NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Second Run Blu-ray (February 2024): Second Run have also transferred  Bill Morrison's The Village Detective: a song cycle to Blu-ray. It is cited as "presented from a 4K master, supervised and approved by director Bill Morrison". Despite being a higher bitrate than the Kino - I couldn't find much a difference in the image quality - although technically the UK disc is smoother in-motion. The 1080P image is housed on a dual-layered Blu-ray disc with a max'ed out bitrate. It is a fascinating documentary and has TV news clips, older film footage, archival footage, modern interviews and, of course, the decaying, nitrate-based footage with emulsion deterioration that melts and burns similar to the director's Dawson City: Frozen Time and Decasia. You can see other examples in the Bill Morrison: Selected Films 1996-2014 Blu-ray set from BFI. The modern sequences are in 1.78:1 and appear to be shot on HDV. 

On their Blu-ray, Second Run offer linear PCM tracks (16-bit) in both 5.1 surround and 2.0 channel stereo options - in the original English language with some Icelandic and Russian. The Village Detective: a song cycle is supported by a haunting score by David Lang (Wildlife, Requiem For a Dream) that carries reflecting, evocative intent in the historical and unknown emotions that rise in the viewing of the film. The Second Run has no English subtitle option (but there are burned-in subs for the non English-language sequences) on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Second Run Blu-ray offer a new 1/4 hour interview with Bill Morrison and four of his shorts - two not available on the previous Kino Blu-ray. Beyond Zero: 1914-1918 runs 40-minutes from 2014 and sources original 35mm nitrate footage, filmmaker Bill Morrison pieces together a unique visual exploration of WWI from footage that has never been viewed by modern audiences, and will never be seen again outside of this film. Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov created the haunting score, commissioned and performed by the Kronos Quartet. The Unchanging Sea is from 2018 running 1/2 hour and was inspired by the discovery of a decaying print of DW Griffith's The Unchanging Sea (1910) in the nitrate vaults of the Library of Congress. Taking this ancient title as its point of departure, a new narrative was re-assembled from a variety of similarly ancient films about going off to, and returning from, the Sea. The characters in these old films appear to be emerging from the roiling oceans of Time, having floated like messages in bottles for over one hundred years, and now having washed up on our shores to tell us their stories. The remaining two are also available on the Kino; let me come in (2021) is about the re-purposing of an early nitrate film, Pawns of Passion (Germany, 1928) which has begun deteriorating, into a new story, allowing us to preserve what still remains while also appreciating the beauty of its transformation. Music and lyrics have been added to enhance the storytelling. Lastly is Sunken Films (2020)a precursor to The Village Detective: a song cycle. The latter two run ten minutes each. There is a trailer an the package has a liner notes booklet with new writing on the film by Peter N. Walsh.  

Bill Morrison's The Village Detective: a song cycle is so rich in Soviet film history, mystery and a degree of treasure-revealing wonderment. So, in 2016, an Icelandic fishing boat pulls up four reels of 35mm film from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, twenty miles southeast of the 700,000 year old glacier Snæfellsjökull. The ocean floor around the rift is rich in hydrogen sulfide, which has immense preservation ability while resting on the seabed. Bill does his thing and documents the 'find' showing the surviving elements, discussing the actor and also gives a theory on how it ended up at the bottom of the sea in that location. Remarkably he shows how parts of the celluloid were still viewable and why the four reels were still found near each other. His work is aptly described as "a poetic reflection on the ways in which biographies of film prints are interwoven with biographies of human individuals, real and fictional, as well as broader historical events and their mediations through cinema." I agree. The Village Detective: a song cycle is more of Bill Morrison's fascinating work. The Blu-rays show this keen story in 1080P and include some shorts by the director with the Second Run having two new that are over an hour in total. Certainly recommended to historical film fans of Morrison's unique niche of artistic cinema and the experiences it conveys.

***

ADDITION: Kino Blu-ray (November 2021): Kino have transferred Bill Morrison's The Village Detective: a song cycle to Blu-ray. It's on a single-layered disc with a middling bitrate. To support the 'discovery' though the image quality is just fine.

On their Blu-ray, Kino offer DTS-HD Master tracks (16-bit) in both 5.1 surround and 2.0 channel stereo options - in the original English language with some Icelandic and Russian. The Village Detective: a song cycle is supported by a haunting score by David Lang (Wildlife, Requiem For a Dream) that carries reflecting, evocative intent in the historical and unknown emotions that rise in the viewing of the film. Kino offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A' Blu-ray.

The Kino Blu-ray offers three new shorts by Bill Morrison as extras. Buried News (2021) runs a dozen minutes and focuses on Dawson City: Frozen Time, described by Bill as "Among the 533 reels that were ultimately restored, there were 114 newsreels, each reel containing five or six individual news stories, each one about a minute in length. Four of these news stories, produced between 1917 and 1920, have been included here in Buried News. Seen together, they reveal how race has historically been used as a tool in the USA to divide people for the commercial or political gain of those in power. Archival footage captures the aftermath of race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois in 1917, and in Omaha, Nebraska in 1919, as well as extremely rare, and heretofore believed to be lost, footage of the siege of the Lexington, Kentucky courthouse in 1920." let me come in (2021) - about the re-purposing of an early nitrate film, Pawns of Passion (Germany, 1928) which has begun deteriorating, into a new story, allowing us to preserve what still remains while also appreciating the beauty of its transformation. Music and lyrics have been added to enhance the storytelling. Lastly is Sunken Films (2020)a precursor to The Village Detective: a song cycle. The latter two run ten minutes each. 

Gary Tooze