On being Blu

I've drooled over the Eureka!/Masters of Cinema revival of Godard's Une femme mariée before, but its new Blu-ray of the movie has moved me to muse on how its existence heralds an at least partial age of miracle and wonder. Today's Foreign DVD Report, at The Auteurs'.

Comments

[Jeff McM]

I have a region-free DVD player, but how does one get a region-free Blu-Ray player? Are there, er, hints in the way of secret codes available somewhere?

[YND]

There are region-free blu-ray players, I believe. But the Eureka Masters of Cinema blus are blissfully region-free. Also, their website usually has them for sale at a significant discount + free int'l shipping. I picked up their glorious editions of SUNRISE, CITY GIRL and UNE FEMME MARIEE -- paid through PayPal, received them within the week... and they're stunning. Watched CITY GIRL tonight. *sigh*

[YND]

I'd check out www.dvdbeaver.com -- I believe Gary Tooze over there uses a region-free Momitsu and has a link to at least one reasonably cheap region-free blu-ray player available on Amazon.

[michaelgsmith]

As someone who first encountered a lot of Godard, Une Femme Mariee included, in the mid-1990s on dubiously legal VHS tapes of poor quality transfers with impossible to read subtitles from "public domain" distributors, I really enjoyed reading that. But I'm surprised you didn't mention the astonishing and very clever booklet that comes with it, which exhaustively analyzes the movie from every conceivable angle.

It's also really amazing to consider how much Godard is already available on this relatively young hi-def format: Breathless (released yesterday), the forthcoming Criterion Vivre sa Vie, Contempt, Une Femme Mariee, Pierrot le Fou and even a French release of the English language One Plus One / Sympathy for the Devil. Feels like a new golden age for home video!

[Glenn Kenny]

MG Smith, the only reason I didn't mention the booklet in my latest round of praise for the MOC "Femme" is that I considered it here:

http://www.theauteurs.com/notebook/posts/698

The pertinent passage: "The 80-page booklet that accompanies the disc, edited by Craig Keller with contributions from Keller, scholar Bill Krohn, critic/filmmaker Luc Moullet, and featuring a statement from Méril, a lecture and a collage by Godard, and some pertinent passages from Racine, is in its way as much of a fragmented masterpiece and provocation as the film itself."

[Sam Adams]

@YND: Not to be dense, but I can't find a way to purchase directly from MoC; even their "Purchase" page redirects to other online retailers. How it work?

[craig keller.]

The release of UNE FEMME MARIÉE on Blu-ray is region free.

Sam, you can send a blank email to customer@eurekavideo.co.uk with "Add me" in the subject line to get added to the monthly pre-order sales list — orders come direct from Eureka and are heavily discounted with free shipping.

http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/offers/feb_new.html

[michaelgsmith]

I somehow missed your earlier post, Glenn, but that is well said. I don't think it's hyperbolic at all to compare the booklet to the movie.

I wish someone would drop a big pile of money in your lap and order you to review blu-ray releases full-time. Some of the beaver reviewers and most of the bluray.com reviewers can't be trusted; I shuddered when I saw that the latter site had give Une Femme Mariee half of a star (on a scale of 1 to 5) when rating the supplements - with no mention of the booklet at all.

[YND]

Also cool: when you buy directly from Eureka, the discs ship out well in advance of their release date. I see that CITY GIRL isn't released till 2/25, but I received it a week ago. I never seek out int'l discs to buy, but it's such a great deal and the PayPal payment is so easy, I'm now hooked on these MoC discs. Here's hoping they keep this up!

[david hare]

Glenn, further to your fine apprecation of Femme Mariee on the Auteurs - Contempt initially played here (in Oz) in the English dub back in 1966, and I remember well the nonsense this seemed to make of Georgia Moll's part.

But it's taken me until now and the BluRay of le Mepris (and somewhat better French skills) to realize that - in the first long scene with Georgia tranalsting back and forth between Palance, Piccoli and Lang she is in fact reciting their dialogue in French, BEFORE they have spoken it. So Godard - again - creates another disconnect/"fragmentation" of sound and dialogue with the sort of discontinuities he was playing with from Une Femme est Une Femme onwards.

[lazarus]

Odd that you can only pre-order new releases from Eureka, but not from their catalog.

Thanks for the tip, though.

[YND]

You actually can order their catalog blu-rays at http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/offers/BD.html

[lazarus]

That's good...what about the regular DVDs?

[lazarus]

Ok, should have explored a bit more before asking that.

I went back to that home page and there's a lot more options.

Odd that you need to get to this through a back door, though.