Anyone want my old Criterion released Autumn Sonata DVD from 1999? This new Blu-ray release has just made it totally irrelevant. Wow! What a bump in special features. This is what I love to see – a disc that originally only had a commentary track now bursting with bonus goodies. Not to mention the new HD transfer and lossless audio.
But the Ingmar Bergman upgrade isn’t the golden pup of the litter this time around. I don’t think there’s a more exciting title in these September releases than the Roberto Rossellini/Ingrid Bergman box. Wow, what a gem that’s going to be – three great films, all new HD transfers, tons of extras. I can’t wait.
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES
(September 10, 2013 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.66:1 1080p
Audio: uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Special Features:
- New 2K digital film restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New interview with director Edouard Molinaro
- Archival footage featuring actor Michel Serrault and Jean Poiret, writer and star of the original stage production of La Cage aux Folles
- New interview with Laurence Senelick, author of The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre
- French and U.S. trailers
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic David Ehrenstein
- More!
New cover by Maurice Vellekoop
THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD
(September 10, 2013 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.66:1 1080p
Audio: uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Special Features:
- New, high-definition digital film restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New, exclusive, wide-ranging interview with author John le Carré
- Selected-scene commentary featuring director of photography Oswald Morris
- The Secret Center: John le Carré, a 2000 BBC documentary on the author’s life and work
- Interview with actor Richard Burton from a 1967 episode of the BBC series Acting in the ’60s, conducted by critic Kenneth Tynan
- Audio conversation from 1985 between director Martin Ritt and film historian Patrick McGilligan
- Gallery of set designs
- Trailer
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PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Sragow
New cover by Eric Skillman
SLACKER
(September 17, 2013 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.33:1 1080p
Audio: 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio
Special Features:
- New, restored high-definition digital film transfer, supervised by director Richard Linklater and director of photography Lee Daniel, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- Three audio commentaries, featuring Linklater and members of the cast and crew
- It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988), Linklater’s first full-length feature, with commentary by the director
- Woodshock, a 1985 16 mm short by Linklater and Daniel
- Casting tapes featuring select “auditions” from the more-than-100-member cast
- “The Roadmap,” the working script for Slacker, including fourteen deleted scenes and alternate takes (DVD)
- Deleted scenes and alternate takes (Blu-ray)
- Footage from the Slacker tenth-anniversary reunion
- Early film treatment
- Home movies
- Ten-minute trailer for a 2005 documentary about the landmark Austin café Les Amis
- Original theatrical trailer
- Stills gallery featuring hundreds of rare behind-the-scenes production and publicity photos (DVD only)
- Slacker culture essay by Linklater (DVD only)
- Information about the Austin Film Society, founded in 1985 by Linklater with Daniel, including early flyers from screenings (DVD only)
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PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by author and filmmaker John Pierson and Michael Barker, as well as reviews, production notes, and an introduction to It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books by director Monte Hellman
New cover by Marc English
AUTUMN SONATA
(September 17, 2013 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.66:1 1080p
Audio: uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Special Features:
- New 2K digital film restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- Introduction by director Ingmar Bergman from 2003
- Audio commentary featuring Bergman expert Peter Cowie
- The Making of “Autumn Sonata,” a three-and-a-half-hour program examining every aspect of the production
- New interview with actor Liv Ullmann
- A 1981 conversation between actor Ingrid Bergman and critic John Russell Taylor at the National Film Theatre in London
- Trailer
- English-dubbed track
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme
New cover by Robert Hunt
3 FILMS BY ROBERTO ROSSELLINI STARRING INGRID BERGMAN
(September 24, 2013 – MSRP $99.95)
Video: 1.37:1 1080p
Audio: uncompressed monaural soundtrack
STROMBOLI Special Features:
- New digital film restoration of the English-language version, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New, restored 2K digital film transfer of the Italian-language version, Stromboli terra di Dio, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- Archival television introduction by director Roberto Rossellini
- New interview with film critic Adriano Aprà
- Rossellini Under the Volcano, a 1998 documentary that returns to the island of Stromboli fifty years after the making of Stromboli
- New English subtitle translation
EUROPA ’51 Special Features:
- New digital film restoration of the English-language version, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New digital film restoration of the Italian-language version, Europa ’51, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- Archival television introduction by director Roberto Rossellini
- New interview with critic Adriano Aprà
- New interview with film historian Elena Dagrada about the different versions of Europe ’51
- New interviews with Isabella Rossellini and Ingrid Rossellini, daughters of Roberto Rossellini and Bergman (DVD)
- My Dad Is 100 Years Old, a 2005 short film, directed by Guy Maddin and starring Isabella Rossellini (DVD)
- New interview with Fiorella Mariani, Rossellini’s niece, featuring home movies shot by Bergman (DVD)
- The Chicken, a 1952 short film by Roberto Rossellini, starring Bergman (DVD)
- New English subtitle translation
JOURNEY TO ITALY Special Features:
- New, restored 2K digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Archival television introduction by director Roberto Rossellini
- Audio commentary featuring film scholar Laura Mulvey
- New visual essays about Rossellini by scholars Tag Gallagher and James Quandt
- New interview with critic Adriano Aprà
- Ingrid Bergman Remembered, a 1996 documentary on the actor’s life, narrated by her daughter Pia Lindstrom
- A Short Visit with the Rossellini Family, a six-minute film shot on Capri while the family was there during the production of Journey to Italy
- New interviews with Isabella Rossellini and Ingrid Rossellini, daughters of Roberto Rossellini and Bergman (Blu-ray)
- Rossellini Through His Own Eyes, a 1992 documentary on the filmmaker’s approach to cinema, featuring archival interviews with Rossellini and actor Ingrid Bergman (Blu-ray)
- New interview with Fiorella Mariani, Rossellini’s niece, featuring home movies shot by Bergman
- My Dad Is 100 Years Old, a 2005 short film, directed by Guy Maddin and starring Isabella Rossellini (Blu-ray)
- The Chicken, a 1952 short film by Roberto Rossellini, starring Bergman (Blu-ray)
