'Begotten' obviously has a following and people want it for their collections. Who the hell wants an old crappy video of it? Why has E. Elias Merhige not pushed to have his film released on DVD? It is a travesty that films like this are not available in wide-release on DVD…
shareIt sucks that the original edition of the DVD is out of print. And since Criterion won't release it, somebody else should.
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I had the dvd and sold it back. It was a great idea and would have made an interesting short. But it goes on too long and it makes its points very early, then drags. I haven't checked for this title on the site, but you can usually find stuff like this on www.diabolikdvd.com
They have had some really unusual and rare titles. I picked up the old short film "The Committee", a rare video with Pink Floyd music unreleased anywhere else, on the site. And of course there's always Ebay.
I would bet this will probably be re-released on DVD, but I wouldn't count on it showing up at Wal-Mart!
I checked on www.diabolikdvd.com and they no longer list it...I thought I saw it on there not long ago. Sorry.
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I could make the point that watching grass grow is boring and "drags" when committed to film but that doesn't mean people should pay to see it. I think the film has some merit...if people like it, that's wonderful for them. It has interesting photography and is very brave to tell its "story" with guttural noises and strange atonal effects. As a short I feel it would have been startling...as a feature it--and director Merhige--come across as pretentious and self-important.
Also, I don't think the fact that it "drags" is the point, nor do I think it's a film about the creation of cinema...if anything Merhige is trying to destroy everything we come to see as cinematic.
Have you seen Merhige's most recent flick "Suspect Zero"? Listen to the commentary track on the DVD for that movie...although he made a text book serial killer movie with one little twist he thinks he's reinventing cinema there too.
There are some cool moments in this film. I understand people's fascination with it. I'll probably want to re-visit it again in ten years or so to see if m original opinion--that it was disappointing--still holds. I suspect that it will. But who knows? It's not a terrible movie, but I think it's really over rated.