Criterion has detailed the September additions to their Criterion Collection Blu-ray catalog that includes The Thin Red Line ( Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Woody Harrelson), Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (David Bowie), Breathless (Jean-Paul Belmondo), and Charade (Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant).
Each film will feature restored high definition digital transfers and carry an SRP of $39.95. Release dates, audio formats and bonus features are spelled out below.
Breathless
Release date: September 14, 2010
Audio Format: Monaural
Synopsis: There was before Breathless, and there was after Breathless. Jean-Luc Godard (Band of Outsiders, Masculin feminin) burst onto the film scene in 1960 with this jazzy, free-form, and sexy homage to the American film genres that inspired him as a writer for Cahiers du cinema. With its lack of polish, surplus of attitude, anything-goes crime narrative, and effervescent young stars Jean-Paul Belmondo (Classe tous risques, Pierrot le fou) and Jean Seberg (Saint Joan, Bonjour tristesse), Breathless helped launch the French New Wave and ensured that cinema would never be the same.
- Restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director of photography Raoul Coutard, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Archival interviews with director Jean-Luc Godard and actors Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, and Jean-Pierre Melville
- Video interviews with Coutard, assistant director Pierre Rissient, and filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker
- Video essays: one on Jean Seberg and one on Breathless as film criticism
- Chambre 12, Hôtel du suède, an eighty-minute documentary about the making of Breathless
- Charlotte et son Jules, a 1959 short by Godard starring Belmondo
- French theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring writings by Godard and film historian Dudley Andrew, François Truffaut’s original film treatment, and Godard’s scenario
Charade
Release date: September 21, 2010
Audio Format: Uncompressed monaural
Synopsis: In this deliciously dark comedic thriller, a trio of crooks relentlessly pursue a young American, played by Audrey Hepburn (Roman Holiday, Breakfast at Tiffany’s), outfitted in gorgeous Givenchy, through Paris in an attempt to recover the fortune her dead husband stole from them. The only person she can trust is a suave, mysterious stranger, played by Cary Grant (Bringing Up Baby, North by Northwest). Director Stanley Donen (On the Town, Singin’ in the Rain, Two for the Road) goes splendidly Hitchcockian for Charade, a glittering emblem of sixties style and macabre wit.
- Restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Audio commentary featuring director Stanley Donen and screenwriter Peter Stone
- Original theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film historian Bruce Eder
The Thin Red Line
Release date: September 28, 2010
Audio Format: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
Synopsis: After directing two of the most extraordinary movies of the 1970s, Badlands and Days of Heaven, American artist Terrence Malick disappeared from the film world for twenty years, only to resurface in 1998 with this visionary adaptation of James Jones’s 1962 novel about the World War II battle for Guadalcanal. A big-budget, spectacularly mounted epic, The Thin Red Line is also one of the most deeply philosophical films ever released by a major Hollywood studio, a thought-provoking meditation on man, nature, and violence. Featuring a cast of contemporary cinema’s finest actors—Sean Penn (Dead Man Walking, Milk), Nick Nolte (The Prince of Tides, Affliction), Elias Koteas (Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and Woody Harrelson (Natural Born Killers, The People vs. Larry Flynt) among them—The Thin Red Line is a kaleidoscopic evocation of the experience of combat that ranks as one of cinema’s greatest war films.
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Terrence Malick and cinematographer John Toll
- New audio commentary featuring Toll, production designer Jack Fisk, and producer Grant Hill
- Outtakes from the film
- Video interviews with several of the film’s actors, including Jim Caviezel, Elias Koteas, and Sean Penn; composer Hans Zimmer; editors Billy Weber, Leslie Jones, and Saar Klein; and writer James Jones’s daughter Kaylie Jones
- New video interview with casting director Dianne Crittenden, featuring original audition footage
- World War II newsreels featuring footage from Guadalcanal
- Original theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic David Sterritt and a 1963 essay by James Jones on war films
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
Release date: September 28, 2010
Audio Format: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
Synopsis: In this captivating, exhilaratingly skewed World War II drama from Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses, Empire of Passion), David Bowie (The Man Who Fell to Earth, Basquiat) regally embodies the character Celliers, a high-ranking British officer interned by the Japanese as a POW. Music star Ryuichi Sakamoto (who also composed this film’s hypnotic score) plays the camp commander, who becomes obsessed with the mysterious blond major, while Tom Conti (The Duellists; Reuben, Reuben) is British lieutenant colonel Mr. Lawrence, who tries to bridge the emotional and language divides between his captors and fellow prisoners. Also featuring actor-director Takeshi Kitano (Sonatine, Fireworks) in his first dramatic role, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence is a multilayered, brutal, at times erotic tale of culture clash that was one of Oshima’s greatest successes.
- New, restored high-definition master (with DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition)
- The Oshima Gang, an original making-of featurette
- New video interviews with producer Jeremy Thomas, screenwriter Paul Mayersberg, actor Tom Conti, and actor-composer Ryuichi Sakamoto
- Hasten Slowly, an hour-long documentary about author and adventurer Laurens van der Post, whose autobiographical novel is the basis for the film
- Original theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film writer Chuck Stephens and a 1983 interview with director Nagisa Oshima by Japanese film writer Tadao Sato
Pre-order The Thin Red Line on Blu-ray for $27.99 at Amazon.
