Cohen Media Group Brings Classic and Vintage FIlms to a 21st Century Audience | Features
The Rohauer Library is not as popularly known as the Janus Collection, which initially introduced the masterworks of Francois Truffaut, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni and others in the first wave of arthouse cinema to American moviegoers. It was compiled by Raymond Rohauer, a film exhibitor, curator, preservationist, and collector and archivist. He died in 1987.
If the Janus Collection is world cinema's greatest hits, the Rohauer Library comprises its deep cuts. Not that it is lacking in essential titles (critically acclaimed Cohen Film Collection DVD and Blu-ray releases include newly restored editions of D.W. Griffith's epic, "Intolerance" and Raoul Walsh's seminal fantasy "The Thief of Bagdad"), but the Rohauer Library is of immense interest and value for its "number of lesser-known movies that deserve to be brought back into circulation," notes Dave Kehr, film critic and newly installed curator in the Museum of Modern Art's Department of Film, in an email. Among the buried treasures include what Kehr termed "important work" by directors Frank Borzage, William K. Howard, Allan Dwan, Frank Capra, D.W. Griffith and Roland West.
"I know that both Charles Cohen and Tim Lanza, the director of the collection, are dedicated cinephiles, so I'm confident the future holds some major rediscoveries," Kehr said.
Among these already released for the first time on home video include "Two Men in Manhattan," Jean-Pierre Melville's 1959 filmed-in-New York noir that was never released theatrically in the states, Rene Clair's "The Beauty of the Devil" starring Michel Simon and Gerard Phillipe in a reimagining of the Faust legend, and "Perfect Understanding," a 1933 romantic comedy starring Laurence Olivier and Gloria Swanson (who also served as producer) with a script by Michael Powell.
Other better known Rohauer Library gems that await release include Buster Keaton's silent films, Rudolph Valentino's swan song, "Son of the Sheik," Alfred Hitchcock's last British film, "Jamaica Inn" as well as rarely seen music and comedy short subjects produced by Paramount.
Many titles in the Rohauer Library have been released on DVD (Kino has made a cottage industry of the Keatons over the years), but in versions of varying quality. As with the vaunted Criterion Collection, Cohen and Lanza are endeavoring to create legacy editions of its titles, each meticulously restored and enhanced with generous bonus features. "We are paying a lot of attention to the way (our films) are packaged," Cohen said in a phone interview. "Intolerance," which Roger Ebert.com contributor Glenn Kenny called "stunning," boats a 2K restoration and exclusive extras, including "The Fall of Babylon" and "Mother and the Law," two of the film's segments that were later released separately as features, a 20 minute interview and visual essay with venerable film historian Kevin Browlow, and two new essays by Cineaste magazine editor Richard Porton and film historian William M. Drew.
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