Last July, cinephiles and lovers of cult films were given a blessing from the movie gods: an honest to god rerelease of “The Fall,” Tarsem Singh’s singular 2006 fantasy adventure epic. The movie, which stars Lee Pace in a dual role as an injured 1915 Hollywood stuntman and the hero of an epic tale he spins for a hospitalized little girl, was greeted with mixed reviews but love from its biggest fans upon its 2006 Toronto Film Festival premiere. In the years since its premiere, the film has developed a passionate little fandom, but actually tracking it down has proven more difficult than it should be — it’s been completely unavailable on streaming for years.
With the July 15 news that Mubi will re-release “The Fall” this...
uh, fall, that long drought is about to finally end. The arthouse streamer and distributer premiered the 4K restoration of Singh’s film at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival this August, followed by a September 27 streaming release. The news marked the end of one of the longest droughts a film has experienced in terms of streaming availability — and gives hope for other films stuck in that particularly brutal purgatory.
Generally speaking, people often discuss the streaming age as a landscape that offers nigh-unlimited access of film history to anybody — or, at least, anybody who can pony up money to the right services. And it’s true that streaming has its benefits, allowing for quick and easy availability of thousands of classics films, as.
