapproved Daewoo. I had heard that despite France officially
having the SECAM standard, it really didn't exist any more (sort of
like French military power).
Neil Midkiff
> Anyone can play NTSC? If that's the case then I guess it all makes
> sense, but I had no idea that was the case.
The way I've heard it described, nearly every television set sold in the
last several years in Europe is able to sense whether it's getting an
NTSC or PAL signal and automatically adjust to it, as with computer
monitors that automatically adjust to whether the display card is
sending 800x600 or 1024x768 or whatever pixel format.
So European owners of older sets probably can't play NTSC, but those
with recent gear can.
-Neil Midkiff
Eric Grayson
PAL. The signals are otherwise compatible. I know of a lot of guys
who'd get Army overseas TV and would be stuck in a SECAM country, so
they'd only be able to see the shows they wanted in black and white.
I'm told that a lot of the French TV stations actually use PAL
equipment and then scan convert the signal to SECAM for broadcast.
Greta de Groat
had several from Argentina now that say Region 4, but play fine on my
computer. Sometimes they have menu selections that say "Argentina" and
"Otros", but sometimes they just start up and play. What gives?
And is there any way to tell if something is PAL or not? My computer
seems fine with PAL, so i haven't been able to figure out how to tell. We
have a really old DVD-laser disc combo, and when i put in a region free
disc or DVD-R from a country is suspect may be PAL, it just says "cannot
play"--but i don't know if that's the reason or if it just doesn't like
the disc. For region coded discs (except for the Argentine ones) it says
"wrong region", so then i have no clue. Our public services dept. can't
play these and returns them and says we forgot to put PAL on the
record--but if it doesn't say on the packaging, how would we know? And
based on the previous messages in this thread, would it be reasonable to
assume that any Region 2 disc was indeed PAL?
greta
mikeg...@gmail.com
but the packaging says something more restrictive. I see that
mentioned in reviews a lot.
I take it, for that reason, that there is some way to actually see as
opposed to testing it in a series of machines, but I don't know what
that is.
Computers are fine with PAL, the only time I tried to play PAL in the
wrong DVD player the picture was black and white and sort of
rearranged. That was a R0 disc. If you put a R2 disc in a player
that's not code-free, you won't even get that far, it will simply tell
you that it can't play it, as you've seen. That's the difference
between being physically incapable of playing PAL, and being programmed
not to play R2.
In theory I suppose there's no point to making an R2 NTSC disc, totally
mixing one region and another code, where there is some point to making
an R0 NTSC disc which is expected to be sold mainly within Region 2
(Europe). However, since people could still play it in R2, apparently,
I wouldn't say it's unimaginable-- if someone started with an NTSC
master, they might choose to let all the buyers' TVs convert to PAL
rather than spend the money to convert it themselves.
Eric Grayson
multi-standard player. Computers don't mind PAL/SECAM/NTSC because
they're reading the data stright off the disc and not outputting it to
video at all.
On some TV sets, especially older ones, PAL will lock up as a black and
white signal slightly stretched vertically. Most DVD players will
output a PAL signal, but a few will convert their output to the
standard you need.
Eric (who just watched a nice PAL CD-V of the newest Dr. Who TV episode)
In article <1114456421.0...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
Greta de Groat
desk. The one labeled "Region 4" plays in my Region 1 computer but not the
Region 2 computer. The one Labeled Region 4 and 1 plays in all the
computers. Both play on the DVD player hooked up to the TV.
I was expecting that if i played a Region 0 PAL DVD in the player that i
would get the effect you described--which is what i get when i play a PAL
tape and forget to change the setting to PAL. I didn't expect it to simply
refuse to play. That's what made me suspicious
greta
Greta de Groat
puzzles me that it will play on the old DVD player. It appears to be routing
though our multi-standard tape player, but it says NTSC. Might Argentina make
separate DVDs for the Mexico/US markets? (I think Mexico is Region 4 NTSC while
Argentina is Region 4 PAL-N). The packaging is in Spanish but they include
English subtitles.
ML-78
> In theory I suppose there's no point to making an R2 NTSC disc,
totally
> mixing one region and another code,
That's what they do in Japan.
ML-78
J. Tati
> You have to not only have a region-free player but also a
> multi-standard player. Computers don't mind PAL/SECAM/NTSC because
> they're reading the data stright off the disc and not outputting it to
> video at all.
>
> On some TV sets, especially older ones, PAL will lock up as a black and
> white signal slightly stretched vertically. Most DVD players will
> output a PAL signal, but a few will convert their output to the
> standard you need.
>
> Eric (who just watched a nice PAL CD-V of the newest Dr. Who TV episode)
>
also be enabled to convert the output, some much better than others.
Sometimes the machine will have a menu adjustment that toggles between
"multi/pal/ntsc". In ntsc-land you set it to ntsc in order to get that
output. I'm not sure I've heard of a region free dvd player that can't
do this, unless it's a really odd custom-mod job, performed on a player
that it shouldn't have been.