Making Movies, Preserving Movies, and “City Girl” on BluRay

By Christopher P. Jacobs
Staff Writer

First, a quick rundown on the various moviemaking opportunities this summer: the teenager session of the annual UND Summer Moviecamp that Kathy Coudle-King and I are teaching is now underway. Saturday afternoon June 26th, the movies made in both the adult and the teen workshops will be screened at the historic Empire Theatre in downtown Grand Forks.

The first feature-length project by Nathan Anderson’s Nodak Films, “Last Summer for Boys,” will be shooting most of next month in this area. Locations are lined up in Minneapolis, Fargo, Grand Forks, Minot, Plaza, and Ray, N.D. While the major roles have been cast (with North Dakota actors), extras are needed for each location. Information is available at http://www.nodakfilms.com about the movie and production dates.

Coming up in mid-August is the deadline to submit proposals for the “Cold War Film Contest,” which will give moviemakers the chance to shoot in a perfectly preserved nuclear missile launch control center near Cooperstown, N.D. It may be worthwhile touring the site first to inspire ideas, and the admission fee can be deducted from the contest entry fee. More details are at http://www.coldwarfilmcontest.com.

Moviemakers who are also film buffs should consider entering the first short film/video competition organized by the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA). This contest challenges entrants to create a movie three minutes or shorter that conveys the importance of preserving the worlds moving-image heritage. The grand prize is $2500 and the runner-up gets $1000, and the two winning selections will be included on the AMIA website. Submissions are being accepted starting this week through August 30. More information and submission guidelines are at http://www.AMIA2010.org.

A perfect example of the value of film preservation is the case of legendary German director F. W. Murnau, renowned for “Nosferatu,” “Faust,” “The Last Laugh,” “Sunrise,” and “Tabu.” Murnau was brought to Hollywood to help raise the artistic reputation of American films. The first result was his timeless and Oscar-winning visual parable “Sunrise” (1927), now available on DVD in the U.S. and on BluRay from Great Britain. His next film, “Four Devils” (1928), was critically acclaimed and a success at the box office, but no longer survives in any form except for the original screenplay and some production stills.

In 1929 Murnau made his next film, a lyrically romantic yet often grimly realistic look at the clash between rural and urban America, “City Girl,” set largely on a Minnesota farm. A hard-headed old farmer’s naïve son travels to Chicago to sell the family crop, and returns with a new wife—a world-weary young waitress who longs for the peaceful, pastoral life she’s seen in nature paintings. The father is suspicious of a “city woman” and the wife soon realizes that farm life is much tougher than she’d imagined.

A triumph of silent cinematic storytelling, it was produced during the turbulent period when Hollywood was switching to sound film production. The studio took over the film, hastily re-shot the ending with talking sequences, and released it in 1930 as a part-talkie that was quickly forgotten.

For decades “City Girl” was considered a lost film until amazingly the original silent director’s cut was discovered in 1970, but it remained difficult to see until Fox Video included it in a lavish 2008 DVD box set of several films made by Murnau and director Frank Borzage at the studio during the 1920s and 30s. The butchered theatrical release of “City Girl” and its sound track remain lost.

Earlier this year, Eureka Video’s Masters of Cinema Series released Murnau’s original silent cut of “City Girl” on a region-free BluRay, with the effective new 2008 music score composed by Christopher Caliendo for the DVD set. The high-definition transfer is a superb rendition of what the well-preserved 35mm print actually looks like, with rich blacks, grays, and whites, and no artificial digital enhancements or grain reduction. As a result, occasional minor scratches and dirt show up, but this is not distracting in the least with such a sharp picture. The music score is presented in a choice of either a good Dolby Digital 2.0 recording or an excellent 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack.

There are few bonus features, but one is an excellent audio commentary by a film scholar and the other is a nice 28-page illustrated booklet with a critical evaluation and credits for both the film and the DVD.

The “City Girl” BluRay makes the perfect complement to Eureka’s earlier BluRay release of Murnau’s “Sunrise,” and many modern critics actually consider it the better film. “CITY GIRL” on BluRay— Movie: A / Video: A / Audio: A+ / Extras: B

Questions and comments: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)