DIARY OF A LOST GIRL (Masters of Cinema) BLU-RAY

Louise Brooks was a major star of the 1920's maybe more known for being beautiful and iconic.Discovered by P.W. Pabst - the same Austrian director who discovered Garbo.Louise Brooks made Pandora's Box in 1928, and as she said in an interview, Pabst and her hit it from the first moment, so when Pabst asked her to starr in the second film in his diptych, but couldn't offer much money as this was his own production (she had $1000 a week for Pandora) she didn't hesitate to take the chance of working with the great Pabst.The film itself was brutally edited by distributors as it dealt with critique of the bourgaisie and it's double standards.Louise Brooks has that stunning beauty paired with innocence.Pabst knew Louise was a dancer so he let her dance her role, and to act as herself (the hardest thing to do) and the result is a neglected masterpiece.This is the restored version from 2012 and should be in any serious cinophiles library.Sadly she made one more film after this one, a talkie (dubbed by a not very talented actress) hated the idea of learning a foreign language and got blacklisted by Hollywood as she had no time for fools or dilettantes and was very frank about it, so yes the head of Paramount spread a rumour that she was unrecordable - as she had turned him down accurately.It's a pre neorealistic melodram based on a highly provocative novel from 1906 about the decline of chemist's daughter she get's seduced and raped by her fathers employee (her father who got the maid pregnant, and the maid commits suicide)...'Pabst way of filming, always trying new techniques and casting a great cast makes it more than worthwhile.

This review is for the 2014, Eureka! - Masters of Cinema, Special, Dual Format Edition of G.W. Pabst's "Diary of a Lost Girl". It goes without saying that the film's an absolute classic. Louise Brooks is as enchanting as ever, the direction is masterful, & the subject matter is pretty risqué for 1929. It has already been extensively reviewed, here & elsewhere far better than I can...so I'll leave it at that re. the film, & will just review this particular release. The set contains a crisp new 1080p transfer of the film on Blu-ray & a progressive encode of it on the DVD - from the F.W. Murnau Stiftung (Foundations) restoration. A nice quality 48 page illustrated booklet, new video essay - "Naked on My Goat", by critic & filmmaker David Cairns (only on the Blu-ray), & the original German intertitles with optional English subtitles. Last but not least, as you'd expect with Eureka's MOC range, the cover art is class! All in all, a lovely edition of a great film.

As per other reviews

The beauty of this film and its eternal star have been well covered elsewhere, so here is just a short note on the differences between the European Region 2 Eureka! 'Masters Of Cinema' release and the US Region 1 Kino Video DVD.Firstly, the original US DVD has the amazing bonus 1930 short (18 min.) feature "Windy Riley Goes Hollywood" which is currently the ONLY speaking Brooks film on DVD (we're not counting the cheap 'n' shoddy US DVD-Rs here). A spectacular little gem, that although somewhat degraded in both picture and sound, shows the beautiful Louise in talking and dancing brilliance. And she sounds like an angel. If only there'd have been more. This comedy gem was directed by Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle after his criminal and unfair Hollywood blacklisting and was one of his final works too. Probobaly the best print of this short available.The main feature is not as good as the Eureka Region 2 DVD (which is not going to be surpassed) but certainly looks great. Worth the money for "Windy Riley..." alone.Of course, the Eureka Region 2 DVD is stunning. A fantastic looking print, great bonuses and an informative book ('booklet' doesn't do it justice). If you're a fan of Louise then I'd highly recommend both.

Fabulous! Now known primarily as a style icon whose haircut is imitated by numerous hipster young ladies in Brooklyn and Berlin we should remember Louise Brooks for the major film star she was back between the world wars. One of her two best films yes, it is silent and it is black & white but do not let this deter you or your kids from watching it. A morality tale worthy of D.W. Griffith it could almost be a chapter in his incredible epic Intolerance. Brooks plays her role well, be it up, down and then up, she never is less than believable and the direction of Georg Wilhelm Pabst makes this one of the great films of the Weimar Republic era.

Superbe édition pour ce chef d'oeuvre indémodable, nous gratifiant d'une image à la fois robuste et alerte et dont les scories du temps ne nuisent en rien à la lisibilité de l'ensemble; la partition musicale est parfaitement adaptée et d'une grande qualité technique. Le visionnage de ce film dans cette édition est en somme des plus agréables sans jamais sombrer dans la fadeur tant visuelle que sonore: un sentiment d'équilibre règne imperturbable.Pour l'amoureux du film, incontournable![à noter qu'il est judicieux de conserver (voire même d'acquérir) l'ancien DVD Kino import US qui permet d'appréhender ce film de manière plus dramatique, sa bande sonore étant nettement plus sombre et 'typée': parenthèse simplement pour les passionnés]

excellent movie and Louise Brooks is fab

I just want to mention that this particular DVD edition includes a 40-page booklet with various pieces of information on Pabst and Louise Brooks, including writings from Louise herself, which makes quite a good read.And, as someone else mentioned already, if you like this, you should also watch "Pandora's Box", also directed by Pabst and featuring Louise Brooks.

Bei dem Titel glaubt man an ein moralinsaures Melodrama über "ein gefallenes Mädchen", doch die Geschichte entwickelt sich ganz anders als gedacht. Großartig inszeniert die Choreographie der Szenen im Heim und im Bordell, sensationell Louise Brooks, eine Ikone des Films!!

Great

c'est un superbe film, avec beaucoup d'ambiance, même si techniquement certains raccords de scenes laissent un peu à désirer. Louise Brooks est très touchante dans sa fragilité.Pour moi, un chef doeuvre.

.*** REVIEW UPDATED OCT-22-2015 ***A young girl goes through various trials of womanhood in this 1929 German silent classic "Diary of a Lost Girl", directed by the great G. W. Pabst, who often made sympathetic films about the plight of women. Like his 1925 classic "The Joyless Street" (see my July 5, 2013 review of an overseas DVD edition), this film is an indictment of immorality and cruelty in European bourgeois society at the time. American actress Louise Brooks plays the title character, who goes from a chaste teenager, to an out-of-wedlock mother, a reform school escapee, a prostitute, and a countess. Although Brooks will always be most famous for playing the iconic Lulu in her previous film with Pabst, "Pandora's Box" (Criterion DVD is currently out of circulation but a new edition is in the works), "Diary of a Lost Girl" gives her a tremendous character arc to show her acting talent. Like other great films of its time, "Diary" suffered censorship and cuts that resulted in lost footage. Several restorations have been done in the past, and a near-complete version has been made with prints from various sources. The Kino Blu-ray I'm reviewing (ASIN: B013CG19D0) now represents the latest restoration.I am quite pleased with the Kino Blu-ray. Both the film itself and the 1931 sound short "Windy Riley Goes Hollywood" (in which Brooks has a speaking part) are presented in HD. Even though the print quality of "Diary" is far from pristine, with quite a few print damages, skipped frames, and shots of poor visual quality due to inferior print elements, the picture quality as shown on the Blu-ray is still a big improvement over the 2001 Kino DVD (ASIN: B00005QW58). Blu-ray's high definition enables plenty of film grain to be shown. For some, grain should be digitally removed, but for others, it should be retained in its full glory, and I belong to the latter group. The "Windy Rily" sound short, however, is from the same inferior-looking and sounding print as that on the old DVD, without subtitles nor closed captioning.Also noteworthy for me is that the Blu-ray's running speed is quite a bit faster than that on the 2001 Kino DVD. The Blu-ray runs 109 minutes, excluding credits, and the old DVD runs 114 minutes, excluding credits. With the Blu-ray's 4% higher speed, the film plays better, in my opinion, with actors' movement looking more natural and the pacing seeming more right. The music accompaniment, an effective piano solo by Javier Pérez de Azpeitia, also seems faster paced as well, and for the better too.The Kino Blu-ray inexplicably shows the film in 1.28:1 aspect ratio, resulting in the picture slightly vertically "stretched". By comparison, other video editions, including the 2001 Kino DVD and a recent British Blu-ray edition, show it in 1.33:1, thus looking more correct. To be fair, the stretched image on the Kino Blu-ray is not as severe as, for instance, that on Criterion's recent "Dressed to Kill" Blu-ray (a problem that has since been fixed). In fact, I have to admit it did not bother me very much in my viewing.The latest restoration of "Diary" was done by European restoration companies, and they used reconstructed German inter-titles for the restored film's worldwide release. Kino's Blu-ray presents the same inter-titles, with optional white English subtitles that occasionally overlap with the white, rather large German titles. Kino's old DVD, however, uses English inter-titles.The Kino Blu-ray comes with an excellent full-length audio commentary by Thomas Gladysz, the director of the Louise Brooks Society, which is an online info archive devoted to Brooks. Unfortunately, there are many long stretches of silence during the commentary. Gladysz talks about the actors and crew, the film's artistry, the historical background, and the social climate at the time the movie was made. At one point, he recommends that we check out a documentary on the life of one of the minor actors in the movie, Kurt Gerron (who plays the portly, friendly figure of the brothel), but didn't mention the title of the documentary. That film is the 2002 Oscar-nominated feature documentary "Prisoner of Paradise", about Gerron's life and career that were cut short by the Nazis.Kino's Blu-ray cover sheet is also reversible, showing the yellow cover design that is similar to the one used on the British Blu-ray/DVD edition by Eureka.Other than the aforementioned speed difference between the Kino Blu-ray and the old Kino DVD, the two editions present the same cut of the film in terms of footage. The 1990 Kino VHS tape, however, uses plenty of alternate footage that came from various editions of the film. Below is my original 2001 review that compares such differences.*** ORIGINAL 2001 REVIEW OF THE 2001 KINO DVD AND 1990 KINO VHS ***This new Kino DVD version of DIARY OF A LOST GIRL contains footage that has been added, re-edited, and even RE-SHOT, compared to Kino's 1990 VHS version.I did a side-by-side comparison of the DVD and the 1990 VHS tape version and found that director G.W. Pabst had apparently shot two versions of some scenes -- one version being used on the 1990 VHS version, another on this DVD. Most of the differences are minute, such as actors standing on slightly different spots or posing or gesturing a little differently. For instance, at time 00:02:39 on the DVD, Thymian (Louise Brooks) is standing at the doorway with her arms bent. But in the 1990 VHS version, the same shot shows that her arms are straight. At time 00:03:43 of the DVD, Thymian bends forward (toward camera) to pick something up on the floor. In the 1990 VHS version, she bends sideways (to viewer's right) to pick it up. A few re-shot scenes, however, have more drastic differences, with the tone and mood of the scene altered considerably. At 00:04:50, Meinert raises his eyebrows and nods at Thymian, who returns a flirtatious smile. In the 1990 VHS version, however, Meinert only smiles softly, and Thymian's expression is more restrained. At 00:07:52 of the DVD, after Thymian sees what Meinert wrote in her diary, she turns her head slowly and stares incredulously at Meinert for a moment, then locks her diary. In the 1990 VHS version, she simply locks her diary and never looks at Meinert.Kino emailed me a list of about 80 differences between the 1990 VHS version (which they call the "English version") and the new DVD version (which they call the "German version"). The list reveals there are actually some scenes on the 1990 VHS version that are not on this DVD. Regarding the re-shot scenes, the list is apparently not inclusive, for I've personally noticed a lot more re-shot footage on the DVD. For instance, the sequence in which Elizabeth the housekeeper begs Mr. Henning to let her stay but finally she has to leave is composed entirely of re-shot footage. (Note how amazing it is that these actors were able to give the same great performances twice! But since the two versions are nearly identical, one wonders why Pabst would bother re-shooting at all.)And I haven't begun to mention the newly added footage -- scenes not on the 1990 VHS version at all, but on this DVD. The new scenes are sprinkled throughout the DVD, resulting in about 9 minutes of material, some of which quite startling. One shows the guard in the reformatory, after catching Erika putting on her makeup, uses her lipstick to write on his note book, "Punish Erika"; then he draws a heart shape next to it, revealing to us what he exactly means by "punish". Another rather risque scene shows Thymian in the brothel performing some gymnastics in a swimsuit in front of her clients.The new DVD, which Kino calls the "German version", still uses English title cards. Their wordings and placements have been significantly changed compared to the 1990 VHS version. The differences in placements, of course, have resulted in the film being edited differently. Some title cards now have more explicit, even risque, wordings. One reads, "So you have had your way with the housekeeper too," alluding to the unspoken relation between Mr. Henning and Elizabeth. In the scene where Meinert tries to seduce Thymian, the title card shows him saying, "I'll tell you all about Elizabeth tonight, Thymian. BIG Thymian." The DVD has one incorrect title card. It shows what Meinert wrote in Thymian's diary to be "Meet me 11:30 tonight." The time should read 10:30, as indicated by a later shot of a clock. The 1990 VHS version does have the correct time on the title card.The score used on the 1990 VHS version is a mixed bag of violin solo, piano solo, jazz, and classical orchestration. The DVD has a more elaborate orchestration for the score. The old score is not included on this DVD.The video transfer of the DVD came from new source material and it looks much less battered, sharper, more detailed, and better contrasted than that of the 1990 VHS version. Still, the improved picture of the DVD is nowhere near the sparkling image quality of, say, the Criterion DVD version of HAXAN or THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC.The DVD also includes a rarely-seen sound film that stars Brooks, titled WINDY RILEY GOES HOLLYWOOD. The sound era was believed to have ended Brooks' acting career. But in this film, her voice sounds just fine to me. The video transfer of this 18-minute 1930 comedy film has a heavily-battered picture transfer and a very hissy soundtrack (not many prints of this film exist, we are told). And there are no subtitles or closed captioning. But all the dialogs register pretty clearly. This short film is available only on the DVD version, not on the 2001 VHS version (which is not to be confused with the out-of-print 1990 VHS version that I referred to throughout this review).

Über den Film gibt es hier schon viel zu lesen, nur soviel, daß ich immer wieder staune, was für moderne Themen damals angesprochen wurden, die danach für Jahrzehnte Tabu waren. Ich finde diesen Film von der Idee her immer noch sehr aktuell, die Begleitumstände ändern sich natürlich innerhalb von 100 Jahren...Worum es mir eigtl vor allem geht, der Film ist als UK Import zu mir gelangt, was aber weder meinen BlueRay-Player störte noch mich. Ich hatte mich eigtl darauf eingestellt, daß die Texteinblendungen auf Englisch sein werden (was auch kein Problem gewesen wäre), stattdessen waren es aber die Originalen auf deutsch (Die hatten dann englische Untertitel, die man aber ausstellen kann).Die Bildqualität finde ich im übrigen für das Alter des Films sehr gut, nicht perfekt, aber sehr gut. Die Restaurierung wurde gut und fachmännisch vorgenommen, ohne zu sehr weichzuzeichnen dadurch.