Comments on: Ivan Passer’s INTIMATE LIGHTING

By: morlockjeff

morlockjeff — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:13:04 +0000

Thanks for the inside info, Suzi. I have no idea if the subtitles on the Second Run DVD I have from the UK are accurate but so much of the film’s humor is visual that it shouldn’t prevent one from seeing this all-region disc if they have access to a region free player.

By: suzidoll

suzidoll — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:46:55 +0000

I asked Milos Stehlik, the director of Facets, about the status of the DVD rights to INTIMATE LIGHTING. He often has the scoop on these things. This is his comment:

“It’s a wonderful film. It IS on DVD, in the UK, and was out on VHS in the US via Homevision, the company which was sold to Image Entertainment a few years ago. Like in many of these bigger-gorilla-swallows-a-smaller-monkey scenarios, Image had little interest in moving some of the ‘lesser-selling’ titles from Homevision to DVD – so it never happened. One issue was that Ivan Passer, the director, was very unhappy with the subtitling. It is a very difficult film to subttile, because so much of the dialogue is filled with irony – difficult to translate, worse in the shortened subtitles – so the film lost most of its humor.”

By: kingrat

kingrat — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:28:40 +0000

Thanks for a great review of a charming film. I remember how much I laughed at the chicken dinner scene and the amateur musicians’ butchering of a Brandenburg Concerto.

By: morlockjeff

morlockjeff — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 03:29:41 +0000

I suspect that Criterion might release INTIMATE LIGHTING at some point. Who else would in the U.S.? I really like LITTLE OTIK though it is not for everyone and especially not pregnant women. At one of Atlanta’s IMAGE film festivals (no longer operating under that name), I met Joseph Cahill at a festival party. Cahill was the winner of a Fulbright Grant who got to work with Svankmajer on LITTLE OTIK and was actually the guy inside the Otik costume at certain points. I hadn’t seen the film yet when I met him but I had a LOT of questions about it after I saw it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have his contact information and lost touch with him though I see he now has his own web site -http://www.josephcahillproductions.com/josephcahillproductions.com/HOME.html

By: wilbur twinhorse

wilbur twinhorse — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:32:51 +0000

Thanks very much for this informative and eye opening post senor morlockjeff! I was hoping you would say at the end that this film was going to be on TCM. Oh well, one of many little disappointments in life. Someday I am looking forward to seeing “Intimate Lighting” with or without spanish subtitles! The Czech’s are great and I have seen some films by Jan Svankmajer (Little Otik!) most notably. The plays of Karel Capek are amazing…I wonder if any have been turned into screenplays? Thanks again for bringing this film to light.