The Criterion Collection: Sept.-Oct. 2016 Releases: PAN’S LABYRINTH, BLOOD SIMPLE, BOYHOOD

The October 2016 releases from The Criterion Collection:

Pan’s Labyrinth

An Academy Award–winning dark fable set five years after the end of the Spanish Civil War, Pan’s Labyrinth encapsulates the rich visual style and genre-defying craft of Guillermo del Toro. Eleven-year-old Ofelia (Ivana Baquero, in a mature and tender performance) comes face to face with the horrors of fascism when she and her pregnant mother are uprooted to the countryside, where her new stepfather (Sergi López), a sadistic captain in General Franco’s army, hunts down Republican guerrillas who refuse to give up the fight. The violent reality in which she lives merges seamlessly with a fantastical interior world when Ofelia meets a faun in a decaying labyrinth and is set on a strange, mythic journey that is at once terrifying and beautiful. In his revisiting of this bloody period in Spanish history, del Toro creates a vivid depiction of the monstrosities of war infiltrating a child’s imagination and threatening the innocence of youth.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED EDITION:

Newly graded 2K digital master, supervised by director Guillermo del Toro, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Alternate DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 surround soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Audio commentary by del Toro from 2007
New interview with del Toro by novelist Cornelia Funke about fairy tales, fantasy, and Pan’s Labyrinth
New interview with actor Doug Jones
Four 2007 making-of documentaries, examining the characters, production, special effects, themes, and music of the film
Interactive director’s notebook
Footage of actor Ivana Baquero’s audition for the film
Animated comics featuring prequel stories for the film’s menagerie of creatures
Programs comparing selected production storyboards and del Toro’s thumbnail sketches with the final film; visual effects work for the Green Fairy; and elements of the film’s score
Trailers and TV spots
PLUS: An essay by film critic Michael Atkinson

Spain, 2006, 119 minutes, Color, 1.85:1, Spanish, Spine #838

Trilogía de Guillermo del Toro

Throughout a career that encompasses both visually arresting art-house hits and big-budget Hollywood spectacles, director Guillermo del Toro has continually redefined and elevated the horror genre with his deeply personal explorations of myths and monsters. These three Spanish-language films, each a tale of childhood in troubled times, showcase his singular fusion of the fantastic and the real. Drawing inspiration from a rich variety of sources, from Alfred Hitchcock to Francisco de Goya, the gothic-infused stories collected here—populated by vampires, ghosts, and a fairy-tale princess—make evident why del Toro is considered the master cinematic fabulist of our time.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED COLLECTOR’S SET:

High-definition digital restoration of Cronos, 2K digital restoration of The Devil’s Backbone, newly graded 2K digital master of Pan’s Labyrinth, all supervised and approved by director Guillermo del Toro, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack for Cronos and 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks for The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth on the Blu-rays
Alternate DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 surround soundtrack for Pan’s Labyrinth on the Blu-ray
Audio commentaries on all three films
Interviews with del Toro, director of photography Guillermo Navarro, and actors Doug Jones, Federico Luppi, and Ron Perlman
Welcome to Bleak House, a 2010 video tour by del Toro of his personal collections
New piece on Pan’s Labyrinth featuring del Toro and novelist Cornelia Funke
Interactive director’s notebooks for The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth
Making-of documentaries for The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth
Geometria, a 1987 short horror film by del Toro finished in 2010
Footage of actor Ivana Baquero auditioning for Pan’s Labyrinth in 2005
Original Spanish-language voice-over introduction for Cronos
Introductions by del Toro for The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth
Deleted scenes from The Devil’s Backbone, with commentary by del Toro
Selected on-screen picture-in-picture presentation of del Toro’s thumbnail sketches for The Devil’s Backbone
Programs comparing del Toro’s thumbnail sketches and production storyboards for The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth with the final films
Piece on The Devil’s Backbone’s depiction of the Spanish Civil War
Animated comics featuring prequel stories for the creatures of Pan’s Labyrinth
Gallery of stills from Cronos, captioned by del Toro
Trailers and TV spots
English subtitle translations approved by del Toro
Deluxe box set for the Blu-ray, featuring new illustrations by Vania Zouravliov
Blu-ray: A 100-page hardcover book featuring an introduction by author Neil Gaiman and essays by critics Michael Atkinson, Mark Kermode, and Maitland McDonagh, along with production notes and sketches by del Toro and illustrators Carlos Giménez and Raúl Monge
DVD: Essays by Atkinson, Kermode, and McDonagh, and production notes for Cronos by del Toro

New designs by Vania Zouravliov (Blu-ray) and Guy Davis (DVD)

11 Oct 2016, Blu-Ray Collector’s Set, 3 Discs, SRP: $99.95

Boyhood

There has never been another movie like Boyhood, from director Richard Linklater. An event film of the utmost modesty, it was shot over the course of twelve years in the director’s native Texas and charts the physical and emotional changes experienced by a child named Mason (Ellar Coltrane), his divorced parents (Patricia Arquette, who won an Oscar for her performance, and Ethan Hawke), and his older sister (Lorelei Linklater). Alighting not on milestones but on the small, in-between moments that make up our lives, Linklater fashions a flawlessly acted, often funny portrait that flows effortlessly from one year to the next. Allowing us to watch people age on film with documentary realism while gripping us in a fictional narrative of exquisite everydayness, Boyhood has a power that only the art of cinema could harness.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED EDITION:

New 2K digital transfer, supervised by director Richard Linklater, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
New audio commentary featuring Linklater and nine members of the cast and crew
New documentary chronicling the film’s production, featuring footage shot over the course of its twelve years
New discussion featuring Linklater and actors Patricia Arquette and Ellar Coltrane, moderated by producer John Pierson
New conversation between Coltrane and actor Ethan Hawke
New video essay by critic Michael Koresky about time in Linklater’s films, narrated by Coltrane
Collection of portraits of cast and crew by photographer Matt Lankes, narrated with personal thoughts from Linklater, Arquette, Hawke, Coltrane and producer Cathleen Sutherland
PLUS: An essay by novelist Jonathan Lethem

New cover by F. Ron Miller

United States, 2014, 165 minutes, Color, 1.85:1, English, Spine #839

Short Cuts

The work of two great American artists merges in Short Cuts, a kaleidoscopic adaptation of the stories of renowned author Raymond Carver by maverick director Robert Altman. Epic in scale yet meticulously observed, the film interweaves the stories of twenty-two characters as they struggle to find solace and meaning in contemporary Los Angeles. The extraordinary ensemble cast includes Tim Robbins, Julianne Moore, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Lemmon, and Jennifer Jason Leigh—all giving fearless performances in what is one of Altman’s most compassionate creations.

New, restored 4K digital transfer, approved by cinematographer Walt Lloyd, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Alternate 5.1 soundtrack mix, plus isolated music track
Conversation between Altman and actor Tim Robbins from 2004 Luck, Trust & Ketchup: Robert Altman in Carver Country, a 1993 feature-length documentary on the making of Short Cuts
To Write and Keep Kind, a 1992 PBS documentary on the life of author Raymond Carver
One-hour 1983 audio interview with Carver, conducted for the American Audio Prose Library
Original demo recordings of the film’s Doc Pomus–Mac Rebennack songs, performed by Dr. John
Deleted scenes
A look inside the marketing of Short Cuts
PLUS: An essay by film critic Michael Wilmington

Cover design by Michael Boland, based on a theatrical poster

United States, 1993, 187 minutes, Color, 2.35:1, English, Spine #265

The Tree of Wooden Clogs

A painterly and sensual immersion in late nineteenth-century Italian farm life, Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs lovingly focuses on four families working for one landowner on an isolated estate in the province of Bergamo. Filming on an abandoned farm for four months, Olmi adapted neorealist techniques to tell his story, enlisting local people to live as their own ancestors had, speaking in their native dialect on locations with which they were intimately familiar. Through the cycle of seasons, of back-breaking labor, love and marriage, birth and death, faith and superstition, Olmi naturalistically evokes an existence very close to nature, one that celebrates its beauty, humor, and simplicity but also acknowledges the feudal cruelty that governs it. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1978, The Tree of Wooden Clogs is at once intimate in scale and epic in scope—a towering, heart-stirring work of humanist filmmaking.

New 4K restoration, created in collaboration with The Film Foundation at L’Immagine Ritrovata and supervised by director Ermanno Olmi, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Alternate Italian-language soundtrack
Ermanno Olmi: The Roots of the Tree, an hour-long episode of The South Bank Show from 1981, featuring an interview with Olmi on the film and a visit to the farm where it was shot
New program featuring cast and crew discussing the film at the Cinema Ritrovato film festival in Bologna, Italy, in 2016
Archival interviews with Olmi
Trailer
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: An essay by film critic Deborah Young

New cover by F. Ron Miller

The Executioner

This masterpiece of black humor, beloved in Spain but too little seen elsewhere, threads a scathing critique of Franco-era values through a macabre farce about an undertaker who marries an executioner’s daughter and reluctantly takes over her father’s job so the family can keep their government-allotted apartment. As caustic today as it was in 1963, this early collaboration between Luis García Berlanga and his longtime screenwriter Rafael Azcona is an unerring depiction of what Berlanga called “the invisible traps that society sets up for us.” A furiously funny personal attack on capital punishment, The Executioner escaped the state censors who sought to suppress it, and today is regarded as one of the greatest Spanish films of all time.

New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
New interview with filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar
New program on director Luis García Berlanga, featuring interviews with his son José Luis Berlanga; film critic Carlos F. Heredero; writers Fernando R. Lafuente and Bernardo Sánchez Salas; and director of the Berlanga Film Museum Rafael Maluenda
Spanish television program from 2012 on The Executioner, featuring archival interviews with Berlanga
Trailer
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: An essay by film critic David Cairns

New cover by Brian Stauffer

Spain, 1963, 92 minutes, Black and White, 1.66:1, Spanish, Spine #841

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