Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection.
Released September 8th by Arrow Films.
The name Walerian Borowczyk summons up delicious memories of misspent youth, of afternoons and evenings spent watching double or triple bills at the Scala cinema in King's Cross. This sordid and enchanted building was, until the early 90s, the finest Rep cinema in London and probably the world. The most magical thing about it was the monthly posters they created as programmes, little advent calendars of delights, each day featuring a poster or image from that day's schedule. Barely a month went past without one of those day's being devoted to a film or two of Borowczyk, a man whose work seemed to be the perfect accompaniment to that of Russ Meyer and John Waters.
Borowczyk, a Polish emigre who settled in France, was a painter/ illustrator/ animator/ writer and maker of mucky films, a man whose work skipped between the borders of the high end of pornography and low end of art house.
Now Arrow Films have come up with a limited edition box set selection of his work, with each film presented in a new digital high definition restoration and each disc containing a plethora of extras. The box set comes with a 250 page, lavishly illustrated book, including essays and Anatomy of the Devil, a collection of his short stories. It is far from exhaustive (he made over 40 movies including shorts) and there are some notable exceptions – there is no Behind Convent Walls, no Dzieje Grzechu. The 1000 copies of the box set have apparently already sold out anyway, but each film is available individually and I'll be working my way through them over the coming weeks.
The Beast (1975.)
Immoral Tales (1974.) A selection of four tales.
Blanche (1972.) His first feature length colour film.
Goto, Isle of Love. (1968.) Black and white, his first full length film.
The Theatre of Mr and Mrs Kabal and a selection of shorts.
Released September 8th by Arrow Films.
The name Walerian Borowczyk summons up delicious memories of misspent youth, of afternoons and evenings spent watching double or triple bills at the Scala cinema in King's Cross. This sordid and enchanted building was, until the early 90s, the finest Rep cinema in London and probably the world. The most magical thing about it was the monthly posters they created as programmes, little advent calendars of delights, each day featuring a poster or image from that day's schedule. Barely a month went past without one of those day's being devoted to a film or two of Borowczyk, a man whose work seemed to be the perfect accompaniment to that of Russ Meyer and John Waters.
Borowczyk, a Polish emigre who settled in France, was a painter/ illustrator/ animator/ writer and maker of mucky films, a man whose work skipped between the borders of the high end of pornography and low end of art house.
Now Arrow Films have come up with a limited edition box set selection of his work, with each film presented in a new digital high definition restoration and each disc containing a plethora of extras. The box set comes with a 250 page, lavishly illustrated book, including essays and Anatomy of the Devil, a collection of his short stories. It is far from exhaustive (he made over 40 movies including shorts) and there are some notable exceptions – there is no Behind Convent Walls, no Dzieje Grzechu. The 1000 copies of the box set have apparently already sold out anyway, but each film is available individually and I'll be working my way through them over the coming weeks.
The Beast (1975.)
Immoral Tales (1974.) A selection of four tales.
Blanche (1972.) His first feature length colour film.
Goto, Isle of Love. (1968.) Black and white, his first full length film.
The Theatre of Mr and Mrs Kabal and a selection of shorts.
