Why So Blu?

Dissatisfied in marriage and life, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) takes to the road with the babysitter, his ex-lover Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), and leaves the bourgeois world behind. Yet this is no normal road trip: the tenth feature in six years by genius auteur Jean-Luc Godard is a stylish mash-up of anticonsumerist satire, au courant politics, and comic-book aesthetics, as well as a violent, zigzag tale of, as Godard called them, “the last romantic couple.” With blissful color imagery by cinematographer Raoul Coutard and Belmondo and Karina at their most animated, Pierrot le fou is one of the high points of the French New Wave, and was Godard’s last frolic before he moved ever further into radical cinema.

• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray

• Interview with actor Anna Karina from 2007

• A “Pierrot” Primer, a video essay from 2007 written and narrated by filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin

• Godard, l’amour, la poésie, a fifty-minute French documentary from 2007, directed by Luc Lagier, about director Jean-Luc Godard and his work and marriage with Karina

• Excerpts of interviews from 1965 with Godard, Karina, and actor Jean-Paul Belmondo

• Trailer

• PLUS: An essay by critic Richard Brody, along with (Blu-ray only) a 1969 review by Andrew Sarris and a 1965 interview with Godard

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Diahann Carroll is radiant in an unforgettable, Oscar-nominated performance as Claudine, a strong-willed single mother, raising six kids in Harlem, whose budding relationship with a gregarious garbage collector (an equally fantastic James Earl Jones) is stressed by the difficulty of getting by in an oppressive system. As directed by the formerly blacklisted leftist filmmaker John Berry, this romantic comedy with a social conscience deftly balances warm humor with a serious look at the myriad issues—from cycles of poverty to the indignities of the welfare system—that shape its characters’ realities. The result is an empathetic chronicle of both Black working-class struggle and Black joy, a bittersweet, bighearted celebration of family and community set to a sunny soul soundtrack composed by Curtis Mayfield and performed by Gladys Knight & the Pips.

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray

• Audio commentary from 2003 featuring actors Diahann Carroll, James Earl Jones, and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs; filmmaker George Tillman Jr.; and Dan Pine, son of screenwriters Lester Pine and Tina Pine

• New conversation on the film between filmmaker Robert Townsend and programmer Ashley Clark

• Illustrated audio excerpts from a 1974 AFI Harold Lloyd Master Seminar featuring Carroll

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• PLUS: An essay by critic Danielle A. Jackson

Available October 13, 2020

A key forerunner of the new breed of dark, brooding westerns that would cast a shadow over America’s frontier folklore, this subversive psychological saga sounds a death knell for the myth of the outlaw hero. In one of his most morally complex roles, Gregory Peck stars as Jimmy Ringo, an infamous gunslinger looking to hang up his holsters and start a new life, but whose reputation draws him inexorably into a cycle of violence and revenge from which he cannot escape. Directed with taut efficiency by the versatile studio-era craftsman Henry King, and shot in striking deep-focus style by master cinematographer Arthur C. Miller, The Gunfighter forgoes rough-and-tumble action in favor of an elegiac exploration of guilt and regret that speaks to the anxious soul of postwar America.

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray

• New interview about director Henry King and the film with filmmaker, writer, and archivist Gina Telaroli

• New video essay on editor Barbara McLean by film historian and author J. E. Smyth

• Audio excerpts of interviews with King and McLean from 1970 and ’71

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• More!

• PLUS: An essay by film critic K. Austin Collins

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Available October 20, 2020

Terence Stamp is Willie, a gangster’s henchman turned “supergrass” (informer) trying to live in peaceful hiding in a remote Spanish village. Sun-dappled bliss turns to nerve-racking suspense, however, when two hit men—played by a soulless John Hurt and a youthful, loose-cannon Tim Roth—come calling to bring Willie back for execution. This stylish early gem from Stephen Frears boasts terrific hard-boiled performances from a roster of England’s best actors, music by Eric Clapton and virtuoso flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía, and ravishing photography of its desolate Spanish locations—a splendid backdrop for a rather sordid story.

• High-definition digital restoration, approved by director of photography Mike Molloy, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack

• Audio commentary from 2009 featuring director Stephen Frears, actors John Hurt and Tim Roth, screenwriter Peter Prince, and editor Mick Audsley

• Interview from 1988 with actor Terence Stamp from the television show Parkinson One-to-One

• Trailer

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• PLUS: An essay by film critic Graham Fuller

Available October 20, 2020

A zeitgeist-defining sensation that distilled a global reckoning over class inequality into a tour de force of pop-cinema subversion, Bong Joon Ho’s genre-scrambling black-comic thriller confirms his status as one of the world’s foremost filmmakers. Two families in Seoul—one barely scraping by in a dank semibasement in a low-lying neighborhood, the other living in luxury in a modern architectural marvel overlooking the city—find themselves on a collision course that will lay bare the dark contradictions of capitalism with shocking ferocity. A bravura showcase for its director’s meticulously constructed set pieces, bolstered by a brilliant ensemble cast and stunning production design, Parasite cemented the New Korean Cinema as a full-fledged international force when it swept almost every major prize from Cannes to the Academy Awards, where it made history as the first non-English-language film to win the Oscar for best picture.

• New 4K digital master, approved by director Bong Joon Ho and director of photography Hong Kyung Pyo, with Dolby Atmos soundtrack on the Blu-ray

• New audio commentary featuring Bong and critic Tony Rayns

• Black-and-white version of the film with a new introduction by Bong, and Dolby Atmos soundtrack on the Blu-ray

• New conversation between Bong and critic Darcy Paquet

• New interviews with Hong, production designer Lee Ha Jun, and editor Yang Jinmo

• New program about the New Korean Cinema movement featuring Bong and filmmaker Park Chan Wook (Oldboy)

• Cannes Film Festival press conference from 2019 featuring Bong and members of the cast

• Master class featuring Bong from the 2019 Lumière Festival in Lyon, France

• Storyboard comparison

• Trailers

• PLUS: An essay by critic Inkoo Kang

Available October 27, 2020

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