Emir Kusturica-Dom za vesanje ('Time of the Gypsies') (1988)

I've downloaded this divx-movie from ed2k-network. This is neither a good quality transfer nor a proper rip. As far as I know, there arent any good quality DVD releases of this movie yet. I put it on Avax-pages because it was requested several weeks ago. Screenshots above are from actual-divx uploaded to RS. Be warned, and download it on behalf of your own risk :)

Beautiful film, like all of Kusturica's...thanks so much!

DVD covers (Serbian, Bosnian, Slovenian) 3,5Mb :

http://rapidshare.com/files/31399099/Dom_za_Vesanje_-_DVD_covers.rar

p.s. unfortunately, my Serbian DVD doesn't have any subs :-(

maybe that's why it costs only 3 euros :-)

kharmok, is your Serbian DVD same as this one?:
http://www.yu4you.com/items/sr/dvd/item_256.html

what about the picture quality of it and could you please tell me the aspect ratio of your DVD (I am not asking what it writes on DVD cover, will you please measure it on your screen).

thanks.

FNB.47,

Yes, my DVD is the one from that site, and it's indeed 4:3 , BUT, they chopped from the top and bottom of the picture! On the sides, your copy is chopped a bit. Full snapsot is here for you to compare:
http://rapidshare.com/files/31478076/DOM_ZA_VESANJE_DVD.jpg

In conclusion, I'm dissapointed that we don't have the full frame of this film, so I will be awaiting an US or UK release, due to come in the future, but I don't know exactly when...

kharmok, thanks a lot for your help. The movie that I uploaded must be a VHS-rip, and its aspect-ratio seems to be 1.66:1. IMDb says the correct aspect-ratio of the celluloid is 1.85:1 ... so your picture has the corret AR... but after cropping at top and at bottom :)) ... and I think they have done similar operation on VHS copy... cropping its left and right sides... Alas... such a beautiful movie havent released as a (quality-transfer) DVD yet...
btw: do you understand/speak "romany" language... I remember my first watching this Kusturica movie... It was 1990's Film Festival... (It was my 3rd Kusturica movie then, I had seen "Dolly Bell" and "Father Away..." in 1986's Film Festival... and became a Kusturica fan already... :)). Just before the movie started they had a last-minute-announcement and said that the language of the movie was a very strange one and they couldnt find a person from Yugoslavia Consulate to translate it live... so they were ready to pay back tickets if we would not want to watch it without translation... Just a few people had left the theatre... and the big crowd inside had experienced a lifetime-cinematic-climax that night... :) Realizing the audience-potantial, film-import-companies had started "Time of Gypsies" at theatres after the film-festival ended (with subtitles this time of course:)) Kusturica's first-3-films have a special place in me... I think he hardly achieved this level in his later works... All of them are good of course... but it seems to me that "Dolly Bell", "Father..." and "Gypsies" are a bit more "special" and authentic.

FNB.47,

"Romany" language is a completely different than Serbian or any Slavic languages...I don't understand a word of it, but they occasionally use a Serbian swear-word or other word, or an international name od term...so I'm lost as you without subs :-)

BTW, I would like to post some films about Gypsies, Kusturica is the most famous for that, but there are others like Aleksandar Petrovic, Goran Paskaljevic, and some more recent directors from Serbia and Macedonia...I've got Gadjo Dilo as well, but haven't watched it yet...I'll do what I can, in time...

I want to tell you the litteral translation of the title: "Home for Hanging", or "Home to be Hanged"

Concerning aspect ratio,I'm not an expert but I understand what you say...just recently I found a comment on Imdb, from someone who knows what's he talking, so I'll paste it here, I hope it would be useful:

Imdb user:
"No you are wrong. Not all films are shot with anamorphic lenses. Many films are shot with normal lenses and then matted when shown on a screen. That is why you sometimes see boom mics or other things on the screen in a theater. The projectionist hasn't matted the film correctly. Films that are in the 16:9 format are shot "full frame" (which means that the entire frame of film is taken up by a non-distorted image), and matted to the correct ratio later. The reason this sometimes effects viewing on television is because a frame of 35mm film is aproximately the same ratio as a 4:3 television. Most movies pre 1950's are actually in a full frame 4:3 format. When television started threatening theaters they started making widescreen films as a way to draw people back to the cinema by giving them more of a show, or big event that they couldn't get on TV. With modern films they sometimes show the full unmatted frame on TV or video rather than doing pan and scan, and you see small gaffs. A perfect example of this is in Pee Wee's Big Adventure when he is chaining his bike up. In the theater, and on the newer widescreen DVD the joke comes off perfect as it appears he is pulling an impossible amount of chain from the compartment on his bike. But in all "full screen" versions of the film, such as television broadcast, and old VHS versions, the joke is ruined, because you can obviously see the chain coming through a hole in the bottom of the bike compartment. Some film makers shoot with nothing (such as boom mics, crew members ect.) in the frame at all, so that it can be shown full frame with no flaws (Stanley Kubrick shot all his later films like this so they wouldn't be cropped when shown on TV). This means you are actually seeing more picture than with the "widescreen" version, but also not seeing what the director actually intended. So in those cases more isn't better. Most film makers though don't worry about this, and so there are mics, and all kinds of off screen objects actually still in the frame. This is why they have to crop the images sides off for pan and scan video. But if you look at any later Stanley Kubrick film on video, say Full Metal Jacket for instance, you are actually seeing more image than you saw in the theater. Some films are like this on video. The thing is that sometimes a film like this can be matted incorrectly when it is transfered to widescreen video, and cut out information that is meant to be visible. The Back to the Future DVD's that somebody mentioned are a classic example of this.

I think you are partially confusing anamorphically shot films with anamorphic DVD video. The concepts are similar, but not the same. Anamorphic films are shot using special lenses, because if they were shot with normal lenses the film grain would be a big problem and amplified when they were matted and blown up that much on a large screen. So the process was created to use the whole frame for a wider image by distorting it as it was shot, and then projecting it through special lenses to "un-distort" it on the screen. Anamporphic video on the other hand increases the resolution to take full advantage of the height of a TV screen, but rather than cropping the edges like pan and scan, it compresses the video lengthwise. So watching an anamorphic DVD on a 4:3 TV with the anamorphic function on your DVD player active will show you a compressed picture where everything looks tall and thin. But when you watch it on a 16:9 TV like an HDTV it stretches out to use the full screen, which gives you an image that uses the entire resolution of the screen, and also is widescreen. Non anamorphic widescreen DVDs and VHS tapes only use the lines of resolution that the image takes up on a 4:3 TV, and when zoomed in on an HDTV to fill the length of the screen they lose resolution, and are much lower quality."

Thanks kharmok, for those lenghty explanations on aspect-ratios (they are from IMDb... yes).
Lucky me... I have a friend, a cinematographer, graduated from VGIK/Moscow, who answer my technical questions with great patience... :)

It's always good to know experts in their field..so with films I'm glad to know you :-)

p.s. Maybe Kusturica intended his frame to be cut top and bottom and not be full 4:3 ?! We don't know...and I can't remember what was the aspect ratio when I watched it in cinema when it came out

Thank you very much for this wonderful film,FNB47. Kusturica also happens to be one of my favourite filmakers today.

Thanx a lot for this masterpiece.
Another movie on this theme: "Latcho Drom" from Tony GATLIF

Thanks a lot. :)



Fa.

Here is an idea then...
kharmok, you rip your DVD ok, into a good quality rip. I will download it and the one here.
I will painstakingly read and take note of all of the subs and the timecode of them. then I will create a new .srt sub file for the DVD rip you made.!
Hehe. I like a challenge and I think I could do it!!
Go on...



Fa.

Fa, no need to sacrifice yourself :) ... 'cos the subs above are lenghty and embedded... besides, image quality of kharmok's DVD seems not soo perfect to me (at least it is cut at top and bottom reducing the picture area)... A good quality transfer DVD of this Kusturica movie is expected in near future. Thanks indeed for your offer.

AAaww. You stopped my chances of being a hero. My fifteen minutes of fame, gone...in the blink of an eye..
:(
Well if it comes to it the offer still stands, as crazy as it is! I don't mind - I was prepared to watch the film to read the embedded subs, then hit pause then type the script, pause, type hehe and so on. Might have given me arthritis though.




Fa.

Dear Fa... you are always a hero... no matter, you do the s/t editing or not :)
(btw: can you translate French to English?)

FNB47 thank you :)

Great thanks