The Criterion Collection – March 2010 Blu-ray and DVD Releases
December 16, 2009 by J!-ENT
DILLINGER IS DEAD
In this magnificently inscrutable late-sixties masterpiece, Marco Ferreri, one of European cinema’s most idiosyncratic auteurs, takes us through the looking glass to one seemingly routine night in the life of an Italian gas mask designer, played, in a tour de force performance, by New Wave icon Michel Piccoli. In his claustrophobic, mod home, he pampers his pill-popping wife, seduces his maid, and uncovers a gun that may have once been owned by John Dillinger—and then things get even stranger. A surreal political missive about social malaise, Dillinger Is Dead finds absurdity in the mundane. It is a singular experience, both illogical and grandly existential.
1969 • 95 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Italian with English subtitles • 1.66:1 aspect ratio
FILM INFO
• Directed by Marco Ferreri (La grande bouffe, Don’t Touch the White Woman, Bye Bye Monkey)
• Starring Michel Piccoli (Contempt, The Milky Way, I’m Going Home)
DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director of photography Mario Vulpiani
• New video interviews with actor Michel Piccoli and Italian film historian Adriano Aprà
• Excerpts from a 1997 roundtable discussion about director Marco Ferreri, with filmmakers Bernardo Bertolucci and Francesco Rosi and film historian Aldo Tassone, including clips of interviews with Ferreri
• Theatrical trailer
• New and improved subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Michael Rowin and a selection of reprinted interviews with Ferreri
TITLE: Dillinger Is Dead
CAT. NO.: CC1874D
UPC: 7-15515-05461-4
ISBN: 978-1-60465-244-4
SRP: $29.95
PREBOOK: 2/16/10
STREET: 3/16/10
BIGGER THAN LIFE (DVD & BD)
Though ignored at the time of its release, Nicholas Ray’s Bigger Than Life is now recognized as one of the great American films of the 1950s. When a friendly, successful suburban teacher and father (James Mason, in one of his most indelible roles) is prescribed cortisone for a painful, possibly fatal affliction, he grows dangerously addicted to the experimental drug, resulting in his transformation into a psychotic and ultimately violent household despot. This Eisenhower-era throat- grabber, shot in expressive CinemaScope, is an excoriating take on the nuclear family; that it came in the day of Father Knows Best makes it all the more shocking—and wildly entertaining.
1956 • 95 minutes • Color • Monaural • 2.35:1 aspect ratio
FILM INFO
• Directed by Nicholas Ray (In a Lonely Place, Rebel Without a Cause, King of Kings)
• Starring James Mason (Odd Man Out, Five Fingers, Lolita, North by Northwest)
• Starring Walter Matthau (The Fortune Cookie, The Odd Couple, Hopscotch)
• Music by David Raksin (Laura, The Bad and the Beautiful, Forever Amber)
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary featuring critic Geoff Andrew (The Films of Nicholas Ray)
• Profile of Nicholas Ray (1977), a half-hour television interview with the director
• New video appreciation of Bigger Than Life with author Jonathan Lethem (Chronic City)
• New video interview with Susan Ray, the director’s widow and editor of the book I Was Interrupted: Nicholas Ray on Making Movies
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: An essay by film writer B. Kite
TITLE: Bigger Than Life (BLU-RAY EDITION)
CAT. NO.: CC1875BD
UPC: 7-15515-05471-3
ISBN: 978-1-60465-245-1
SRP: $39.95
PREBOOK: 2/23/10
STREET: 3/23/10
TITLE: Bigger Than Life (DVD EDITION)
CAT. NO.: CC1876D
UPC: 7-15515-05481-2
ISBN: 978-1-60465-246-8
SRP: $39.95
PREBOOK: 2/23/10
STREET: 3/23/10
DAYS OF HEAVEN (BLU-RAY EDITION)
One-of-a-kind filmmaker-philosopher Terrence Malick has made some of the most visually arresting movies in history, and his glorious period tragedy Days of Heaven, featuring Oscar-winning cinematography by Nestor Almendros, stands out among them. A Chicago steelworker (Richard Gere) accidentally kills his supervisor, and he,
his girlfriend (Brooke Adams), and his little sister (Linda Mans) flee to the Texas Panhandle, where they find work harvesting in the wheat fields of a wealthy farmer (Sam Shepard). A love triangle, a swarm of locusts, a hellish fire—Malick captures it all with dreamlike authenticity, creating at once a timeless American idyll and a gritty evocation of turn-of-the-century labor.
1978 • 94 minutes • Color • Surround • 1.78:1 aspect ratio
FILM INFO
• Directed by Terrence Malick (Badlands, The Thin Red Line, The New World)
• Starring Richard Gere (An Officer and a Gentleman, Chicago, The Hoax)
• Starring Sam Shepard (The Right Stuff, Baby Boom, The Pelican Brief)
• Cinematography by Nestor Almendros (Claire’s Knee, Maitresse, Kramer vs. Kramer)
• Art direction by Jack Fisk (Carrie, The Thin Red Line, Mulholland Drive)
• Music by Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; The Mission; The Untouchables)
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• Restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Terrence Malick, editor Billy Weber, and camera operator John Bailey, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• Audio commentary featuring Weber, art director Jack Fisk, costume designer Patricia Norris, and casting director Dianne Crittenden
• Audio interview with Richard Gere
• Video interviews with Bailey, cinematographer Haskell Wexler, and actor Sam Shepard
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Adrian Martin and a chapter from director of photography Nestor Almendros’s autobiography
TITLE: Days of Heaven (BLU-RAY EDITION)
CAT. NO.: CC1882BD
UPC: 7-15515-05571-0
ISBN: 978-1-60465-256-7
SRP: $39.95
PREBOOK: 2/23/10
STREET: 3/23/10
YOJIMBO/SANJURO: TWO FILMS BY AKIRA KUROSAWA (BLU-RAY EDITION – SET & INDIVIDUAL)
Thanks to perhaps the most indelible character in Akira Kurosawa’s oeuvre, Yojimbo surpassed even Seven Samurai in popularity when it was released. The masterless samurai Sanjuro, who slyly manipulates two warring clans to his advantage in a small, dusty village, was so entertainingly embodied by the brilliant Toshiro Mifune that it was only a matter of time before he returned in a sequel. Made just one year later, Sanjuro matches Yojimbo’s storytelling dexterity yet adds a layer of world-weary pragmatism that brings the two films to a thrilling and unforgettable conclusion. Criterion is proud to present this pair of Kurosawa masterworks in new Blu-ray editions.
Yojimbo: 1961 • 110 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In Japanese with English subtitles • 2.35:1 aspect ratio
Sanjuro: 1962 • 96 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In Japanese with English subtitles • 2.35:1 aspect ratio
FILM INFO
• Directed by Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Ran)
• Starring Toshiro Mifune (Stray Dog, Seven Samurai)
• Starring Tatsuya Nakadai (Samurai Rebellion, Kagemusha)
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• Restored high-definition digital transfers with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
• Optional DTS-HD Master Audio Perspecta 3.0 soundtracks, preserving the original simulated stereo effects
• Audio commentaries by film historian and Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince
• Documentaries on the making of Yojimbo and Sanjuro, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
• Theatrical trailer and teasers
• Stills galleries
• PLUS: Booklets featuring essays by film writers Alexander Sesonske and Michael Sragow, and notes from Kurosawa and his cast and crew
TITLE: Yojimbo/Sanjuro: Two Films by Akira Kurosawa (BLU-RAY EDITION)
CAT. NO.: CC1885BD
UPC: 7-15515-05731-8
ISBN: 978-1-60465-271-0
SRP: $69.95
PREBOOK: 2/23/10
STREET: 3/23/10
TITLE: Yojimbo (BLU-RAY EDITION)
CAT. NO.: CC1883BD
UPC: 7-15515-05591-8
ISBN: 978-1-60465-257-4
SRP: $39.95
PREBOOK: 2/23/10
STREET: 3/23/10
TITLE: Sanjuro (BLU-RAY EDITION)
CAT. NO.: CC1884BD
UPC: 7-15515-05601-4
ISBN: 978-1-60465-258-1
SRP: $39.95
PREBOOK: 2/23/10
STREET: 3/23/10
LETTERS FROM FONTAINHAS: THREE FILMS BY PEDRO COSTA
One of the most important artists on the international film scene today, Portuguese director Pedro Costa has been steadily building an impressive body of work since the late eighties. And these are the three films that put him on the map: spare, painterly portraits of battered, largely immigrant lives in the slums of Fontainhas, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Lisbon. Hypnotic, controlled works, Ossos, In Vanda’s Room, and Colossal Youth confirm Costa as a provocative new cinematic poet, one who locates beauty in the most unlikely of places.
Ossos
The first film in Pedro Costa’s transformative trilogy about Fontainhas, an impoverished quarter of Lisbon, Ossos is a tale of young lives torn apart by desperation. After a suicidal teenage girl gives birth, she misguidedly entrusts her baby’s safety to the troubled, deadbeat father, whose violent actions take the viewer on a tour of the foreboding, crumbling shantytown in which they live. With its reserved, shadowy cinematography by Emmanuel Machuel (who collaborated with Bresson on L’argent), Ossos is a haunting look at a devastated community.
1997 • 98 minutes • Color • Stereo • In Portuguese with English subtitles • 1.66:1 aspect ratio
In Vanda’s Room
For the extraordinarily beautiful second film in his Fontainhas trilogy, Pedro Costa jettisoned his earlier films’ larger crews to burrow even deeper into the Lisbon ghetto and the lives of its desperate inhabitants. With the intimate feel of a documentary and the texture of a Vermeer painting, In Vanda’s Room takes an unflinching, fragmentary look at a handful of self-destructive, marginalized people, but is centered around the heroin-addicted Vanda Duarte. Costa presents the daily routines of Vanda and her neighbors with disarming matter-of-factness, and through his camera, individuals whom many would deem disposable become vivid and vital. This was Costa’s first use of digital video, and the evocative images he created remain some of the medium’s most astonishing.
2000 • 171 minutes • Color • Stereo • In Portuguese with English subtitles • 1.33:1 aspect ratio
Colossal Youth
Many of the lost souls of Ossos and In Vanda’s Room return in the spectral landscape of Colossal Youth, which brings to Pedro Costa’s Fontainhas films a new theatrical, tragic grandeur. This time, Costa focuses on Ventura, an elderly immigrant from Cape Verde living in a low-cost housing complex in Lisbon, who has been abandoned by his wife and spends his days visiting his neighbors, whom he considers his “children.” What results is a form of ghost story, a tale of derelict, dispossessed people living in the past and present at the same time, filmed by Costa with empathy and startling radiance.
2006 • 156 minutes • Color • Stereo • In Portuguese with English subtitles • 1.33:1 aspect ratio
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FOUR-DVD SET FEATURES
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer of Ossos, supervised by director Pedro Costa; new digital transfers of In Vanda’s Room and Colossal Youth
• New video conversations between Costa and filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin about Ossos and Colossal Youth
• Audio commentary for In Vanda’s Room featuring Costa and Gorin
• Selected-scene audio commentary by critic Cyril Neyrat and author-philosopher Jacques Rancière for Colossal Youth
• Video interviews with critic João Bénard da Costa and cinematographer Emmanuel Machuel about Ossos
• Video essay by artist Jeff Wall on Ossos
• All Blossoms Again, a feature-length documentary on Costa and the making of Colossal Youth
• Tarrafal and The Rabbit Hunters, two short films by Costa
• Little Boy Male, Little Girl Female, a video installation piece by Costa featuring outtakes from In Vanda’s Room and Colossal Youth
• Photographs by Mariana Viegas and Richard Dumas
• Theatrical trailers
• New and improved English subtitle translations of all the films
• PLUS: A booklet featuring new essays by critics Cyril Neyrat, Luc Sante, Thom Anderson, and Mark Peranson, as well as a reprint by Bernard Eisenschitz
TITLE: Letters from Fontainhas: Three Films by Pedro Costa
CAT. NO.: CC1869D
UPC: 7-15515-05301-3
ISBN: 978-1-60465-236-9
SRP: $79.95
PREBOOK: 3/2/10
STREET: 3/30/10
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