True, but they could be doing a much better job of at least trying to release even a tiny bit more than they already are from countries other than the US, Japan France and Italy. You are giving me the impression that you're satisfied with how much/little Criterion is releasing from their "lesser represented" countries. Which is totally fine. My complaint is that I'm not and I believe that's a reasonable complaint to have. I honestly don't know why people are telling me it isn't, unless I'm just not very good at communication today.
No, I'm not satisfied. On the other hand, I'm mostly thrilled with what they do release. I mean, sure, I'd love to see them release Raise the Red Lantern (China) or Owl and the Sparrow (Vietnam) or Found Memories (Brazil) or Kolya (Czechoslovakia) or Butterfly (Spain) or Bliss (Turkey) or No One Knows About Persian Cats (Iran) or Mother of Mine (Finland/Sweden). I could go on. But would I want to give up more releases from Kurosawa, Ozu, Hirokazu, Ray, Melville, Bergman, Renoir, etc., etc.? No, not really.
I think you have a reasonable complaint. But I think what you're missing is that it's (not unreasonably) driven by your specific tastes. And as someone else pointed out, Criterion doesn't release or not release films based on any person's specific tastes. For those of us thrilled to see them release something like La ciénaga, there are a lot of other people saying "Never heard of it. What's the hold-up on The Brood?" Are the opinions of the latter of less value than the opinions of the former?
I don't have a problem with you being disappointed, but I do find it a bit much when you insist that Criterion "doesn't care" because they aren't releasing enough of what you want.
It's not that. It's the sense that "just 1 of 2 more titles from literally any other Asian country besides Japan" won't be enough. Besides, you should know by now that they will be releasing Ray's Apu Trilogy late this year. That's three more Asian titles not from Japan, which is more than you asked for.
Or am I taking you too literally again?
India is South Asia -- even known as a subcontinent.
Hmm, The Bridge looks interesting and I've been wanting to check out Valerie (it's in my Hulu queue, but I haven't gotten around to it). I wasn't too big on Vanya on 42nd Street, so I'll probably pass on the box set (though I'm sure the box set will look beautiful; I think the cover for it looks pretty nice; I'm guessing, though, that the box set will have the skinnier digipaks). Gilliam doesn't do much for me (I've seen Brazil and Fear and Loathing; I did not like Brazil but found F&L to be quite good), and I haven't given much thought to Five Easy Pieces.
So if the only film I get is The Bridge, I'd be happy with that.
Criterion is really taking their time with The Apu trilogy.
They explained this at the most recent Wexner talk. The restorations of the Apu Trilogy will be making the rounds of the arthouse circuit in September. Criterion plans to release them on BD and DVD after that.
I'll stick with my Second Run disc of Valerie and will rent The Bridge. I'll have to revisit Fisher King - I recall liking it when it was first released, but haven't seen it since. I have copies of the Wallace/Shawn films on DVD, so don't have an overwhelming need to upgrade there. Nice to get a light month now and again, budget-wise.
No, I'm not satisfied. On the other hand, I'm mostly thrilled with what they do release. I mean, sure, I'd love to see them release Raise the Red Lantern (China) or Owl and the Sparrow (Vietnam) or Found Memories (Brazil) or Kolya (Czechoslovakia) or Butterfly (Spain) or Bliss (Turkey) or No One Knows About Persian Cats (Iran) or Mother of Mine (Finland/Sweden). I could go on. But would I want to give up more releases from Kurosawa, Ozu, Hirokazu, Ray, Melville, Bergman, Renoir, etc., etc.? No, not really.
I think you have a reasonable complaint. But I think what you're missing is that it's (not unreasonably) driven by your specific tastes. And as someone else pointed out, Criterion doesn't release or not release films based on any person's specific tastes. For those of us thrilled to see them release something like La ciénaga, there are a lot of other people saying "Never heard of it. What's the hold-up on The Brood?" Are the opinions of the latter of less value than the opinions of the former?
I don't have a problem with you being disappointed, but I do find it a bit much when you insist that Criterion "doesn't care" because they aren't releasing enough of what you want.
Woah, hold up. Hirokazu Koreeda is one of my favorite filmmakers but he only has 1 film in the collection, unlike Kurosawa, Ozu, Ray, Melville, Bergman and Renoir. Take him out of that lineup.
I'm definitely aware that this complaint is driven by my specific tastes, although I don't know why I'd be making it if it weren't. In any case, all opinions are valid but mine is that yeah, I'd be fine with giving up a few releases (in the future) of the better-included filmmakers if it meant others from the less-represented countries took their place. You're not, which is fine and the reason why we're in disagreement here.
You can look at it as Criterion "doesn't care" or that the people in charge have more specific tastes than me in certain areas. That is, they are specifically interested in Japan at the expense of China, Korea, etc. I'm resigned to that fact but I'm still not happy about it.
Pretty exciting stuff in that June slate. The Fisher King and Valerie & Her Week of Wonders (AWWW YEAH) are definite pick-ups. No interest in The Bridge. I've already got Five Easy Pieces from the BBS set. I feel a bit peeved that I'm being punished for buying Vanya early and at $20 when I could have paid $40 at B&N a little while later for all 3 of those films. I want Andre and Master Builder but I can't get over the diss. That's not cool.
And that means what relative to the discussion at hand? Is "South Asia" somehow not part of Asia"?
His post was totally nonsensical in context and didn't mean anything, but I think most people generally consider Indian films and Russian films to not be "Asian" and lump the ones made by people that look ethnically "asian" all together (ex China/Japan/Korea/Vietnam etc). So technically all of them are asian films, but when someone says "asian" film they're usually only referring specifically to east and maybe southeast asia.
Good on them for releasing the Apu Trilogy later this year. He must be another significant seller for them, considering the number of releases his films have received on Criterion and Eclipse.
A lot of what gets released has to do with what has been restored. Ray's films have undergone an extensive restoration.
Never heard of Valarie and her week of wonders, but that's the only film to seems to hold my interest, and based on the descriptions, most of these will only come with fold out leaflets.
When André Gregory and Wallace Shawn—theater directors, writers, actors, and longtime friends—sat down for a stimulating meal in 1981’s My Dinner with André, they not only ended up with one of cinema’s unlikeliest iconic scenarios but launched a film collaboration that would continue to pay creative dividends for decades. The subsequent projects they made together for the screen—1994’s Vanya on 42nd Street, a passionate read-through of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, and 2014’s striking Henrik Ibsen interpretation A Master Builder—are penetrating works that exist on the edge of theater and film, and that both emerged out of many years of rehearsals with loyal troupes of actors. Gregory and Shawn’s unique contributions to the cinematic landscape are shape-shifting, challenging, and entertaining works about the process of creation.
MY DINNER WITH ANDRÉ
In this captivating and philosophical film directed by Louis Malle (Au revoir les enfants), Wallace Shawn sits down with his friend André Gregory at a restaurant on New York’s Upper West Side, and the pair proceed through an alternately whimsical and despairing confessional about love, death, money, and all the superstition in between. Playing variations on their own New York–honed personas, Shawn and Gregory, who also cowrote the screenplay, dive in with introspective intellectual gusto, and Malle captures it all with a delicate, artful detachment. A fascinating freeze-frame of cosmopolitan culture, My Dinner with André remains a unique work in cinema history.
1981 • 111 minutes • Color • Monaural • 1.66:1 aspect ratio
VANYA ON 42ND STREET
In the early 1990s, André Gregory mounted a series of spare, private performances of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in a crumbling Manhattan playhouse. This experiment in pure theater—featuring a remarkable cast of actors, including Wallace Shawn, Julianne Moore, Brooke Smith, and George Gaynes—would have been lost to time had it not been captured on film, with subtle cinematic brilliance, by Louis Malle. Vanya on 42nd Street is as memorable and emotional a version of Chekhov’s masterpiece as one would ever hope to see.
1994 • 119 minutes • Color • Stereo • 1.66:1 aspect ratio
A MASTER BUILDER
Twenty years after Vanya on 42nd Street, Wallace Shawn and André Gregory reunited to produce another idiosyncratic big-screen version of a classic play, this time Henrik Ibsen’s Bygmester Solness (Master Builder Solness). Brought pristinely to the screen by Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs), this is a compellingly abstract reimagining; it features Shawn (who also wrote the adaptation) as a visionary yet tyrannical middle-aged architect haunted by figures from his past. A Master Builder, like Vanya, is the result of many years of rehearsals, a living, breathing, constantly shifting work that unites theater, film, and dream.
2014 • 127 minutes • Color • 5.1 surround • 1.78:1/2.35:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION COLLECTOR’S SET FEATURES
• High-definition digital restoration of My Dinner with André, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray; restored high-definition digital transfer of Vanya on 42nd Street, supervised by director of photography Declan Quinn, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray; and high-definition digital master of A Master Builder, supervised by Quinn, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Interview from 2009 with André Gregory and Wallace Shawn about My Dinner with André, conducted by their friend the filmmaker Noah Baumbach
• “ My Dinner with Louis,” a 1982 episode of the BBC program Arena in which Shawn interviews director Louis Malle
• Documentary from 2012 about Vanya on 42nd Street, featuring interviews with Gregory; actors Lynn Cohen, George Gaynes, Julianne Moore, Larry Pine, Shawn, and Brooke Smith; and producer Fred Berner
• New interviews about A Master Builder with Gregory, Shawn, director Jonathan Demme, and actors Julie Hagerty and Lisa Joyce
• New program featuring Gregory, Shawn, and their friend the author Fran Lebowitz in conversation
• Trailers for Vanya on 42nd Street and A Master Builder
• PLUS: Essays on the films by critics Amy Taubin, Steve Vineberg, and Michael Sragow; the prefaces written by Gregory and Shawn for the 1981 publication of My Dinner with André’s screenplay; and a 1994 report by Taubin from the set of Vanya on 42nd Street
TITLE: ANDRÉ GREGORY & WALLACE SHAWN: 3 FILMS (3-BLU-RAY EDITION)
SRP $99.95
STREET 6/16/15
CAT. NO. CC2493BD
ISBN 1-68143-005-3
UPC 7-15515-14871-9
A MASTER BUILDER - Blu-ray
Twenty years after their brilliant cinema-theater experiment Vanya on 42nd Street, Wallace Shawn and André Gregory reunited to produce another idiosyncratic big-screen version of a classic play, this time Henrik Ibsen’s Bygmester Solness (Master Builder Solness). Brought pristinely to the screen by Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs), this is a compellingly abstract reimagining; it features Shawn (who also wrote the adaptation) as a visionary but tyrannical middle-aged architect haunted by figures from his past, most acutely an attractive, vivacious young woman (the breathtaking newcomer Lisa Joyce) who has appeared on his doorstep. Also featuring standout supporting performances from Julie Hagerty (Airplane!), Larry Pine (Moonrise Kingdom), and Gregory, A Master Builder, like Vanya, is the result of many years of rehearsals, a living, breathing, constantly shifting work that unites theater, film, and dream.
2014 • 127 minutes • Color • 5.1 surround • 1.78:1/2.35:1 aspect ratio
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• High-definition digital master, supervised by director of photography Declan Quinn, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interview with director Jonathan Demme, director and star André Gregory, and screenwriter and actor Wallace Shawn, conducted by film critic David Edelstein
• New conversation between actors Julie Hagerty and Lisa Joyce
• New program featuring Gregory, Shawn, and their friend the author Fran Lebowitz in conversation
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Michael Sragow
TITLE: A MASTER BUILDER (BLU-RAY EDITION)
SRP $39.95
STREET 6/16/15
CAT. NO. CC2490BD
ISBN 1-68143-003-7
UPC 7-15515-14851-1
MY DINNER WITH ANDRÉ - Blu-ray Edition
In this captivating and philosophical film directed by Louis Malle (Au revoir les enfants), actor and playwright Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride) sits down with his friend the theater director André Gregory (Vanya on 42nd Street) at a restaurant on New York’s Upper West Side, and the pair proceed through an alternately whimsical and despairing confessional about love, death, money, and all the superstition in between. Playing variations on their own New York–honed personas, Shawn and Gregory, who also cowrote the screenplay, dive in with introspective intellectual gusto, and Malle captures it all with a delicate, artful detachment. A fascinating freeze-frame of cosmopolitan culture, My Dinner with André remains a unique work in cinema history.
1981 • 111 minutes • Color • Monaural • 1.66:1 aspect ratio
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• High-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Interview from 2009 with actors and cowriters André Gregory and Wallace Shawn, conducted by their friend the filmmaker Noah Baumbach
• “My Dinner with Louis,” a 1982 episode of the BBC program Arena in which Shawn interviews director Louis Malle
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Amy Taubin and the prefaces written by Gregory and Shawn for the 1981 publication of the film’s screenplay
TITLE: MY DINNER WITH ANDRÉ (BLU-RAY EDITION)
SRP $39.95
STREET 6/16/15
CAT. NO. CC2492BD
ISBN 978-1-60465-999-3
UPC 7-15515-14681-4
THE BRIDGE - Blu-ray
The astonishing The Bridge, by Bernhard Wicki (The Longest Day), was the first major antiwar film to come out of Germany after World War II, as well as the nation’s first postwar film to be widely shown internationally, even securing an Oscar nomination. Set near the end of the war, it follows a group of teenage boys in a small town as they contend with everyday matters like school, girls, and parents, before enlisting as soldiers and being forced to defend their home turf in a confused, terrifying battle. This expressively shot, emotionally bruising drama dared to humanize young German soldiers at a historically tender moment, and proved influential for the coming generation of New German Cinema auteurs.
1959 • 103 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In German with English subtitles • 1.37:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interview with writer Gregor Dorfmeister, on whose autobiographical novel the film is based
• New interview with filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff about the film’s impact on German cinema
• Interview from 1989 with director Bernhard Wicki
• Excerpt from a 2007 documentary by Elisabeth Wicki-Endriss, Wicki’s wife, featuring test reel footage from the shoot
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Terrence Rafferty
TITLE: THE BRIDGE (BLU-RAY EDITION)
SRP $39.95
STREET 6/23/15
CAT. NO. CC2499BD
ISBN 1-68143-011-8
UPC 7-15515-14931-0
THE FISHER KING - Blu-ray
A fairy tale grounded in poignant reality, the magnificent, Manhattan-set The Fisher King, by Terry Gilliam (Brazil), features Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski) and Robin Williams (Good Will Hunting) in two of their most brilliant roles. Bridges plays a former radio shock jock reconstructing his life after a scandal, and Williams is a homeless man on a quest for the Holy Grail—which he believes to be hidden somewhere on the Upper West Side. Unknowingly linked by their pasts, the two men aid each other on a fanciful journey to redemption. This singular American odyssey features a witty script by Richard La Gravenese (The Bridges of Madison County), evocative cinematography by Roger Pratt (12 Monkeys), and superb supporting performances by Amanda Plummer (12 Monkeys) and an Oscar-winning Mercedes Ruehl (Married to the Mob), all harnessed by Gilliam into a humane, funny modern-day myth.
1991 • 138 minutes • Color • 5.1 surround • 1.78:1 aspect ratio
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New, restored 2K digital transfer, approved by director Terry Gilliam, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary featuring Gilliam
• New interviews with Gilliam; producer Lynda Obst; screenwriter Richard La Gravenese; and actors Jeff Bridges, Amanda Plummer, and Mercedes Ruehl
• New interviews with artists Keith Greco and Vincent Jefferds on the creation of the film’s Red Knight
• Interview from 2006 with actor Robin Williams
• New video essay featuring Bridges’s on-set photographs
• Deleted scenes, with optional commentary by Gilliam
• Costume tests
• Trailers
• PLUS: An essay by critic Bilge Ebiri
TITLE: THE FISHER KING (BLU-RAY EDITION)
SRP $39.95
STREET 6/23/15
CAT. NO. CC2495BD
ISBN 1-68143-007-X
UPC 7-15515-14891-7
FIVE EASY PIECES – Blu-ray
Following Jack Nicholson’s breakout supporting turn in Easy Rider, director Bob Rafelson (The King of Marvin Gardens) devised a powerful leading role for the new star in the searing character study Five Easy Pieces. Nicholson plays the now iconic cad Bobby Dupea, a shiftless thirtysomething oil rigger and former piano prodigy immune to any sense of responsibility, who returns to his upper-middle-class childhood home, blue-collar girlfriend (Nashville’s Karen Black, in an Oscar-nominated role) in tow, to see his estranged ailing father. Moving in its simplicity and gritty in its textures, Five Easy Pieces is a lasting example of early 1970s American alienation.
1970 • 98 minutes • Color • Monaural • 1.85:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• Restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director of photography László Kovács, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary featuring director Bob Rafelson and interior designer Toby Rafelson
• Soul Searching in “Five Easy Pieces,” a 2009 video piece with Rafelson
• BBStory, a 2009 documentary about the legendary film company BBS Productions, with Rafelson; actors Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, and Ellen Burstyn; directors Peter Bogdanovich and Henry Jaglom; and others
• Documentary from 2009 about BBS featuring critic David Thomson and historian Douglas Brinkley
• Audio excerpts from a 1976 AFI interview with Rafelson
• Theatrical trailer and teasers
• PLUS: An essay by critic Kent Jones
TITLE: FIVE EASY PIECES (BLU-RAY EDITION)
SRP $39.95
STREET 6/30/15
CAT. NO. CC2497BD
ISBN 1-68143-009-6
UPC 7-15515-14911-2
VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS - Blu-ray
A girl on the verge of womanhood finds herself in a sensual fantasyland of vampires, witchcraft, and other threats in this eerie and mystical movie daydream. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders serves up an endlessly looping, nonlinear fairy tale, set in a quasi-medieval landscape. Ravishingly shot, enchantingly scored, and spilling over with surreal fancies, this enticing phantasmagoria from director Jaromil Jireš (The Joke) is among the most beautiful oddities of the Czechoslovak New Wave.
1970 • 76 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Czech with English subtitles • 1.37:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Three early shorts by director Jaromil Jireš: Uncle (1959), Footprints (1960), and The Hall of Lost Steps (1960)
• New interview with Czechoslovak film scholar Peter Hames
• Interviews from 2006 with actors Jaroslava Schallerová and Jan Klusák
• Alternate 2007 psych-folk soundtrack to the film by the Valerie Project, and a new video piece on the music’s origins
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Jana Prikryl
TITLE: VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS (BLU-RAY EDITION)
SRP $39.95
STREET 6/30/15
CAT. NO. CC2488BD
ISBN 1-68143-001-0
UPC 7-15515-14831-3
Attention Canada: ANDRÉ GREGORY & WALLACE SHAWN: 3 FILMS, MY DINNER WITH ANDRÉ and VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS are available in English-Speaking Canada only. A MASTER BUILDER, THE BRIDGE, THE FISHER KING and FIVE EASY PIECES are available in all Canada.
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