Complete Mr. Arkadin Criterion DVD set available!

[sherbert]

After having been out of print for years and commanding high prices in the used market, Criterion has made the Complete Mr. Arkadin DVD set available again! For the low, low price of $31.96!

https://www.criterion.com/films/767-the ... mr-arkadin

Given the low price and lack of a corresponding Blu Ray, I'm guessing that rather than a reissue Criterion found a few cases of unsold copies in a warehouse somewhere and is making them available. Grab one while you can!

[tonyw]

I have the copy and you may be right about the circumstances since good 'ol Gov. Pritzker is not giving us the day off on election Day this year since he hopes he will be busy with Kamala in November!

[JasonH]

Given the low price and lack of a corresponding Blu Ray, I'm guessing that rather than a reissue Criterion found a few cases of unsold copies in a warehouse somewhere and is making them available.

I can confirm that it's a bona fide reprint, albeit a budget one that excludes the novelization that accompanied the original release. "Second Printing 2023" appears on the packaging. No idea if this bodes well or ill for a potential Blu-ray upgrade.

[Le Chiffre]

My guess is that it bodes ill for it. Why do a second printing of the 2006 if a Blu upgrade was being planned anytime soon? According to this Amazon page, the DVD set listed as February 2024 is only $21.38, so that's a pretty good deal for anyone that doesn't have it.
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Mr-Arka ... B000E1OI80

[edmoney]

It may not bode well for a Blu-ray release happening anytime soon, but it doesn't necessarily have any bearing on a release coming at all. For example, the original Criterion Blu-ray release of Picnic at Hanging Rock (with novel) came out in 2014, followed by a Blu-ray reissue (without novel) in 2019, followed by the 4K UHD release in 2024.

I think it may partly depend on Criterion's willingness to release a Blu-ray using dated HD masters created during the DVD era vs. waiting for someone (or Criterion themselves) to do a fresh scan and restoration. While the former still sometimes happens, it seems the trend these days is to release films that have a 4K scan/restoration (even if only released on Blu-ray).

[JasonH]

There's a helpful article from the time of the Criterion release that details the remastering process. It looks like the elements were transferred using a Spirit DataCine to an "HD tape" format from which the work was conducted. The masters Criterion were left with would justify a Blu in my eyes (the HD masters are streaming on the Criterion Channel and, in the case of two cuts, Max, where they look nice), but as you say there probably wouldn't be a new release unless a fresh scan was performed, and I don't know if MR. ARKADIN warrants that kind of investment in the judgment of the decision makers.

The article also indicates that the holders of the various, scattered elements of the movie had to be traveled to in order to conduct the transfers, so that process would have to happen all over again (and that's just step one), and hopefully all parties involved are just as friendly to the idea as they were twenty years ago. It'd be nice to think that in all that time some preservation would have been conducted regardless - I could see the Munich Film Museum doing that kind of diligence on the material they possess of their own accord - but who can say.

[sherbert]

I’ve got the German blu-ray of Arkadin that includes all three versions. For some reason it’s titled Herr Satan persönlich (Mr Satan Himself). It’s nice to have, I suppose, but I don’t notice any significant upgrade in quality vs. the Criterion DVDs.

[JasonH]

I don't have that Blu-ray, but if you examine the Corinth version as currently streaming on Tubi, it looks to be in standard definition, with that "aliased" look consistent with DVD quality. By contrast, if you look at the master currently streaming on Max (and, I presume, the Criterion channel), it appears to be HD native. I wouldn't describe the quality jump as gargantuan, as they're derived from the same source, but it's definitely perceptible.