So I see that the next couple of Criterion Blu-rays will be Kurosawa’s 1980 Kagemusha and Tati’s 1967 Playtime. Jesus, I really wish these guys would stop wasting the high-def format on such trifling, visually uninteresting pieces of hackwork…
I joke, obviously. I was the happy recipient of the new products over the weekend, and got through about 
a fifth of Kagemusha, and almost half of Playtime. I’ll weigh in more fully after a complete viewing, but there won’t be much to weigh in on, aside from the improvement in picture quality; these are essentially all-in-one duplications, supplements-wise, of the excellent standard-definition packages in the collection. As for the new high-definition component, well, Kagemusha is entirely ravishing, rock solid in both color and shadow. Those who love the film know it as one of those three-hour pictures that both does and does not play “long;” its narrative momentum is practically that of a first-rate ’50s B picture, while its immersive qualities are such that one feels steeped in an entirely strange world.
As for Playtime—this, too, is a remarkable disc, based on the same restoration that was used for the recent standard-definition upgrade; viewers ought to be aware, though, that the film’s opening credit sequence appears not to have undergone the same restoration and hence, the clouds floating in the background of the opening credits constitute what Jeffrey Wells would call “a grainstorm.” But fear not; after that it’s all gorgeousness and gorgeosity and such. However. 
Let us turn to a moment to Gilbert Adair: “In Playtime the screen is a playground, and the critic Jonathan Rosenbaum rightly remarked that it’s the only film in the history of the medium which not only has to be seen several times but each time from a different seat and section in the auditorium, the spectator thereby becoming a surrogate director, selecting and reselecting his own angles of vision from screening to screening.” I concur, and add a side note: that more than a great many films in the history of the medium, Playtime becomes more that a somewhat different experience depending on the format in which it’s screened; rather, it’s a completely different film in each of its formats. The 70 mm version is not the 35 mm version is not the Blu-ray disc version is not the standard definition DVD. Each version has its own very distinctive qualities. In the beautiful high-definition transfer presented on the Blu-ray, the specificities of the film’s colors and design often give it a feel not unlike that of computer animation, which is entirely fascinating and not inapt. And it is blissfully watchable, and re-watchable…and no substitute for the 70 mm print, which I intend to revisit every time it comes around.
One of my fondest cinemagoing memories was seeing Playtime on the giant, curved screen at the Cinerama in Seattle (the one Paul Allen refurbished) and being wholly unable to stop grinning widely from start to finish.
Ah, Jacques Tati. An icon of my childhood. How me and my brothers laughed at his japes.
What’s the point in not bothering to restore a title sequence? I’m a whore for title sequences, among all the other little trimmings that I love, so I’m disappointed and baffled by this state of affairs.
Finding out about the one-day-only exhibition of “Playtime” (“Play Time”?) at the MOMA the day after it happened was one of the two or three worst things to ever happen to me, movie-wise.
I’ve been basically afraid (or just unwilling) to rewatch the DVD of Play Time after seeing it in 70 lest I obliterate the experience from my mind. Pretty eager to check out the Blu-Ray, though. Hey honey, maybe it’s time for us to get that 60″ set…
@ Allen Belz – I’m pretty sure I was at that Cinerama screening of Playtime (SIFF about 5 years ago, right?). Man, that was a glorious screening. I took my (at the time) non-cinephile little brother to that show and it was pretty much all he talked about for the next week.
Playtime remains for me one of the few movies I’ve seen (and hope to see again and again) that has actually radically changed the way I look at the world. I find myself having little ‘Playtime moments’ regularly at I walk through the city. Even with the Blu-Ray release, they could bring the 70mm print through NY every year (or basically anywhere within 100 miles or so of where I happen to be), and I’ll be there, dragging as many friends as I can to the movie.
Yep, that was the one.
@Jason & Allen: It’s an interesting thing about “Playtime,” I have a lot of friends who love movies but don’t fit the obvious or stereotypical cinephile profile, but those among them who have, by hook or by crook, experienced this movie love it like nothing else, simply because there really is nothing else like it. They immediately hook in to the way that it’s different, and let themselves be swept up into its world. It really is a unique object in that respect.
@Glenn,
Ah, but it’s profitless it to your regular cineplex-hopper (the ones who think Michael Bay is a genius). I made that mistake once and was hit by a “but nothing happens in this film!”. You need people who actually watch the films they see, otherwise they only see what’s most obvious. I’ve loved Playtime since I saw it the first time, but it really needs an engaged viewer.
There can never be enough Tati talk and in that spirit I highly recomend to anyone who hasn’t read it Michel Chion’s small but brilliant book “The Films of Jacques Tati”, a leaping, digressive and amazing study of his work.
David Bellos’ biography is also quite good (and an interesting occurance of a literary scholar, translator and biographer of Georges Perec working outside his normal field. Fascinating thoughts on what draws a scholar on Perec to Tati.)