The Immortal Story (1968)

[Scottie]

Orson Welles’s first color film and final completed fictional feature, The Immortal Story is a moving and wistful adaptation of a tale by Isak Dinesen. Welles stars as a wealthy merchant in nineteenth-century Macao, who becomes obsessed with bringing to life an oft-related anecdote about a rich man who gives a poor sailor a small sum of money to impregnate his wife. Also starring an ethereal Jeanne Moreau, this jewel-like film, dreamily shot by Willy Kurant and suffused with the music of Erik Satie, is a brooding, evocative distillation of Welles’s artistic interests—a story about the nature of storytelling and the fine line between illusion and reality.

Disc Features
New, restored 4K digital transfer of the English-language version of the film, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Alternate French-language version of the film
Audio commentary from 2005 featuring film scholar Adrian Martin
Portrait: Orson Welles, a 1968 documentary directed by François Reichenbach and Frédéric Rossif
New interview with actor Norman Eshley
Interview from 2004 with cinematographer Willy Kurant
New interview with Welles scholar François Thomas
PLUS: An essay by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum

New cover by Sterling Hundley

https://www.criterion.com/films/2767...immortal-story

[javi92]

Kind of surprising this warrants a stand-alone release. Will probably pick up in a sale though.

[noirjunkie]

Originally Posted by javi92

Kind of surprising this warrants a stand-alone release. Will probably pick up in a sale though.

I thought Criterion would include it as an extra with Chimes at Midnight, but I'm just as happy to get it as a stand-alone release. I'm just happy that I'll be able to own it on blu-ray, period.

[Scottie]

[Scarface32]

Got these delivered today:

[BwayJ]

I just watched this film on Hulu and will probably get during the Barnes sale. However, I'm curious about the 58-minute running time listed for the Criterion release when the Hulu version runs 62 minutes. What is the real running time on the Blu-ray, and what, if anything, is missing from the movie?

[Majin Blu]

Originally Posted by BwayJ

I just watched this film on Hulu and will probably get during the Barnes sale. However, I'm curious about the 58-minute running time listed for the Criterion release when the Hulu version runs 62 minutes. What is the real running time on the Blu-ray, and what, if anything, is missing from the movie?

I know the English version is 58 minutes long and the French version is 48 minutes long. There was something on IMDB about a TMC version, which was 62 minutes long, but I have never heard of that before (and I don't take what's on IMDB as gospel). I just noticed that when I typed it in Google, but I haven't found anything on it.

[Warm Gun]

Flashing black bars, like most of the discs in their Varda boxset. Wonder why their encoding does this.

[Show spoiler]

Actually, not just the black bars, those whole regions of the picture flash brighter. You just notice it more in the black.

[Rayjg]

Originally Posted by BwayJ

I just watched this film on Hulu and will probably get during the Barnes sale. However, I'm curious about the 58-minute running time listed for the Criterion release when the Hulu version runs 62 minutes. What is the real running time on the Blu-ray, and what, if anything, is missing from the movie?

Old post I know but I asked Criterion about this and according to them the version presented is Welles’s final cut. There is at least one brief scene missing that I’m aware of. A scene of Clay looking out his window. Welles removed it for whatever reason.