Zur Mitte eines jeden Monats hin gibt Criterion neue DVD- und Blu-ray-Titel bekannt, so auch dieses Mal. Insgesamt fünf verschiedene DVD-Veröffentlichungen stehen im August 2010 an, zwei davon werden auch auf Blu-ray erhältlich sein.
 
17. August 2010
Blu-ray #48: “Orfeu Negro / Black Orpheus” [BR / F / I 1959, Marcel Camus]
1 Disc
$39.95
1.33:1
Portuguese

Winner of both the Academy Award for best foreign-language film and the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus (Orfeu negro) brings the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to the twentieth-century madness of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. With its eye-popping photography and ravishing, epochal soundtrack, Black Orpheus was a cultural event, kicking off the bossa nova craze that set hi-fis across America spinning.

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer
• Uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
• Archival interviews with director Marcel Camus and actress Marpessa Dawn
• New video interviews with Brazilian cinema scholar Robert Stam, jazz historian Gary Giddins, and Brazilian author Ruy Castro
• À la recherche d’“Orfeu negro,” a feature-length documentary about Black Orpheus’s cultural and musical roots and its resonance in Brazil today
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Michael Atkinson

 
17. August 2010
DVD #48: “Orfeu Negro / Black Orpheus” [BR / F / I 1959, Marcel Camus]
2 Discs
$39.95
1.33:1
Portuguese

Winner of both the Academy Award for best foreign-language film and the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus (Orfeu negro) brings the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to the twentieth-century madness of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. With its eye-popping photography and ravishing, epochal soundtrack, Black Orpheus was a cultural event, kicking off the bossa nova craze that set hi-fis across America spinning.

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer
• Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
• Archival interviews with director Marcel Camus and actress Marpessa Dawn
• New video interviews with Brazilian cinema scholar Robert Stam, jazz historian Gary Giddins, and Brazilian author Ruy Castro
• À la recherche d’“Orfeu negro,” a feature-length documentary about Black Orpheus’s cultural and musical roots and its resonance in Brazil today
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Michael Atkinson

 
24. August 2010
DVD #528-531: “Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg”
3 Discs
$79.95

Vienna-born, New York–raised Josef von Sternberg (Shanghai Express, Morocco) directed some of the most influential, extraordinarily stylish dramas ever to come out of Hollywood. Though best known for his star-making collaborations with Marlene Dietrich, Sternberg began his movie career during the final years of the silent era, dazzling audiences and critics with his films’ dark visions and innovative cinematography. The titles in this collection, made on the cusp of the sound age, are three of Sternberg’s greatest works, gritty evocations of gangster life (Underworld), the Russian Revolution (The Last Command), and working-class desperation (The Docks of New York) made into shadowy movie spectacle. Criterion is proud to present these long unavailable classics of American cinema, each with two musical scores.

SPECIAL EDITION THREE-DVD SET

• New, restored high-definition digital transfers
• Six scores: one by Robert Israel for each film; two by the Alloy Orchestra, for Underworld and The Last Command; and a piano and voice piece by Donald Sosin for The Docks of New York
• Two new visual essays: one by UCLA film professor Janet Bergstrom and the other by film scholar Tag Gallagher
• 1968 Swedish television interview with director Josef von Sternberg, covering his entire career
• PLUS: A ninety-six-page booklet featuring essays by film critic Geoffrey O’Brien, film scholar Anton Kaes, and author Luc Sante; the original film treatment for Underworld by Ben Hecht; and an excerpt from Sternberg’s autobiography, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, on Emil Jannings

#529: “Unterwelt / Underworld” [USA 1927, Josef von Sternberg]
1.33:1

Josef von Sternberg’s riveting breakthrough is widely considered the film that launched the American gangster genre. George Bancroft is the main heavy, “Bull” Weed, an urban criminal kingpin whose jealous devotion to his moll, Feathers (Evelyn Brent), gets him into hot water with a rival hood and, ultimately, the authorities. Further complicating matters is the attraction blossoming between Feathers and an alcoholic former lawyer (Clive Brook). With its supple, endlessly expressive camera work, and a screenplay by legendary scribe Ben Hecht (who won a best original story Oscar the first year the awards were given), Underworld solidified Sternberg’s place as one of Hollywood’s most exciting new talents.

#530: “Sein letzter Befehl / The Last Command” [USA 1928, Josef von Sternberg]
English

Emil Jannings won the first best actor Academy Award for his passionate, heartbreaking performance as a sympathetic tyrant, an exiled Russian military officer turned Hollywood actor whose latest part—a czarist general—brings about his emotional downfall. With its brilliantly realized Russian Revolution sequences, virtuoso camera work, and grandly designed sets and effects, Josef von Sternberg’s The Last Command is a gripping silent melodrama that grapples with tumultuous recent history, as well as a striking portrait of one man’s increasing blurring of the line between fantasy and reality.

#531: “Die Docks von New York [aka: Im Hafen von New York] / The Docks of New York” [USA 1928, Josef von Sternberg]
1.33:1
English

Roughneck stoker Bill Roberts (George Bancroft) gets into all sorts of trouble during a brief shore leave when he falls hard for Mae (Betty Compson), a wise and weary dance hall girl, in Josef von Sternberg’s evocative portrait of lower-class waterfront folk. Fog-enshrouded cinematography by Harold Rosson (The Wizard of Oz), expressionist set design by Hans Dreier (Sunset Boulevard), and sensual performances make this one of the legendary director’s finest works, and one of the most exquisitely crafted films of its era.
 
10. August 2010
DVD #532: “Louie Bluie” [USA 1985, Terry Zwigoff]
1 Disc
$24.95
1.33:1
English

Crumb director Terry Zwigoff’s first film is a true treat: a documentary about the obscure country blues musician and idiosyncratic visual artist Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong, member of the last known black string band in America. As beguiling a raconteur as he is a performer, Louie makes for a wildly entertaining movie subject, and Zwigoff honors him with an unsentimental but endlessly affectionate tribute. Full of infectious music and comedy, Louie Bluie is a humane evocation of the kind of pop-cultural marginalia that Zwigoff would continue to excavate in the coming years.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Terry Zwigoff
• Audio commentary featuring Zwigoff
• Outtakes and deleted scenes
• Illustrations by Howard Armstrong
• Stills gallery
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Michael Sragow

 
10. August 2010
Blu-ray #533: “Crumb” [USA 1994, Terry Zwigoff]
1 Disc
$39.95
1.33:1
English

Terry Zwigoff’s landmark 1995 film is an intimate documentary portrait of underground artist Robert Crumb, whose unique drawing style and sexually and racially provocative subject matter have made him a household name in popular American art. Zwigoff candidly and colorfully delves into the details of Crumb’s incredible career, as well as his past, including his family of reclusive eccentrics, some of the most remarkable people you’ll ever see on-screen. At once a profound biographical portrait, a riotous examination of a man’s controversial art, and a devastating look at a troubled family, Crumb is a genuine American original.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Terry Zwigoff
• Uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Two audio commentaries, one from 2010 with Zwigoff, and one from 2006, featuring Zwigoff and critic Roger Ebert
• Outtakes and deleted scenes
• Stills gallery
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum

 
10. August 2010
DVD #533: “Crumb” [USA 1994, Terry Zwigoff]
1 Disc
$39.95
1.33:1
English

Terry Zwigoff’s landmark 1995 film is an intimate documentary portrait of underground artist Robert Crumb, whose unique drawing style and sexually and racially provocative subject matter have made him a household name in popular American art. Zwigoff candidly and colorfully delves into the details of Crumb’s incredible career, as well as his past, including his family of reclusive eccentrics, some of the most remarkable people you’ll ever see on-screen. At once a profound biographical portrait, a riotous examination of a man’s controversial art, and a devastating look at a troubled family, Crumb is a genuine American original.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Terry Zwigoff
• Two audio commentaries, one from 2010 with Zwigoff, and one from 2006, featuring Zwigoff and critic Roger Ebert
• Outtakes and deleted scenes
• Stills gallery
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum

 
17. August 2010
DVD #534: “Nackte Kindheit / L’enfance nue” [F 1968, Maurice Pialat]
1 Disc
$29.95
1.66:1
French

The singular French director Maurice Pialat (Loulou, À nos amours) puts his distinct stamp on the lost-youth film with this devastating portrait of a damaged foster child. We see François (Michel Terrazon), on the cusp of his teens, shuttled from one home to another, his behavior growing increasingly erratic, his bonds with his surrogate parents perennially fraught. In this, his feature debut, Pialat treats this potentially sentimental scenario with astonishing sobriety and stark realism. With its full-throttle mixture of emotionality and clear-eyed skepticism, L’enfance nue (Naked Childhood) was advance notice of one of the most masterful careers in French cinema, and remains one of Pialat’s finest works.

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer
• L’amour existe, director Maurice Pialat’s 1960 short film about life on the outskirts of Paris
• Choses vues, autour de “L’enfance nue,” a fifty-minute documentary shot just after the film’s release
• Excerpts from a 1973 French television interview with Pialat
• New visual essay by critic Kent Jones on the film and Pialat’s cinematic style
• Video interview with Pialat collaborators Arlette Langmann and Patrick Grandperret
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Phillip Lopate