The Criterion Collection: March-February (2013) Releases: DVD, Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection March-February 2013 Releases. The Criterion Collection releases for March-February 2013 are The Ballad of Narayama, The Kid With a Bike, On the Waterfront, Chronicle of a Summer, Sansho the Bailiff, Ministry of Fear, The Blob, Badlands, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Man Escaped, and Monsieur Verdoux. Each film will be available on both DVD and Blu-ray.

The Criterion Collection releases for February 2013:

Table of Contents

The Ballad of Narayama

Quote: Release Date: 5 Feb 2013
SRP: $29.95

Synopsis: This haunting, kabuki-inflected version of a Japanese folk legend is set in a remote mountain village, where food is scarce and tradition dictates that citizens who have reached their seventieth year must be carried to the summit of Mount Narayama and left there to die. The sacrificial elder at the center of the tale is Orin (Kinuyo Tanaka), a dignified and dutiful woman who spends her dwindling days securing the happiness of her loyal widowed son with a respectable new wife. Filmed almost entirely on cunningly designed studio sets, in brilliant color and widescreen, The Ballad of Narayama is a stylish and vividly formal work from Japan’s cinematic golden age, directed by the dynamic Keisuke Kinoshita.

Disc Features
-New 4K digital master from the 2011 restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
-Trailer and teaser
-New English subtitle translation
-A booklet featuring an essay by critic Philip Kemp

The Kid With a Bike

Quote: Release Date: 12 Feb 2013
SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: Twelve-year-old Cyril (Thomas Doret), all coiled anger and furious motion, is living in a group home but refuses to believe he has been rejected by his single father (Jérémie Renier). He spends his days frantically trying to reach the man, over the phone or on his beloved bicycle. It is only the patience and compassion of Samantha (Cécile de France), the stranger who agrees to care for him, that offers the boy the chance to move on. Spare and unsentimental but deeply imbued with a heart-rending tenderness, The Kid with a Bike is an arresting work from the great Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, masters of the empathetic action film.

Disc Features
-New digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Alain Marcoen, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
-Conversation between film critic Kent Jones and directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
-Interviews with actors Cécile de France and Thomas Doret
– Return to Seraing, a half-hour documentary in which the Dardennes revisit five locations from the film
-Trailer
-New English subtitle translation
-A booklet featuring an essay by critic Geoff Andrew

On the Waterfront

Quote: Release Date: 19 Feb 2013
SRP: $49.95

Synopsis: Marlon Brando gives the performance of his career as the tough prizefighter-turned-longshoreman Terry Malloy in this masterpiece of urban poetry, a raggedly emotional tale of individual failure and institutional corruption. On the Waterfront charts Terry’s deepening moral crisis as he must choose whether to remain loyal to the mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) and Johnny’s right-hand man, Terry’s brother, Charley (Rod Steiger), as the authorities close in on them. Driven by the vivid, naturalistic direction of Elia Kazan and savory, streetwise dialogue by Budd Schulberg, On the Waterfront was an instant sensation, winning eight Oscars, including for best picture, director, actor, supporting actress (Eva Marie Saint), and screenplay..

Disc Features
-New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
-Alternate presentations of the restoration in two additional aspect ratios: 1.85:1 (widescreen) and 1.33:1 (full-screen)
-Alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition
-Commentary featuring authors Richard Schickel and Jeff Young
-Conversation between filmmaker Martin Scorsese and critic Kent Jones
– Elia Kazan: Outsider (1982), an hour-long documentary
-New documentary on the making of the film, featuring interviews with scholar Leo Braudy, critic David Thomson, and others
-New interview with actress Eva Marie Saint
-Interview with director Elia Kazan from 2001
– Contender, a 2001 documentary on the film’s most famous scene
-New interview with longshoreman Thomas Hanley, an actor in the film
-New interview with author James T. Fisher ( On the Irish Waterfront) about the real-life people and places behind the film
-Visual essay on Leonard Bernstein’s score
-Visual essay on the aspect ratio
-Trailer
-A booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Almereyda and reprints of Kazan’s 1952 ad in the New York Times defending his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, one of the 1948 New York Sun articles by Malcolm Johnson on which the film was based, and a 1953 Commonweal piece by screenwriter Budd Schulberg

Chronicle of a Summer

Quote: Release Date: 26 Feb 2013
SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: Few films can claim to be as influential to the course of cinema history as Chronicle of a Summer. The fascinating result of a collaboration between filmmaker-anthropologist Jean Rouch and sociologist Edgar Morin, this vanguard work of what Morin would term cinéma verité is a brilliantly conceived and realized sociopolitical diagnosis of the early sixties in France. By simply interviewing a group of Paris residents in the summer of 1960—beginning with the provocative and eternal question “Are you happy?” and expanding to political issues, including the ongoing Algerian War—Rouch and Morin reveal the hopes and dreams of a wide array of people, from artists to factory workers, from an Italian émigré to an African student. Chronicle of a Summer’s penetrative approach gives us a document of a time and place with extraordinary emotional depth.

Disc Features
-New high-definition digital transfer of the Cineteca di Bologna restoration of the film, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
– Un été + 50 (2011), a seventy-three-minute documentary featuring outtakes and new interviews with codirector Edgar Morin and some of the film’s subjects
-Archival interviews with codirector Jean Rouch and Marceline Loridan, one of the film’s subjects
-New interview with anthropology professor Faye Ginsburg, organizer of several Rouch retrospectives
-New and improved English subtitle translation
-A booklet featuring an essay by scholar Sam Di Iorio

Sansho the Bailiff

Quote: Release Date: 26 Feb 2013
SRP: $39.95

Advertisement

 

Synopsis: When an idealistic governor disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile, his wife and children left to fend for themselves and eventually separated by vicious slave traders. Under the dazzling direction of Kenji Mizoguchi, this classic Japanese story became one of cinema’s greatest masterpieces, a monumental, empathetic expression of human resilience in the face of evil.

Disc Features
-Restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
-Audio commentary by Japanese-literature professor Jeffrey Angles
-Video interviews with critic Tadao Sato, assistant director Tokuzo Tanaka, and legendary actress Kyoko Kagawa, on the making of the film and its lasting importance
-A book featuring an essay by film writer Mark Le Fanu and two versions of the story on which the film was based: Ogai Mori’s 1915 “Sansho Dayu” and a written form of an earlier oral variation

The Criterion Collection releases for March 2013:

Ministry of Fear

Quote: Release Date: 12 March 2013
SRP: $29.95

Synopsis: Suffused with dread and paranoia, this Fritz Lang adaptation of a novel by Graham Greene is a plunge into the eerie shadows of a world turned upside down by war. En route to London after being released from a mental institution, Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) stops at a seemingly innocent village fair, after which he finds himself caught in the web of a sinister underworld with possible Nazi connections. Lang was among the most illustrious of the European émigré filmmakers working in Hollywood during World War II, and Ministry of Fear is one of his finest American productions, an unpredictable thriller with style to spare.

Disc Features
-New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
-New interview with Fritz Lang scholar Joe McElhaney
-Trailer
-An essay by critic Glenn Kenny

The Blob

Quote: Release Date: 12 March 2013
SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: A cult classic of gooey greatness, The Blob follows the havoc wreaked on a small town by an outer-space monster with neither soul nor vertebrae, with Steve McQueen playing the rebel teen who tries to warn the residents about the jellylike invader. Strong performances and ingenious special effects help The Blob transcend the schlock sci-fi and youth delinquency genres from which it originates. Made outside of Hollywood by a maverick film distributor and a crew whose credits mostly comprised religious and educational shorts, The Blob helped launch the careers of McQueen and composer Burt Bacharach, whose bouncy title song is just one of this film’s many unexpected pleasures.

Disc Features
-New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
-Two audio commentaries: one by producer Jack H. Harris and film historian Bruce Eder and the other by director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. and actor Robert Fields
-Trailer
– Blobabilia!, a gallery of collector Wes Shank’s rare trove of stills, posters, props (including the blob itself!), and other ephemera
-An essay by critic Kim Newman

Badlands

Quote: Release Date: 19 March 2013
SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: Badlands announced the arrival of a major talent: Terrence Malick. His impressionistic take on the notorious Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate killing spree of the late 1950s uses a serial-killer narrative as a springboard for an oblique teenage romance, lovingly and idiosyncratically enacted by Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. The film also introduced many of the elements that would earn Malick his passionate following: the enigmatic approach to narrative and character, the unusual use of voice-over, the juxtaposition of human violence with natural beauty, the poetic investigation of American dreams and nightmares. This debut has spawned countless imitations, but none have equaled its strange sublimity.

Disc Features
-New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
– Making “Badlands,” a new documentary featuring actors Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek and production designer Jack Fisk
-New interview with editor Billy Weber about director Terrence Malick’s unique approach to editing
-New interview with producer Edward Pressman
-Trailer
-A booklet featuring an essay by filmmaker Michael Almereyda

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Quote: Release Date: 19 March 2013
SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: Considered by many to be the finest British film ever made, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is a stirring masterpiece like no other. Roger Livesey dynamically embodies outmoded English militarism as the indelible General Clive Candy, who barely survives four decades of tumultuous British history (1902 to 1942) only to see the world change irrevocably before his eyes. Anton Walbrook and Deborah Kerr provide unforgettable support, he as a German enemy turned lifelong friend of Candy’s and she as young women of three consecutive generations—a socially committed governess, a sweet-souled war nurse, and a modern-thinking army driver—who inspire him. Colonel Blimp is both moving and slyly satirical, an incomparable film about war, love, aging, and obsolescence shot in gorgeous Technicolor.

Disc Features
-New 4K digital master from the 2012 Film Foundation restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
-Audio commentary featuring director Michael Powell and filmmaker Martin Scorsese
-Video introduction by Scorsese
– A Profile of “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp,” a twenty-four-minute documentary
-Restoration demonstration, hosted by Scorsese
-Interview with editor Thelma Schoonmaker Powell, Michael Powell’s widow
-Gallery featuring rare behind-the-scenes production stills
-Gallery tracing the history of David Low’s original Colonel Blimp cartoons
-A booklet featuring an essay by critic Molly Haskell

A Man Escaped

Quote: Release Date: 26 March 2013
SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: With the simplest of concepts and sparest of techniques, Robert Bresson made one of the most suspenseful jailbreak films of all time in A Man Escaped. Based on the memoirs of an imprisoned French resistance leader, this unbelievably taut and methodical marvel follows the fictional Fontaine’s single-minded pursuit of freedom, detailing the planning and carrying out of his escape with gripping precision. But Bresson’s film is not merely process-minded—it’s a work of intense spirituality and humanity.

Disc Features
-New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
– Bresson: Without a Trace, a 1965 episode of the television program Cinéastes de notre temps in which the director gives his first on-camera interview
– The Essence of Forms, a forty-five-minute documentary from 2010 in which some of Bresson’s collaborators and admirers, including actor François Leterrier and director Bruno Dumont, share their thoughts about the director and his work
-New visual essay with text by film scholars David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
-Trailer
-New English subtitle translation
-A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Tony Pipolo

Monsieur Verdoux

Quote: Release Date: 26 March 2013
SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin plays shockingly against type in his most controversial film, a brilliant and bleak black comedy about money, marriage, and murder. Chaplin is a twentieth-century Bluebeard, an enigmatic family man who goes to extreme lengths to support his wife and child, attempting to bump off a series of wealthy widows (including one played by the indefatigable Martha Raye, in a hilarious performance). This deeply philosophical and wildly entertaining film is a work of true sophistication, both for the moral questions it dares to ask and the way it deconstructs its megastar’s loveable on-screen persona.

Disc Features
-New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
– Chaplin Today: “Monsieur Verdoux,” a 2003 program on the film’s production and release, featuring filmmaker Claude Chabrol and actor Norman Lloyd
-Charlie Chaplin and the American Press, a new documentary featuring Chaplin specialist Kate Guyonvarch and author Charles Maland
-New video essay featuring an audio interview with actress Marilyn Nash
-Radio advertisements and trailers
-A booklet featuring an essay by critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky and reprinted pieces by Chaplin and critic André Bazin

 Source: Dvdactive