This has been a big month for the Criterion Collection: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button released on Criterion Blu, a massive sale on Criterion Blu-ray discs at Amazon.com (up to 45% off the MSRP) and an opportunity to vote on the next film to receive the Criterion Blu-ray treatment.
The Blu-ray Blog was inspired by this and decided to take a look at our own collections of Criterion DVDs to determine which films were most deserving of the upgrade to high-def. It was a tough decision to make but ultimately, as the transfer would be the most notable improvement when moving to Blu, the films with the most visual punch won out.
Without further ado:
THE TOP 10 CRITERION DVDS THAT DESERVE A BLU-RAY UPGRADE
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In Contempt (Le mépris), his sixth film, Jean-Luc Godard does big-budget commercial moviemaking with style. And every penny is up there on the screen for us to see. Like a lot of the films on this list, you’d be fairly safe recommending almost any DVD by the director in question as one worthy of the upgrade to Blu-ray. In Godard’s case, the choice had to be Contempt for it’s startling use of colour and elegant, “ribbony Cinemascope”. Oh, and Brigitte Bardot has never looked better!
DVD FEATURES:
• New high-definition digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Raoul Coutard and enhanced for widescreen televisions
• Audio commentary by film scholar Robert Stam
• The Dinosaur and the Baby (1967): a conversation between Jean-Luc Godard and Fritz Lang (61 minutes)
• Two documentaries featuring Godard on the set of Contempt: Bardot et Godard (8 minutes) and Paparazzi (22 minutes)
• Jean-Luc Godard interview excerpt (1964)
• A new video interview with legendary cinematographer Raoul Coutard
• Original theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
• Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition
Before Russel Crowe commanded the screen as the lord of the sword and sandal set, Kirk Douglas starred as the gladiator Spartacus, a slave who led a revolt against his Roman masters. A 30 year-old Stanley Kubrick directed (after Anthony Mann was fired by producer/star, Douglas) a cast of 10,500 with a script crafted by black-listed Dalton Trumbo in this sweeping epic that defined the genre. To capture the grandeur called for in the production, Kubrick opted for the 35 mm Technirama format, blown up to 70 mm film – an unusual choice as he generally preferred using square-format ratios. The resulting images are monumental to behold and would win cinematographer Russell Metty an Academy Award, validating Kubrick’s aesthetic decisions and earning Spatacus a place on the list of the Criterion films most deserving of the upgrade to High-Def Blu-ray.
DVD FEATURES:
• Stunning new 16×9 transfer of the 1991 fully restored Super Technirama version
• Dolby Digital 5.1 surround soundtrack
• Audio commentary by producer-actor Kirk Douglas, actor Peter Ustinov, novelist Howard Fast, producer Edward Lewis, restoration expert Robert A. Harris, and designer Saul Bass
• Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo’s scene-by-scene analysis
• Restoration demonstration
• Rare deleted scenes
• Vintage newsreel footage
• 1960 promotional interviews with Jean Simmons and Peter Ustinov
• 1992 video interview with Peter Ustinov
• Behind-the-scenes “gladiatorial school” footage
• The 1960 documentary The Hollywood Ten, plus archival documents about the blacklist
• Original storyboards by Saul Bass
• Hundreds of production stills, lobby cards, posters, print ads, and a comic book
• Sketches by director Stanley Kubrick
• Original theatrical trailer
• Additional Alex North score compositions
• English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired
I love Nicholas Roeg. Pretty much everything he’s done. I also love that Criterion grabs up as many Roeg licenses as they can, restoring and remastering some of the most gorgeous and influential films put to celluloid. And Walkabout is amongst the most beautiful.
Roeg was a cinematographer and brought his immaculate eye to bear on Walkabout, the journey of a young brother and sister abandoned in the Australian outback by their suicidal father, then led to safety by an indigenous boy completing his journey to manhood. This is a narrative built on images. The film is light on dialogue (the shooting “script” was a mere fourteen page outline) and heavily dependent on lush, breathtaking pictures to tell the story. Walkabout in 1080p would be high-def heaven.
DVD FEATURES:
• Audio commentary by Nicolas Roeg and Jenny Agutter
• Original, unedited director’s cut
• Theatrical trailers
• Subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired
• An essay by Roger Ebert
7. THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST
Adapted from the 1960 novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, with stunning, minimalist photography by Michael Ballhaus and a game-changing world music soundtrack by Peter Gabriel, Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader‘s The Last Temptation of Christ would be a treat for the senses on Blu-ray. It’s a film awash with blood, sun-drenched deserts and vibrant marketplaces: some of the most jarring and electric visions of the Middle East ever captured on film. This is a literate, complex and unflinching film that deserves to be seen on the biggest screens possible, in the highest resolution available.
DVD FEATURES:
• New widescreen digital transfer, approved by the filmmakers and enhanced for widescreen televisions
• New Dolby Digital 5.1 channel soundtrack by original supervising sound editor Skip Lievsay
• Audio commentary by Martin Scorsese, Willem Dafoe, Paul Schrader, and Jay Cocks
• An extensive collection of research materials, production stills, and costume designs
• Location production footage, shot by Scorsese
• Video interview with composer Peter Gabriel, plus a stills gallery of the instruments used in the film score
• English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired
• Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition
Fellini! How am I supposed to choose a single Fellini film for this list. With so many classics in the Criterion catalogue it’s almost impossible. Do I go with the carnivalesque Amarcord, the kaleidoscopic technicolor Juliet of the Spirits or one of his numerous, early black and white masterpieces?
Ultimately, if forced to choose which of Fellini’s cinematic gems will be fortunate enough to be the first to receive the gift of a 108op transfer, I’d have to go with 8 1/2 (Otto e mezzo), often referred to as one of the greatest films of all time. This Academy Award winner for Best Foreign-Language Film of 1963 depicts an Italian director (Marcello Mastroianni) struggling half-heartedly to work on a film while a constant stream of flashbacks and dreamscapes illustrate a subconscious representation of his artistic and marital difficulties. Cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo‘s images are an essential element of the narrative, aiding the navigation of this “complex assemblage of dream, memory, imagination and reality” with subtle gradations of light and shadow.
DVD FEATURES:
• New digital transfer of restored film elements, enhanced for 16×9 televisions, with digital image restoration
• Screen-specific audio essay featuring commentary by film critic and Fellini friend Gideon Bachmann and NYU Professor of Film Antonio Monda
• Introduction by Terry Gilliam, director of Brazil and 12 Monkeys
• Fellini: A Director’s Notebook, a 52-minute film by Federico Fellini
• Nino Rota: Between Cinema and Concert, a compelling 48-minute documentary about the maestro behind the music of Fellini’s films
• Interviews with actress Sandra Milo, director Lina Wertmüller, whose career began on the set of 8 1/2, and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who discusses the revolutionary art of Gianni di Venanzo
• Rare photographs from the collection of Gideon Bachmann
• Gallery of behind-the-scenes and production photos
• Theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitles
• Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition
• 22-page booklet featuring essays by Fellini, longtime Fellini collaborator and critic Tullio Kezich, and film professor and author Alexander Sesonske
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