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Kino Lorber Releases Moana With Sound, Monica Flaherty's 1980 Sound Version of the Groundbreaking 1926 Documentary by Robert and Frances Flaherty, in a New Digital Restoration by Bruce Posner and Sami van Ingen

Opening Today at New York's Film Forum
Today's (Friday Nov. 13th) 6:00pm screening includes intro by Bruce Posner

Tune in to WNYC (93.9 FM/AM 820) today at 1:00pm to hear an interview with Bruce Posner on
The Leonard Lopate Show

Available on Blu-ray and DVD December 8
Packed with special features including documentaries, interviews, and more!

"The film on which much of Flaherty's reputation rests... the power of his images speak with an eloquence the intertitles lack." - Dave Kehr

"A FILM OF INCOMPARABLE CALM AND BEAUTY...remains a document of great historical truth. A lush and lively soundtrack!" - Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 13, 2015 - Kino Lorber proudly announces that MOANA WITH SOUND, Monica Flaherty's 1980 sound version of the groundbreaking 1926 documentary by Robert and Frances Flaherty, begins its theatrical run at New York's Film Forum today in a new digital restoration, to be followed by a Blu-ray and DVD release on December 8.

Originally released in 1926, this landmark in documentary filmmaking, depicting the lifestyles of the Samoan people on the South Seas island of Savai'i, was restored by the Flahertys' daughter Monica in 1980. Monica Flaherty traveled back to the island of Savai'i with documentarian Richard Leacock to create a new soundtrack of authentic recordings of the sounds of the island and voices in the regional dialect, taken in the locations where the film had been shot half a century earlier.

In 2015, film restorer Bruce Posner and Sami van Ingen (the Flahertys' great-grandson) created a new digital restoration of this important film, combining Monica Flaherty's innovative soundtrack with a pristine 35mm image, so that, for the first time, MOANA WITH SOUND can now be seen -- and heard -- in its full glory.

MOANA WITH SOUND will be released on Blu-ray and DVD December 8th packed with informative special features that provide valuable background information on the film and its restoration. These bonus features will include a 39-minute documentary about the film, a short documentary on the restoration, an interview with Frances Flaherty, the Flahertys' home movies, filmed commentaries by historians Enrico Camporesi and Bruce Posner, and Robert Flaherty's experimental 1925 "city symphony" film, Twenty-Four Dollar Island. The SRP for the Blu-ray is $34.95, and the SRP for the DVD is $29.95.

After the triumphant success of his true-life Arctic adventure Nanook of the North (1922), director Robert J. Flaherty journeyed with his wife Frances and their children to the South Seas island of Savai'i to capture on film the exotic lifestyles of the Samoan people.

It was in a 1926 review of MOANA that the word "documentary" was first used in a cinematic context (John Grierson commented that the film had "documentary value"). While MOANA may not have been a documentary in the purest sense of the word -- the Flahertys "cast" the leading roles and required them to wear traditional clothing, and restaged certain rituals that had, by 1923, already become obsolete-what the filmmakers achieved was even greater. The Flahertys resurrected the recently vanished customs of the Samoan people while they still lingered in the minds of the elders, and dramatized these struggles for survival just before modernization permanently altered the cultural landscape of the island.

Blu-ray & DVD Special Features:
* "Moana With Sound: A Short History," a 39-minute documentary
* "About the Restoration" (12 Min.)
* Flaherty and Film: Moana (1960), a 17-minute interview with Frances Flaherty by Robert Gardner
* Flaherty family home movies (5 Min.)
* "Twenty-Four-Dollar Island" (1925, 10 Min.), an experimental "city symphony" by Robert Flaherty
* Filmed commentaries by historians Enrico Camporesi and Bruce Posner
* Promo trailer (2015)

Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: December 8, 2015
BD SRP: $34.95
BD UPC: 738329180829
DVD SRP: $29.95
DVD UPC: 738329180720
Documentary | 1926/1980 | 98 min | 1920x1080p (Blu-ray) | 1.33:1 (DVD) | 2.0 Mono

Directors: Robert J. Flaherty and Frances Hubbard Flaherty (1926), and Monica Flaherty (1980)
Sound Production & Editing: Monica Flaherty
Restoration Produced and Supervised by Bruce Posner
Additional Sound Editing: Sami van Ingen
Re-mixing: Lee Dichter and Sami van Ingen

The restoration is stunning.

I review it here: http://www.filmjournal.com/reviews/film ... oana-sound" target="_blank

It looks - and sounds - wonderful.

For the Purists:

How is this different from Colorization? (Assuming that the hues were added as were the sounds, with extensive research in the original locations.)

I think this proves yet again that Film is indeed a technical, plastic medium.

-Craig

if it looks like a duck its colorization. they'll do anything to make a buck.

The film has been restored to its beautiful, shimmering b&w. It has not been colored or even tinted in any way. You have to see and hear it to believe how amazing it is.

David Shepard

David, sorry if I was unclear. As I said, the restored b & w looks beautiful.

The film has not been Colorized - but it has been "Soundized."

My point was to open the debate with the Purists who consider any such alteration to be blasphemy.

Best,
-Craig

Has anyone actually seen the (Blu-ray) disc yet?
I'm curious to hear opinions on the transfer/quality.

Thanks!

I put it on to check it out.

The visual quality is terrific.

The 1970s dubbing is something that takes some getting used to. Basically Flaherty's daughter recorded local music and background sound, 50 years later from the same place, and she also had people dub the original performers. This works pretty well since it doesn't seem to be so much in the way of dialogue, more like one person calling another in the forest, that sort of thing.

Nevertheless, it is certainly different from the standard way silents are presented; you just have to accept that this is not a standard Hollywood film, in more ways than one.

wich2 wrote:The film has not been Colorized - but it has been "Soundized."

Silent films were always intended to be "soundized". The film itself is fixed in time. The soundtracks are plastic and back in the day often were ephemeral to the specific performance of the film. Musical accompaniment to a silent film should be judged by how well they complement the film. It sounds like the job done here is perfect. I just ordered it. I'm giving Kino another chance... but I still suspect it will come back to bite me in the rear when Masters of Cinema or BFI release a better version.

Are dialogue and/or narrative titles still intact?

bigshot wrote:

wich2 wrote:The film has not been Colorized - but it has been "Soundized."

Silent films were always intended to be "soundized".

Yes, obviously - as has been covered extensively here, many times. But you're taking issue with my post, while missing its main point. Which was:

When that Soundizing is done many years after the fact by folks other than the original filmmakers, it IS indeed analogous to Colorizing done many years after the fact by folks other than the original filmmakers. Which many Purists howl about.

-Craig

"Soundizing"!!!!! I don't believe it. "Colorizing" I could not tolerate as there is a perfectly good word already - "coloured". What next, he cries in horror.

Anyway, what possibly can the "purists" be on about? In the silent days just about anything went as far as a sound accompaniment to a film goes. In some countries actors were employed to speak behind the screen or a man stood on the stage and verbally explained the film. So, I can see no problem in adding what has been added here. Is it away from what the producers of the film intended? I hardly think so.

Are dialogue and/or narrative titles still intact?

It appears not, from the short bit I looked at.

wich2 wrote:

bigshot wrote:

wich2 wrote:When that Soundizing is done many years after the fact by folks other than the original filmmakers, it IS indeed analogous to Colorizing done many years after the fact by folks other than the original filmmakers. Which many Purists howl about.

There are folks right here in this group that create scores for silent films for video release. Those scores are composed and performed many years after the fact by folks other than the original film makers. I'm afraid I still don't understand how that is the same as altering the film itself.

>Those scores are composed and performed many years after the fact by folks other than the original film makers. I'm afraid I still don't understand how that is the same as altering the film itself.<

Then I'm afraid, Big Shot, that you are still ignoring the added dialogue and sound effects - which are not "scores." By what understanding is adding audio elements which are not present at all in the original, not analogous to adding color elements which are not at all present in the original?

-Craig

P.S - By the way, I am NOT a Purist who thinks such things are blasphemous; but this board and many others contain proof that such folks definitely exist.

Mike Gebert wrote:

Are dialogue and/or narrative titles still intact?

It appears not, from the short bit I looked at.

The print I saw left the narrative titles intact, I can't remember about dialogue intertitles but I believe they are.

There isn't very much dialogue that was re-recorded.

Most of the sound is natural effects (wind, surf, animals), along with native Samoan chants. I would not describe the soundtrack as intrusive, and since it was recorded by Flaherty's daughter—who was there during the filming—it fits in very comfortably with the images her father shot.

In other words, no one vandalized Moana or smeared it with noise that contradicts Flaherty's original intent. Monica Flaherty's soundtrack has been circulating for decades, but legal obstacles prevented her from synching it to 35mm elements. During that period no serious archivist or critic has questioned her achievement, or even her right to add a soundtrack.

wich2 wrote:Then I'm afraid, Big Shot, that you are still ignoring the added dialogue and sound effects - which are not "scores."

The restoration of Wings included sound effects, and as I understand it, the added dialogue is in a South Seas language.

Well, that's all fine & dandy.

But I hope you would honestly define this version as differing considerably from the original release?

As was, for instance, Doug Fairbanks Jr.'s '50s repackaging of his fathers' IRON MASK, with trimmed cards, new score, and new narration and sfx. That was the first version that I saw, and I still love it.

But I do know that it has to be seen as a variant edition.

-Craig

Has it been re-edited? Then I would for sure. For instance, the rock version of Metropolis didn't differ because of the music, it differed because a third of the movie was edited out for time.

bigshot wrote:...For instance, the rock version of Metropolis didn't differ because of the music...

But that was enough!

I watched this last night... What a beautiful film! Great image quality too. The sound was phenomenal, matching the picture and setting mood perfectly. Apparently they found lip reading South Seas islanders to figure out what the people on the screen were saying and made scripts. None of it is translated in the film though. All the inter-titles are intact. In fact, in the supplements they say that the sound version doesn't alter a single frame of the original silent film version.

Since Tabu is a sound picture, it eclipsed Moana. But with the sympathetic soundtrack, Moana is clearly a very important film. I actually think it's a better film than Nanook, and that is saying something.