UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, RUMBLE FISH and More Coming to The Criterion Collection in April 2017
January 17th, 2017 by Aaron Neuwirth
This April, Criterion is serving up a special edition of Tampopo, Juzo Itami’s delirious, genre-bending “ramen western,” fresh from its theatrical run. The kitchen becomes a battleground in Woman of the Year, where Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy play journalist spouses with different ideas about what makes for a successful marriage. There’s also Francis Ford Coppola’s feverish “art film for teenagers,” Rumble Fish, whose stunning black-and-white cinematography weaves expressionistic shadows around an all-star cast, including Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, and Dennis Hopper. Another unforgettable ensemble is the title act of Buena Vista Social Club, Wim Wenders’ exuberant portrait of the performers who made Cuban music an international sensation. And for an encore: Jacques Demy’s color-drenched musicals The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (a big inspiration for current awards favorite La La Land) and The Young Girls of Rochefort step into the spotlight, in new stand-alone editions.
THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG
An angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched into stardom by this glorious musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. She plays an umbrella-shop owner’s delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a handsome garage mechanic, played by Nino Castelnuovo. When the boy is shipped off to fight in Algeria, the two lovers must grow up quickly. Exquisitely designed in a kaleidoscope of colors, and told entirely through the lilting songs of the great composer Michel Legrand, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of the most revered and unorthodox movie musicals of all time.
1964 * 92 minutes * Color * 5.1 surround * In French with English subtitles * 1.85:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
* 2K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
* Once Upon a Time . . . “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” a 2008 documentary
* Interview from 2014 with film scholar Rodney Hill
* French television interview from 1964 featuring director Jacques Demy and composer Michel Legrand discussing the film
* Audio recordings of interviews with actor Catherine Deneuve (1983) and Legrand (1991) at the National Film Theatre in London
* Restoration demonstration
* Trailer
* PLUS: An essay by critic Jim Ridley
Available April 11, 2017
THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT
Jacques Demy followed up The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with another musical about missed connections and second chances, this one a more effervescent confection. Twins Delphine and Solange, a dance instructor and a music teacher (played by real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac), dream of big-city life; when a fair comes through their quiet port town, so does the possibility of escape. With its jazzy Michel Legrand score, pastel paradise of costumes, and divine supporting cast (George Chakiris, Grover Dale, Danielle Darrieux, Michel Piccoli, and Gene Kelly), The Young Girls of Rochefort is a tribute to Hollywood optimism from sixties French cinema’s preeminent dreamer.
1967 * 126 minutes * Color * 5.1 surround * In French with English subtitles * 2.35:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
* 2K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
* French television interview from 1966 featuring director Jacques Demy and composer Michel Legrand discussing the music for the film
* Conversation from 2014 between Demy biographer Jean-Pierre Berthomé and costume designer Jacqueline Moreau
* Episode from Behind the Screen, a 1966 series about the making of the film
* Agnès Varda’s 1993 documentary The Young Girls Turn 25
* Trailer
* PLUS: An essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum
Available April 11, 2017
BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB
Traveling from the streets of Havana to the stage of Carnegie Hall, this revelatory documentary captures a forgotten generation of Cuba’s brightest musical talents as they enjoy an unexpected brush with world fame. The veteran vocalists and instrumentalists collaborated with American guitarist and roots-music champion Ry Cooder to form the Buena Vista Social Club, playing a jazz-inflected mix of cha-cha, mambo, bolero, and other traditional Latin American styles, and recording an album that won a Grammy and made them an international phenomenon. In the wake of this success, director Wim Wenders filmed the ensemble’s members-including golden-voiced Ibrahim Ferrer and piano virtuoso Rubén González-in a series of illuminating interviews and live performances. The result is one of the most beloved music documentaries of the 1990s, and an infectious ode to a neglected corner of Cuba’s prerevolutionary heritage.
1999 * 105 minutes * Color * 5.1 Surround * In English and Spanish with English subtitles * 1.77:1 aspect ratio
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
* New high-definition digital transfer, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
* Audio commentary from 1999 featuring director Wim Wenders
* New interview with Wenders
* We Believe in Dreams, a new piece featuring never-before-seen outtakes from the rehearsals for the Buena Vista Social Club’s Amsterdam concerts
* Interview from 1998 with musician Compay Segundo on his career and the Cuban music scene
* Radio interviews from 2000 featuring musicians Ibrahim Ferrer, Rubén González, Eliades Ochoa, Omara Portuondo, and others
* Additional scenes
* Trailer
* PLUS: An essay by author and geographer Joshua Jelly-Schapiro
Available April 18, 2017
WOMAN OF THE YEAR
Before Katharine Hepburn ever met Spencer Tracy, she wanted him as her costar in this film. George Stevens’s Woman of the Year, conceived to build on the smashing comeback Hepburn had made in The Philadelphia Story, is the story of rival newspaper reporters who wed only to find that their careers aren’t so compatible, and in it the pair forged a fresh and realistic vision of what marriage could be. The freewheeling but pinpoint-sharp screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin won an Academy Award, and Hepburn was nominated for best actress. Woman of the Year marks the beginning of the personal and professional union between Hepburn and Tracy, who would go on to make eight more films together, and it stands as a dazzling, funny, and sometimes rueful observation of what it takes for men and women to get along-both in the workplace and out of it.
1942 * 112 minutes * black & white * monaural * 1.33:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
* New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
* New interview with George Stevens Jr., the director’s son
* New interview with George Stevens biographer Marilyn Ann Moss
* New interview with writer Claudia Roth Pierpont on actor Katharine Hepburn
* The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn, an 86-minute documentary from 1986
* Trailer
* More!
* PLUS: An essay by critic Stephanie Zacharek
Available April 18, 2017
TAMPOPO
The tale of an eccentric band of culinary ronin who guide the widow of a noodle shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, this rapturous “ramen western” by Japanese director Juzo Itami is an entertaining, genre-bending adventure underpinned by a deft satire of the way social conventions distort the most natural of human urges, our appetites. Interspersing the efforts of Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) and friends to make her café a success with the erotic exploits of a gastronome gangster and glimpses of food culture both high and low, the sweet, sexy, and surreal Tampopo is a lavishly inclusive paean to the sensual joys of nourishment, and one of the most mouthwatering examples of food on film ever made.
1985 * 114 minutes * Color * Monaural * In Japanese with English subtitles * 1.85:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
* New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
* The Making of “Tampopo,” a ninety-minute documentary from 1986, narrated by director Juzo Itami
* New interview with actor Nobuko Miyamoto
* New interviews with ramen scholar Hiroshi Osaki; food stylist Seiko Ogawa; and American chefs Sam White, Rayneil De Guzman, Jerry Jaksich, and Anthony Bourdain
* Rubber Band Pistol, Itami’s 1962 debut short film
* New video essay by Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos on the film’s themes of self-improvement and mastery of a craft
* Trailer
* New English subtitle translation
* PLUS: An essay by food and culture writer Willy Blackmore
Available April 25, 2017
RUMBLE FISH
In this deeply personal tale of estrangement and reconciliation between two rebellious brothers, set in a dreamlike and timeless Tulsa, Francis Ford Coppola gives mythic dimensions to intimate, painful emotions. After releasing the classically styled The Outsiders earlier the same year, the director returned to the work of S. E. Hinton, this time with a self-described “art film for teenagers.” Graced with a remarkable cast headed by Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, and Diane Lane; haunting black-and-white visuals that hark back to German expressionism and forward to Coppola’s own Tetro; and a powerful, percussive score by Stewart Copeland that underscores the movie’s romantic fatalism, Rumble Fish pulsates throughout with genuine love and dread.
1983 * 95 minutes * Black & White * 2.0 Surround * 1.85:1 aspect ratio
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
* New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director of photography Stephen H. Burum and approved by director Francis Ford Coppola, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
* Alternate remastered 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray
* Audio commentary featuring Coppola
* New interviews with Coppola, author and coscreenwriter S. E. Hinton, and associate producer Roman Coppola
* New conversation between Burum and production designer Dean Tavoularis
* Pieces from 2005 about the film’s score and production
* Interviews from 1983 with actors Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, and Vincent Spano and producer Doug Claybourne
* French television interview from 1984 with actor Mickey Rourke
* Locations: Looking for Rusty James, a 2013 documentary by Alberto Fuguet about the impact of Rumble Fish
* New piece about the film’s existentialist elements
* “Don’t Box Me In” music video
* Deleted scenes
* Trailer
* More!
* PLUS: An essay by critic Glenn Kenny
Available April 25, 2017
