167 Spring Night Summer Night

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MichaelB
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167 Spring Night Summer Night

#1 Post by MichaelB » Thu Mar 05, 2020 6:17 am

Image
(Joseph L Anderson, 1967)

Release date: 18 May 2020
Limited Edition Blu-ray (UK Blu-ray premiere)
Pre-order here

With its non-professional cast, this sensitive drama, which explores the intimate relationship between a coal-miner’s daughter and her half-brother, is American independent cinema’s closest relation to Italian Neorealism. Presented by Nicolas Winding Refn in a beautiful new restoration, Joseph L Anderson’s film played international festivals in 2019 to great acclaim.


INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 4K restoration
• Original mono audio
‘Spring Night Summer Night’: 50 Years Later (2020): retrospective documentary by Glenn Litton featuring interviews with writer-director Joseph L Anderson, writer-producer Franklin Miller, actors John Crawford, Ted Heimerdinger and Larue Hall, and sound editor Tom Peterson
I’m Goin’ to Straitsville (2020): documentary revisiting the Columbus, Ohio locations with Franklin and Judy Miller, and archivist and restoration supervisor Peter Conheim
• Cleveland Cinematheque Q&A (2016): cast and crew panel discussion
• 16mm On-set Footage (1967, silent): rare and previously unseen material from the film’s production
In the Middle of the Nights (2020): video essay by Ross Lipman comparing Spring Night Summer Night to its ‘sexploitation’ recut, Miss Jessica Is Pregnant
• Three short films by Anderson, comprising the ‘Bluegrass Trilogy’: Football as It Is Played Today (1961), How Swived (1962), and Cheers (1963)
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Limited edition exclusive booklet with a new essay by Ian Mantgani, Glenn Litton’s memories of director Joseph L Anderson, Peter Conheim on the film’s restoration, a look at the career of distributor Joseph L Brenner, an overview of critical responses, and film credits
•UK premiere on Blu-ray
•Limited edition of 3,000 copies

#PHILTD167
BBFC cert: 15
REGION B
EAN: 5060697920178

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agnamaracs
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#2 Post by agnamaracs » Thu Mar 05, 2020 12:01 pm

Is this more or less what'll be on Flicker Alley's disc?

Glowingwabbit
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#3 Post by Glowingwabbit » Thu Mar 05, 2020 12:46 pm

agnamaracs wrote:
Thu Mar 05, 2020 12:01 pm
Is this more or less what'll be on Flicker Alley's disc?
I don't think Flicker Alley has detailed their release. But I assure you that Indicator's release will cost less.

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soundchaser
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#4 Post by soundchaser » Thu Mar 05, 2020 4:55 pm

agnamaracs wrote:
Thu Mar 05, 2020 12:01 pm
Is this more or less what'll be on Flicker Alley's disc?
Flicker Alley has now detailed their release here. In spite of a few extras having slightly different names, it appears to be the same package (wouldn't be surprised if it were a similar situation to the Flicker Alley/Arrow noir releases).

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bottled spider
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#5 Post by bottled spider » Thu Mar 05, 2020 6:07 pm

I don't know anything about the movie itself, but that is one beautiful cover.

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MichaelB
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#6 Post by MichaelB » Sat Mar 14, 2020 3:29 am

It’s just been confirmed that both this and the Flicker Alley release will be region-free.

WmS
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#7 Post by WmS » Sat Mar 14, 2020 8:52 pm

Seven minute clip from the film here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRzuYYshXb0

This looks amazing.

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MichaelB
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#8 Post by MichaelB » Wed Apr 22, 2020 4:40 pm

Full specs confirmed:

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therewillbeblus
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#10 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun May 31, 2020 11:15 pm

I'll need to see this one again before giving it a more thorough reading, but I was impressed with the exposition of cold loneliness each character seemed to nurse in isolation regardless of their permeating institutions, namely family, which failed to support them. The depiction of the aftermath of ideology's disintegration, while the paternal member held onto his role desperately and wielded the dated social mores aggressively, was a little overdone at times but ultimately powerful in creating a piercing, dirty version of the melodrama following the actual disruption of norms in the transitional decade of the 60s. Some of the shots were very experimental and the film was at its best in mixing these stylistic exercises with a stark look at the detached attempting to connect without the tools they once had in resilience, or with them to futile results.

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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#11 Post by WmS » Mon Jun 01, 2020 2:22 pm

I just saw this as well and am predisposed to like it-- I've been to the town this was shot in and grew up next door to Appalachia in a neighboring state. The faces and mannerisms remind me of the people who filled my childhood. So I'm also inclined to pick at it to see where it's false.

None of its many competing qualities, cinematography to mise-en-scene to ethnography to script, ever seems to overwhelm the others. I'm also not sure who was in control-- it's basically a grad student crew with a professor in charge, but I was most impressed by its use of long tracking shots and its utterly gorgeous b&w cinematography, not all by the same cinematographer. I love the actors as well. I count five substantial performances. They shine in the close-up portraiture, but many convincingly inhabit roles that the extras lay out were not really close to their real-life identities. The father especially is not like his actor, and the physicality of the performance is great to watch.

The core drama of the
SpoilerShow
incestuous rape
seems a little midcentury to me, like it's reaching for some kind of Greek tragedy or just trying for some sensational topic
SpoilerShow
that fits the stereotype of the region
that they can then treat in a serious way. Maybe they were poking at moral strictures, maybe looking for a publicity hook. When the male protagonist talks a lot out in the woods trying to sort it out and justify himself, I thought the execution not equal to the rest of the film. The camera stops, the script takes over and overwhelms the performance. I also think he's a dipshit, so there's that. Likewise the father's stagey drunken reminisce in the dark of a bar filled in a lot of backstory more clumsily than the mother's scenes, which deftly open up her backstory more organically. The way the men try to control the women and the women just aren't interested it powerfully portrayed, but the parts I can't get out of my head are the framing, the searching camera, the montage at the dance and when the kids wrestle, the camera mounted on the motorcycle, the pools of sunlight cascading through the trees.

It is a GORGEOUS example of cinematography, and a remarkable movie that seems like it came from an alternate cinematic past in which the US had vibrant regional film industries instead of a one-city monopoly. It's very strange to see things that feel matter-of-fact familiar from my childhood on the screen.

I'm also amazed at the level of care Indicator seems to put into every release. I only have this, the Boetticher box, and a few others, but good God do they dig in the archives.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#12 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Jun 01, 2020 2:40 pm

Regarding the scene in the woods, could the halt of camera and style be intentional to strip away the whimsical experimentation and just force a dwelling on the very uncomfortable raw truth of what's happening without intervention to affirm your (and my) feelings on the justification? I think it might be effective at showing it for what it is as pathetic by de-romanticizing through removing all cinematic tonal boosters, but I'll have to give it another watch to form a concrete opinion there. I agree that the women's portrayal of detachment from those norms is perfect, and really what sold me on the film's success in showing the consequences of deconstructed ideology (this would have gone from good to borderline-awful if the women were not given the attention they are). The camerawork is a joy- my favorite part is the wildly unexpected shot that just spontaneously spins sideways into a somersault.

magnetic
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#13 Post by magnetic » Mon Jun 01, 2020 5:08 pm

I'm really taken with this film, and as mentioned by yourselves, just spectacularly beautiful. You could hang prints of a fair few shots, and it's helped further by the superb restoration job.

as the two preceding posters have posted good analyses, I wanted to ask if there anything to be said of:
SpoilerShow
the mother experienced joy in vibrant LA but returned home

the father loved army life in exotic Europe but returned home

the son left for opportunity in the bustling city but returned home
it stuck out to me that all of the protagonists speak of a place they'd been but ended up back in the town, ostensibly miserable in comparison; only the daughter (i'm forgetting the names now) remains and doesn't seem to be bothered by the thought of missing out on anything outside (and similarly seems to be unfazed by the daunting situation she faces).

This is the best discovery I've made in a while.

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soundchaser
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#14 Post by soundchaser » Mon Jun 01, 2020 5:19 pm

SpoilerShow
I know this isn’t necessarily in the text of the film, but the son has a pretty miserable time after he runs away in the deleted scenes. Which I think may muddle your reading a bit — sorry!
In any case: I thought this was pretty ok, but not spectacular. Surely shot well, with my favorite scene being the one in which a train whips past the camera, giving us only a sporadic view of the action; but I didn’t feel invested in any of the characters in particular, perhaps because they’re largely well-worn tropes only somewhat convincingly portrayed. As a portrait of rural low-budget filmmaking it’s pretty fascinating (which is why I gravitated towards the extras on the excellent Flicker Alley disc), but as a film it enamored me less than I’d hoped. Maybe it will improve upon rewatch somewhere down the line.

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MichaelB
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#15 Post by MichaelB » Mon Jun 01, 2020 6:43 pm

CineOutsider:
Over the course of three viewings I fell completely in love with Spring Night Summer Night, a film whose quiet boldness, authenticity, character-centric storytelling and filmmaking chops completely won me over, and I absolutely take my hat off to Joseph Anderson and Franklin Miller for their justified conviction that they and a crew of photography students could make a significant and impressive feature debut. The film is making its UK Blu-ray debut here and I couldn’t ask for a more comprehensive package – the transfer is immaculate, and the special features provide all the supporting material you could hope for. As ever, it will prove a matter of personal taste and I’m aware that this is at the root of my fondness for the film, but this already looks like being one of my favourite disc releases of the year. Highly recommended.

WmS
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#16 Post by WmS » Tue Jun 02, 2020 11:52 am

therewillbeblus wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 2:40 pm
Regarding the scene in the woods, could the halt of camera and style be intentional to strip away the whimsical experimentation and just force a dwelling on the very uncomfortable raw truth of what's happening without intervention to affirm your (and my) feelings on the justification? I think it might be effective at showing it for what it is as pathetic by de-romanticizing through removing all cinematic tonal boosters
That's a really generous reading, twbb. Part of my dislike of that moment, other than the contrast in camera technique, was how it left the characters with nothing but dialogue. Contra soundchaser, I don't find them tropes because their performances read to my eye as physically authentic to their environment. I read someone compare the film to Italian Neorealism. (Though I wish the script had risen to the richness of language used in your standard back porch Sunday afternoon bullshitting session one often hears in the American South.)

In other words, my main gripe is that the scene is all talk and Carl has nothing to say, repeatedly. He is not a talking man; he cannot talk Jesus Christ off the cross. (after Harvey Pekar)

I will need to rewatch, though, with your readings in mind. This first time my left eye was only looking for what seemed false. For instance, I thought the camera leered during the opening dinner scene. Uncomfortably tight closeups show the nonactor kids brutalizing that fried chicken. (Which kids do, I have watched my darling baby girl assault yogurt in a froth like a killer whale.) These are apparently the kids of the family who rented the crew their house, but I worried that the filmmakers just planned to gawp at the hicks. (Long American tradition here: Tobacco Road, a vile book, came out in 1932, Night Comes to the Cumberlands in 1963) Likewise at the dawn after the spring night, as Jessica crosses in the background and Carl stands up in the foreground, I felt sick as it seemed like the film was unfolding wholly sympathetic to him and his arc. Her prior portrait, face floating like Anna Karina's in the darkness, then felt like it had passed the borderline into wholly awful. The rest of the movie changed my reading of the moment, though, and I want to resee it with its whole arc in mind.

magnetic, all I would say is that these places have a black hole gravity that's very hard to overcome. I love the moment when the mother calls her companion a hillbilly, a quip that says a lot about their relative status and the distance of inside and outside. The grandmother offers counterpoint too: she's never gone anywhere except to her church meeting, but her kids wandered away from that a long time ago.

As a model of low-budget filmmaking, I think this film makes a nice companion to The Killer of Sheep. That's a top shelf masterpiece, while this one has imperfections, but I like how they both utilize their relative poverty of means in making portraits of poverty, one rural, one urban. I'm also reminded of Marcel Hanoun's L'Ete, just in terms of maximizing the cinematic possibilities of a camera, some stock, and the world outside. Watching Hanoun I can never predict what's happening, and Spring Night, Summer Night often seems like it is reimagining (re-imaging?) its visual world from shot to shot.

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MichaelB
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#17 Post by MichaelB » Wed Jun 03, 2020 2:52 am


magnetic
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Re: 167 Spring Night Summer Night

#18 Post by magnetic » Wed Jun 03, 2020 4:47 pm

OK, you guys are much cleverer than me! appreciate the responses, and I wasn't aware of deleted scenes but it was mentioned in a featurette that they decided to nix those scenes.

@WmS, that's a great observation and I wouldn't have thought about it like that. I was thinking along the lines of something to do with not being able to escape or dismiss where you're from, some sort of comment on authenticity--especially considering this film was made in an area of the US that's oft forgotten (at least in cinema imo). I'm probably projecting, but it felt like the filmmakers were almost saying you don't have to go to NYC (like the character played by Mary Cass) or LA: great art is possible anywhere while remaining true to yourself/your roots. Again, this is probably a po-faced & twee reading of it, but I'm saying it anyway :)

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