Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
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Silent Naruse
(1931-1934)
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Contents: Flunky, Work Hard (1931), No Blood Relation (1932), Apart From You (1933), Every-Night Dreams (1933) and Street Without End (1934).
This five-film collection, culled from the earliest years of Mikio Naruse’s career, shows us the development of one of Japan’s boldest filmmakers. Rapid camera framing from character to character, close-ups, montage, and swift camera moves are not unusual in Naruse’s work here.
Due to the entrenchment of the Benshi narrator tradition in Japanese film exhibition, the production of Japanese silent films extended well into the 1930s. These five films are excellent examples of the continued development of the Japanese silent film.
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 The Criterion Collection
2011 DVD edition
Silent Naruse (1931-1934), black & white, 370 minutes total, not rated, including Flunky, Work Hard (1931), black & white, 28 minutes, not rated, No Blood Relation (1932), black & white, 79 minutes, not rated, Apart From You (1933), black & white, 60 minutes, not rated, Every-Night Dreams (1933), black & white, 65 minutes, not rated, and Street Without End (1934), black & white, 88 minutes, not rated.
The Criterion Collection, ECL120 (Eclipse Series 26),
UPC 7-15515-06931-1, ISBN 978-1-60465-400-4.
Three single-sided, dual-layered, Region 1 NTSC DVD discs; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 7.4 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 384 Kbps audio bit rate; Japanese language intertitles, optional English language subtitles; chapter stops; 4-page insert booklet; three slimline DVD keepcases in cardboard slipcase; $44.95.
Release date: 5 April 2011.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 7 / audio: 8 / additional content: 7 / overall: 7.
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This DVD collection has been mastered from five good to very-good 35mm source prints. Most of the prints are a bit dark in the midtones of the greyscale range which makes the overall picture seem a little dull. Moderate amounts of dust, speckling, emulsion chipping and scuffing, schmutz, and other print flaws are present in most of the prints. That said, the viewing experience is overall very-good.
The films are accompanied by music scores composed by Robin Holcomb and Wayne Horvitz. On all discs, audio channel 1 is devoid of any content, audio channel 2 must be chosen to hear the music score performed by a small ensemble.
For our reviews of the individual films in the collection, see our Flunky, Work Hard on home video page, our No Blood Relation on home video page, our Apart From You on home video page, our Every-Night Dreams on home video page, and our Street Without End on home video page.
As would be expected of a Criterion Collection release, this collection has been lovingly produced for home video and is enthusiastically recommended. This out-of-print collection is well worth pursuing on the backstock and used disc market.
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