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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Critical Editions of Films on Digital Formats
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New Studies
2006-10-01
2023-10-10
2006-10-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Nikolai Izvolov
2006/10/01
Research Institute for the Art of Cinema
2036-461X
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Critical Editions of Films on Digital Formats
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/21407/19007
6
CRITICAL EDITIONS OF FILMS ON DIGITAL FORMATS
Natascha Drubek-Meyer, FAMU, Praha - Nikolai Izvolov, Research Institute for the Art
of Cinema, Moskva




  Since antiquity, critical editions of historical sources and literary texts have custom-
arily been accompanied by editorial commentaries. In contrast, the public dissemina-
tion of cinema, whether in the form of a documentary, an acted film or historical
footage, has been deprived of what might be termed scholarly critical editions. Indeed,
the concept of an "edition" is rarely applied to the cinema.
   With the appearance of new formats (VHS cassettes, CD, DVD, the internet, and to
these we can now add HD-DVD and Blue-Ray) on which a film may exist, anyone so
wishing can study the history, culture and art of cinema on his own. Cinema history
and theory have become part of our general education and, in the consciousness of an
educated person, many films play no less a role than the classic works of literature. The
release of a film on DVD is already redolent of the publication of a book, yet any serious
discussion as to the possibilities offered by a more technologically advanced scholarly
commentary about cinema is only just beginning.
   The main problem encountered in preparing a critical edition of a film is that there
are still no academic standards in this area, although without them the discipline of
film studies itself cannot properly function. Until such standards are established, this
academic field will always be less highly regarded than one grounded in the study of a
scholarly edition of a text prepared on the basis of a thorough textological analysis.3


The Current Presentation of Films on DVD

  The universal application of academic standards would address the most common
weaknesses we have identified in current DVD releases. Firstly, we have observed that
there is often an attempt to present in one space (i.e., the limited area represented by the
screen) as much historical, technical or other information as possible. For example, some
current releases have attempted to combine several moving objects (e.g., an extract from a
film as a "PIP" or a "Picture in Picture") within a single frame. In some instances, subtitles
with background information appear whilst a character in the film or the commentator is
speaking (imitating the visual appearance of a footnote in an edition of a written text).
  Secondly, our experience of often sophisticated audio commentaries on interactive
DVDs would suggest that it is preferable for the content of an oral commentary also to
be presented in writing so that it may subsequently be cited or referred to in written and
other publications.4 For a long time, technical difficulties hindered the development of
commentaries on art forms which operate within the dimension of time, such as the cin-
ema or theatre. Until the appearance of digital formats such as DVD, which allow us to

CINEMA & Cie, no. 8, Fall 2006                                                          203
MATASCHA CRUSEK-MEYER, MAOLAI IZVELOV



 use moving and static images equally freely, it was impossible for different types of com
 mentary (textual and visual) to accompany a film as it was being shown. Until ther
 appearance, the most frequent means of commenting on a film was the talking head o
 a film critics This archaic form of commentary has endured and even now oral com
 mentary, albeit in a slightly different form, is the dominant form of commentary on
 DIDs. Howerer, a written commentary is a very important clement in a critical cdition.
 It will help raise the cinema's status to that of a subject worthy of such an dition and it
 is this discursification of an audio visual work that forms the basis for its further study!
   Thirdly, an editor's or a publisher's commentary always exists on a meta lewcl and is
 authoritative. Its inherent authority should never be abused, if a critical cdition of a
  film is to be scholarly and truly objective. It is sometimes chanced, howcwer, by the
  use of very personal oral commentary. Here, one needs to he aware of what Patrick
 l'onderau has called the "emotional factor" of a DVD. For cxample, classical cinem
 usually made more accessible when it is personalised. Often it is a well known film crit
 ic, the director himself or a film historian who is given the task of personalising a work.
 Although the emotional factor may attract a greater numler of vicwers (and purchasers
 of the DVD), such personal commentaries should not be the only form of commentary
 found in the academic presentation of a film.



 The Methodology for a Critical Edition

   So, how might the approach taken in philological
                                        textology (textual criticism) an
 publishing be applied to a film?
   In textual criticism, a manuscript text is traditionally analysed in terms of two dis
 tinct categories:


 1 The textus - i.e., the text shat is recognised as being "canonical" with its variant read.
   ings? In editions which reflect current thinking. the central text has typically been
   supplemen ted by equally valuable variants comprising different authorisations and
  editions,
 2 The apparatus - ic., a commentary on the textus.?

   This distination may be applied to an edition of a film, although we should note that
 the makinz of a film differs in certain important respects from the writing of a work of

        %. thurse is a ture number of factors influencing the final decisions taken in the
         in ail a film. for example, the opinions of members of the film crew, the influ
            a crudener, the financial limitations and technical problems which were
                     relevance. lowever significant a particular director migho be. a
                                  dan individual. Hence. a discussion of a directur's
                                     in literature) is perhaps not always appropriate.
                                      low@f@winwould.comp. in the alesence of the
                                                    •superalivear anel
                                                                                      There
                                                  CRITICAL EDITIONS OF FILMS ON DIGITAL FORMATS


 ing screenings of reconstructed films. However, now that film history is accessible dig-
 tally, there is no real need, outside cinema theatres, for a single canonical, "officially
 blessed" version or reconstruction of a film. Instead, we need a carefully prepared edi-
 tion of the textus, in its entirety, accompanied by an academic commentary.
    The second difference between the making of a film and the writing of a text, espe
 cially a modern text, is that film-making is a very structured affair. The life of a film is
 more determined by the manner in which it was produced than is the writing of a lit-
 crary work. It is in this presence of a production scheme that we can identify one advan-
 lage of commentaries on films over commentaries on literary texts. While the history
 of a literary text's creation can be traced, there is no such evolution in the case of a film's
 creation. There is often only the history of its alterations.
    In the course of its life (i.e., before it is archived), a film goes through the following
 stages:'°

• The idea - i.c, the proposal;
    The script (and its variants);
• The filming (with any variants of participants and scenes);
 • The editing process (with any variants, discarded and restored scenes);
• The recording of the soundtrack (with any variants of the musical or voice accompa-
    niment of silent films, any variants of sound films [the substitution of performers, the
    re-recording of the soundtrack, the loss of the physical soundtrack itself] and films
    released in both silent and sound versions);
• The final cut of the negative (in sound films) of the version selected to be shown to
    cinemagoers. This is the point when work on the film is complete. In the case of silent
    cinema, the equivalent is the final cut of the positive. In other words, the original edit-
    ed negative constitutes the starting point for a reading of a sound film, and the origi-
    nal edited positive (if it has survived) constitutes the same for a silent film. It is at this
    juncture that a "montage list is compiled - i.e., a detailed frame by-frame description
    of the dialogue and shots of a film;
• Distribution versions of a film. These depend on whether a film was reworked for its
    rerelease or for its release abroad, e.g., changes of title, a re recording of the sound
    track, cuts by the censor or editor or the inclusion of additional shots. Each new ver-
    sion would have its own montage list;
 • The distribution of a film and any accompanying materials E.g., posters, leaflets,
    newspaper announcements, lists of titles, montage lists, advertising stills, trailers.
    press reviews or audio and video interviews;
 • The archive life of a film. Here we should consider the extent to which a benchmark
    version was available when the film was archived, a description of the archival work
    and technical operations performed, the quality and condition of the colour, image
    and sound of the film and the celluloid:
 • Variant copies in different archives l.c.. the potential for a reconstruction of a fuller
    version. Another consideration is the likclihood that a film will be transferred on to
    different formats.

    Despite the above mentioned differences, the fundamental issue which arises with a
  flm's critical cdition, as is the case with a literary test, is the analysis of what belongs
  to the terrus and what belongs to the appratus
NATASCHA CRUBEK-MEYER, N°KOLAS IZVOLO


The Scheme for a Critical Edition

  His the editor of a DVD who selects the materials for inclusi
this selection, he needs to strike a difficult balance betucen what is "necessary and
what is sufficient*. This is a very important question even in such an advanced aa
demic fild as philology. We have outlined below our proposed universal scheme fora
scholarly critical edition of a film which contains information not only for the uniniti
aled public, but also for the specialist.

The textus

  To our understanding, the textus should consist of all the kcy variants of a film which
could be considered complete. These include distribution versions, a "dircctor's cut*
(which could have been in his possession) or a version where the film's production was
completed by others (for example, after the dismissal or death of the director)." Where
required, subsequent reconstructions of a lost film or a director's uncalised project
could also form part of the textus. The range of variants available to a contemporary
DVD "publisher" may be endless. liere are only a fcw camples:

a. There are films which have survived in one canonical variant.
b. There are "lost" films which have no historically authentic variant - e.g., Engince
  Prait's Projcci (L. Kuleshow, 1918) - ic.. the official distribution version has not sur
  vived, or perhaps never existed at all.!
c. There are films which hase two or more variants. In such cases, it is possible to
  include on a DVD both a variant which existed prior to a reconstruction and one after
  a film's reconstruction.

 • The Battleship Potemkin (S. Eisenstein, 1925). The original Sovict version shown at
    the film's premicre in the Bolshoi Theatre has not survived. However, there are later
    versions in existence, such as the "Berlin version" prepared in 1926 which was part
    ly cited by Eisenstein himself.
• Metropolis (F. Lang, 1926). There is the well known attempt by Enno Patalas to
   assemble a benchmark version from the many distribution and censored copies
    available.
    •There may be silent and sound versions of the same film - e.g.. Blackmail (A
    Hitchcock, 1929).
• There may be multiple language versions or MLVs.13 \Vell-known examples would
   be Mary, oder, Sir John greift in (A. Hitchcock, 1930), a German language version
   of Murder with a German cast, the English language version of Der blaue Engel (J.
   von Stemberg, 1930) or Spanish language version of Dracula (G. Melford, 1931)
   filmed contemporancously with Tod Browning's English language version.
• Michurin (A. Dovzhenko, 1948). The film was subject to a large number of correc
   tions by the censor which distorted the director's original idea to such a degree that
   Dovzhenko refused to acknowledge the film as his work. Other notable instances of
   cuts imposed by the censor can be found in American cinema following the intro
   duction of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association of America.
    Inc.'s Motion Picture Production Code in 1930 - c.g.. the nude scenes cut from
    Tarzan and His Mate (C. Gibbons, J. Conway, 1934).
• The Ilich Gate (M. Khutsiev, 1961). Certain scenes were re filmed which gave the
                                               CRITICAL EDITIONS OF FILMS ON DIGITAL FORMATS


   author the opportunity to finish the film as he had intended it, although this was
   done under the watchful eye of the censor. All the same, this later version remains
   authorial and was well-known. For a long time, it existed under the title I Am
   Twenty (1965). This is partly also the case with The Passion of Andrei (A. Tarkovskij,
   1966), an carlier variant of his Andrei Ruble (1969).
• There are films which exist in the form of a "director's cut"!4 or in one or more stu-
   dio cuts (especially cuts prepared for the re-release of the film) - e.g., A Star Is Born
   (G. Cukor, 1954).15 Perhaps the most notable example of studio interference is
   Ilcaven's Gate (M. Cimino, 1981). The running time of the director's original ver-
   sion was s hours and 25 minutes. Cimino's recut version lasted 3 hours and 40 min-
   utes but this was withdrawn from circulation after the first screening and the stu-
   dio then cut a further 7o minutes. A director's cut of Heaven's Gate was released in
   Europe in 2004 and America in 2005. A recent example of a questionable director's
   cut would be Donnie Darko (R. Kelly, 2001).16
• Orson Welles left behind a substantial number of unfinished projects which were
   abandoned at the stage of isolated takes of film scenes and edited versions which
   were never completed or distributed.
• Napoleon (A. Gance, 1927). This has been restored by Kevin Brownlow on three
   occasions - in 1980, 1983 and 2000. The 2000 reconstruction, lasting 5 hours and 31
   minutes, included the celebrated triptych finale and involved authentic process dye
    bath colour tints and toning by the National Film and Television Archive in the UK.
 • The films of Jacques Tati, George Lucas (see the special edition of his Star Wars
   series prepared in 1997) and Francis Ford Coppola (see the re-release of his 1979 film
   Apocalypse Now as Apocalypse Now Redux in 2001). What is noteworthy here is
   that scenes were filmed many years later which were incorporated into an existing
   version which had already been in distribution. These are cases of an authorial
   reworking of a film, distributed as having the same value as the original version.
.There are also digital releases which appeared shortly after the cinema distribution
 copies. For example, the DVD releases of Goodbye Lenin (W. Becker, 2003) and Moulin
  Rouge! (B. Luhrmann, 2001) were published by the authors themselves or with their
  involvement.
e. Finally, pirate or bootleg video and DVD versions appearing before the official pre-
  miere of a film are a curious example. It is quite possible that they differ significantly
  from the official version.

The apparatus
  The apparatus primarily includes everything that did not make the final version of
the film or was cut from it. In addition, it would include documents and other materi-
als relating to the history of a film and the annotations and commentaries of the film's
publishers.
  A critical edition of a film requires a commentary comprised of indexed "footnotes"
having two forms. The first type of footnotes is textological and archeographic." These
are footnotes relating to the physical formats or copies of a film. Places requiring com
mentary are marked - for example, lacunae in a copy of a film, external marks on the
celluloid which were the cause of a restorer's work on a copy, technical additions made
by a reconstruction specialist or those points in a film which were envisaged in the dif
ferent variants of the author's vision of a film or affected by distribution cuts and/or

                                                                                       207
  NATASCHA ORUBER-MEYER, NIKOLAI IZVOLOY



  replacements. The second type of footnotes is conceptual. These comment on the mean.
  ing or the visual side of the textus. They could include background explanations as to
  the everyday life portrayed, fragments from other films commenting on the textus and
  an explanation of a film's place in the creative life of its director and its evolution.
    Regardless of their character, either of these two types of footnotes would consist of
  written text, video, audio or photo extracts in all possible combinations and could form
  large syntagmatic lines in the commentary similar to those in the director's and cam
  eraman's storyboards which constitute the basis of a film.

  The archeography and textology of a film
   Of primary importance here, unquestionably, is the archive life of a film (c.g- the
  technical data relating to the original copy). Much depends on how detailed the archive
  catalogue is and how precise are the data contained thercin. An archcographic descrip.
  tion of a film must contain all the available information about its physical format. Such
  information should cover.


• The processing work carried out on a film in the archive and a description of the tech.
   nical operations performed;
• An analysis of the condition of the colour, image and sound of the film and also of the
   celluloid;
• A description and systemisation of any external markings and symbols on the cellu-
   loid: (a) start numbers and the numbers marking each foot of film, (b) notes made by
   the editors, (c) markings made by a film's authors indicating the order in which the
   frames should be edited and their colouring, (d) any data as to the celluloid manufac-
   turer, (e) any traces of the making of contratypes or the film's transfer onto another
   format (for example, from nitrate to acetate). (f) title inserts for foreign distributors of
   silent cinema and (g) any traces of mechanical damage.

   Without such a preparatory archeographic description, any textological analysis is
 impossible and, for a critical edition (i.e., the release) of a relatively "ancient" film, a
 thorough textological study is the only means of demonstrating the validity of the steps
 taken by the DVD publisher.

 Documents and materials relating to the history of a film
   As a rule, the making of a film is documented at each stage of the process. It is these
 documentary stages that form the framework structure which may be completed with
 all types of surviving documentation of interest to historians. Amongst them, for exam-
 ple, could be the following (in square brackets we have indicated the possible ways in
 which these documents could be presented on a DVD):

• A script proposal (or libretto) and a contract with the authors (as a text or photo
   graph):
 • A literary script (if it is of key significance) (as a text):
• A director's script, ie, the director's18 or cameraman's storyboard, 19 if it existed (the
    differences between the storyboards and the final product can tell an attentive histo
   rian a great deal They can be assembled to run more or less parallel to the film,
   cabling the viewer to study the extent to which the film corresponds to the initial

308
                                               CRITICAL EDITIONS OF FILMS ON DIGITAL FORMATS


  concept) and a shooting plan (such as that sometimes used by Vertov and generally
  found in documentary cinema) (as photographs):
• Materials relating to the shooting of the film (test photos of different actors for the
   same role, variations of mise-en-scène, sketches for sets, costume drawings, behind
   the scenes footage, reports and interviews on the set and shooting diaries, las photo-
   graphs, video and audio tracks or as a text;
• Differently edited versions of scenes and takes of episodes which the author did not
   intend to be included in the final cut [as a video track);
• The soundtrack -
    a) In the case of a silent film:
    Variations of the musical and/or vocal accompaniment for a film: e.g., a recording
    on gramophone records, a musical recording derived from the original score, notes,
     musical scores or scripts for the accompanying music.
    b) in the case of a sound film:
    Variations of the soundtrack (e.g., a replacement of the phonogram, a re-recording
    of the soundtrack, the loss of the physical soundtrack itself or the film's dubbing
    into other languages) las video tracks):
• A montage list (as a text or photographs):
• The distribution life of a film - e.g., posters, leaflets, announcements in periodicals,
   lists of titles, advertising photographs, press revicws and post-filming intervicws (as
    photographs and video tracks);
• Literary memoirs, audio recordings, documentary and TV films (as text, audio and
   video tracks].

 Biographies and Filmographies
    Biographies and filmographies are only needed when the relevant data cannot be
 found in other reference works. Otherwise, it would seem sufficient to refer to bibli-
 ographies, as a text. Information about changes made to a film's name could also be
 included (e.g., variations of working titles in contemporary press coverage or a change
 to the title for foreign distribution), as a text or photographs.
    Hence, a film's critical edition must, of necessity, be multi-layered. We have the film
 itself as an object (often itself already multi-layered) and the meta-level consisting of
 academic commentary. Between these layers there are materials concerning the history
 ofthe film demonstrating how it operated within the culture of its time and its place in
 history.
   The relationship between these three, non-hierarchical levels will become clear and
 distinct only when linked by the unifying principles of indexing which create non-lin-
 ear hypertexts out of the three levels. Curiously, this has been technically possible for
 several years already, but no one has, so far, applied this approach to the academic
 commentary of moving images.


 Film as Hypertexts. A Network of Indexes

   Despite the apparent variety of forms which the apparatus and the textus may take,
 they can, nonetheless, be condensed into a very simple and practical indexing scheme
 which will enable a viewer to navigate this sea of abundant information. If a simple,
                                                                                       203
MOSCHA COSSEX-MAER NOW DIVULGO



intuitive system of indexing and navigation is used, the abundance of documents will
not be psycho!ogically off putting. Every DVD user, from the professional to the stu
dent or simply an interested layman, can easily find in a critical edition whatewer he
reeds
  We need to move away from the labyrinthine system in existence today fos which a
viewer needs a mnemonic guiding light" to recall the route taken from a DVD's table
of contents to a particular point in a film os a particular xtra. The solution can be
found in the system of indexed footnotes and cross references that has been established
over centuries. These allow a reader casily and, importantly. visually to find his way
through the diverse commentary.
  Prepared in accordance with a film's structural biography. indexed footnotes u ill he
risually familiar to anyone who has seen an annotated book, and will cahle the sys
lematic, academic work of a commentator to be compatible with the necd to scarch for
information simply and quickly. Film vicwers need a reconstructed film which is
accompanied on a DVD by conclusive arguments of both a textual and conceptual
nature. The question as to the limits of commentary then falls away, as cvcrything that
a publisher considers necessary may be included on a DVD. Furthermore, there is noth
ing presenting each footnote (a photograph or an audio, video or text extract) from hav
 ing its own index allowing a DVD user to:

• Return to the film;
• Return to the main menu;
• Continue in a chosen syntagmatic sequence (or path);
• Move to a different, yet semantically related, syntagmatic sequence in cither the Ic%
   tus or the apparatus.

  Obviously, a viewer (i.e. the user of a DVD) must independently be able to activate
 any block of information as and when he wishes or requires. Under no circumstances
 should any amount of information that is psychologically difficult to absorb be forced
 upon a viewer. The viewer must be able to choose.



 The Principles of Indexing

   It is interesting to note that the principles of indexing have, so far, never been applied
 to critical editions of film classics, although they have been actively employed in certain
 DVD releases of contemporary films on which the authors themselves - the director, the
 script writer or the cameraman - have been involved, rather than a third party publish.
 et. For example. the German DVD release of Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! has a link in the
 form of a fairy on which a viewes may click to access behind the scenes footage of the
 same scene, and Becker's Goodbye Lenin has links which appear on the screen as red
 stars. These lead the siewer to different types of ethnographic commentary informing
 him, slightly humorously, about the everyday realities of life in the former GDR.
   Clearly, the use of an index is still perceived by DVD publishers as being part of a
 game. although an index is the most precise, economic and least troublesome way of
 annotating a particular aspect of a film (for example, a particular editing cut, a detail
 within a particular frame or the use of sound). The advantage of indexing lies in the fact
                                                CRITICAL EDITIONS OF FILMS ON DIGITAL FORMATS


that it links the "horizontal" (temporal, syntagmatic) level of a film on a DVD with the
"vertical" (paradigmatic) commentary level, offering an endless variety and richness of
content. It allows cach DVD user to devise his own path through an interactive DVD.
Furthermore, the footnotes on a DVD can themselves become a free standing text
(resembling a coherent, logical commentary and constructing a spiders web of links
between distant points in a film and its milieu) or a group of audio visual annotations.
  in such a case, the footnotes can operate without any need for the film itself to be
watched at the same time. The footnotes will have their own numbering system,
according to which a viewer, or rather the reader, can progress without any need to
return to the film itself. If the reader works at a computer, he could export and copy
these texts together with the illustrations and cite them, indicating the number of the
particular footnotc.


The Principles of Navigation

   "Indexing® and "navigation" are not interchangeable concepts. By indexing we mean
that a DVD should show the viewer those places in the textus which must he con-
mented upon. Navigation is instead concerned with the general structure (or scheme)
according to which a viewer may move around the textus and apparatus.
  The conventional system of DVD navigation in use today follows the same principle
as the table of contents of a book. At first this looks familiar, but it is an inconvenient
method. We have only directions to the beginning of chapters (being rough sections or
cpisodes, artificially imposed on the film by an often anonymous compiler). 'The prim.
ciple of annotating footnotes is not used at all. As a result, a DVI) vlewer must always
return to the start when searching for a particular section. The resulting labyrinth,
which recalls a computer's filing system with an obligatory home directory, Is of no use
when a viewer needs to locate information quickly and accurately.


In Place of an Epilogue

  With the arrival of digital formats, it was widely thought that the CD or DVD would
soon replace, for example, the publication of encyclopacdias in book format or even
books themselves.
  The compactness and speed with which one can search and other advantages of digt.
tal information formats are undoubtedly important. lowever, mankind has continual.
ly added to the variety of cultural forms in existence, and has not necessarily reduced
their number for the sake of standardization and unification. Only the technological
parameters of cultural forms have been standardized and unified, something that has
been necessary for the rapid expansion in their possible applications. Cinema did not
kill off the theatre, television did not kill off cinematography and the internet did not
kill off television. The forms in which these media are used are simply modified.
   Electronic information formats will not replace the book. A cultural form's applica.
tion has a very important psychological aspect, namely the ability of its user to imagine
the object or subject in its entirety. A book allows a reader to do this, but a text on the
sereen of a computer does not. Turning the pages of a book, a reader can grasp immedi

                                                                                        28 1
NATASCHA GRUBEK-MEYER, NIKOLAI IZVOLOV



ately the volume of text, the number of footnotes, the principle according to whic
have been compiled and other features needed to work with the book. On a computer
screen, none of these things are indicated. Any text is "one size only." It stretches to
infinity; its very presentation is not suggestive of a coherent wholc. That is why an
interactive DVD with a systematic navigation facility could combine the advantages of
the prevailing book culture with the new opportunitics offered by digital formats for
the presentation of audio visual material.
  In addition, most modern formats for digital information resolve (ic., they are disks
To use them, additional equipment is required. We need a means of transforming them
into an optical state capable of being appreciated by the human cyc.
  The rapid development of non rotating (immobile) formats, such as today's memory
cards or flash cards, might easily mean, in time, that it will be possible for a thin mag
netic strip requiring no external energy source to be stored on any optical surface.
Maybe there will then be books with moving illustrations or with an infinite volume of
text. In any case, there will be objects of an optical nature needing no additional mech
anisms or devices in order for them to be used, and which are instantly comprchensi
ble.
  DVD is far from being the evolutionary acme of audio visual information storage. It
is difficult to say now what will replace the DVD disk but, for the moment, there is
nothing better.
  In the critical editions of films on DVD we have advocated, the most important ele
ment is the use of non-linear hypertests permitting a viewer to work with marked (or
indexed) sections of the linear textus. The chief distinction between the critical edition
of a film on DVD and the search function capability of the internet is that, when using
a hypertext on a DVD, we are not offered random information selected on the b
common factor. Instead, by adopting the rigorous approach outlined above, we will
have information that has been carefully selected by the editor and commentator, has
been academically argued and has the widest range of uses.


                                                                (Translation by James Mann)



1 The present essay is a revised edition of the former: "Kommentirovannoe izdania fil'm
       DVD: neobchodimost nau&nych standartov," Kinoved&eskie zapiski, no. 72 (2005): and
        "Kritická vydáni film v digitálnich formatech," lluminace, no. 3 (2005). We would like to
       express our gratitude to lan Christie, James Mann, Sergey Kapterev and Erich Sargeant for
       their valuable comments and suggestions.
   The research of Natasha Drubek-Meyer was supported by a Marie Curie Intra-European
   Fellowship within the VI European Framework Program.
> How an "edition" of a film might look on DVD was first discussed seriously at the Celluloid
   Goes Digital. Historical-Critical Editions of Films on DVD and the Internet conference in
   Trier, Germany in 2002 which was attended by archivists, historians, lecturers in film studies
   and representatives from DVD companies (curators, editors and commentators). See the pro-
   ceedings of the conference: M. Loiperdinger (ed.), Celluloid Goes Digital. Historical Critical
   Editions of Films on DVD and the Internet (Trier. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2003).
   "Textology" was a term first used by the Soviet school of textual criticism and, in particular,

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    by Dmitri Likhachev who specialised in the methodology of editions of texts derived from
    several manuscripts. See D.S. Likhachev, Tekstologia. Na materiale russkoi literatury X-
    XVIII vekov, second edition, revised and expanded (Leningrad: Nauka, 1983).
4   Cf. P. Vonderau, "The DVD - Study Centre of Today?," in M. Loiperdinger, op. cit., pp. 43-52, in
    which the scholar refers to the difficulty of quoting an audio-commentary.
§   See Rostislav lurenev's introduction to the 1967 short reconstruction of Sergei Eisenstein's
    Bezhin Meadow (released on DVD by Image Entertainment with that introduction and with-
    out additional commentary).
6   One further argument against the use of an oral commentary is that it cannot be included in
    the hypertexts on a DVD. An oral commentary cannot form part of this network of indexes
    because it belongs to the same type of media as a film: it is linear in form. Evidently, such
    audio fragments (oral commentary) may, however, form a substantive part of the "footno
    contained on a DVD.
g "Theologians mean by this term the text of canonical books which is officially accepted by
  the Church. (.] The canonical text of a classical literary work is understood to be a text which
  is once and forever fixed and established for all publications, a text which is robust, stable
  and definitive for all publications." D.S. Likhachev, op. cit., p. 498.
& The textus is the result of the selection of all relevant (significant) variants of a work by col-
  lating (recensio) a text, analysing it (examinatio) and reconstructing it (emendatio) through
  the genealogy (the "stemmatology*") of all available manuscripts, known as "witnesses" in
  textology (in the case of a film, these would be any available copies). This means that a textus
  should not be a collated construct of surviving witnesses: "It is completely unacceptable in
  any publication to mix different texts, different textual layers, different editorial versions.
  Collated texts in which the text is supposedly reconstructed in its original or authorial form,
  should be decisively rejected... D.S. Likhachev, Tekstologija. Kratkij ocherk (Leningrad:
    Nauka, 1964). p. 76.
    We will leave aside the terminological debate as to whether a film is a "text" or not. We would
   suggest that the textus of a film is studied as a certain construct that we can comment upon
   using methods developed in philology and, partly, textology.
10 Here we refer only to feature films. The scheme for a documentary film or an animated film
   may differ slightly.
11 It is debatable whether the textus should include all available "angles" from the shooting of
   a film.
12 The British Film Institute is to release an academic edition of Engineer Prait's Project. A pilot
   DVD which included versions of the film before and after reconstruction was presented by
   the authors in Berlin in November 2004 and in Prague in January 2005.
13 For a recent discussion of MLVs, see P. Szczepanik, "Undoing the National: Repres
    International Space in 19305 Czechoslovak MLVs," CINÉMA & Cie, no. 4. Multiple-language
    Versions /Versions multiples, edited by N. D'urovicová, in collaboration with H.-M. Bock
    (Spring 2004). pp. 55-65.
14 It has been suggested that this term was first used by J. Harvey who in the 198o
    inal versions of Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900, Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America an
    Heaven's Gate on Z Channel, a Californian cable TV channel.
15 The studio cut the film after its premiere by 3 minutes despite the objections of the direc
    and producer. In the early 198os the missing footage was reinstated, though it partly had to
    be reconstructed on the basis of production stills.
I6 This version not only includes additional scenes and changes to the film's soundtr
                                                                                               213
NATASCHA DRUBEX-MEYER, NINCLAI IZVOLOV



   also an interesting example of material being taken from the "extras" section of the inte
   DID release and incorporated into a new cut of the film on the second DVD relcase. By incus
   porating pages from "Philosophy of Time Trascl," previously only accessible as a DVD exit
   this new cut blurs the distinction between the resus and the appasatus See
  http//www.imdb.com/title/110246578/alternateversions.
17 An archeographic introduction (-J differs from a textological study: Only archergraghis
   information is cited in it: information as to where manuscripts are kept, as to the handuri
   ing, as to watermarks on the paper and, on the hasis of the study of this information, a clas
   sification by edition and form is made. An archcographic introduction has the quality of a re
   crence work: it must be consenient to use when making inquirics and, conscqucntly, short.
   laconic and clear. There should be no elements of scholarly research in the atcheographic
   introduction. They must be in the textological introduction." D).S. likhaches, Tchstolgia,
   op. cit., p. 538.
18 Examples of a director's story board could be the prcliminary (ram by frame drawings (made
   prior to the commencement of filming) for Alchsandr Medredhin's films such as Happiness
   (1934). which are kept in the Cinema Museum in Moscow. or the wcll known working
   sketches of Sergei Eisenstein, Alfred Hitchcock or, more recently, Tim Burton.
19 The storyboards of Sergei Uruserskii (The Cranes Are Fling(1957), The Letter Which Was
   Not Sent (1959)) are an example of a cameraman's story boards which are available for study.
20 Patrick Vonderau notes this important advantage for D\'Ds - ic, the ability to index or mark.
   up a film.
