The Criterion Collection has announced ten titles for Blu-ray release in July: On July 15th, it will release Robert Bresson's
Pickpocket (1959) and David Cronenberg's
Scanners (1981). On July 22, it will release Erik Skjoldbjærg's
Insomnia (1997) and a collection of films directed by the great Jacques Demy. And on July 29, it will release Lawrence Kasdan's
The Big Chill (1983).
Pickpocket
This incomparable story of crime and redemption from French master Robert Bresson follows Michel, a young pickpocket who spends his days working the streets, subway cars, and train stations of Paris. As his compulsive pursuit of the thrill of stealing grows, however, so does his fear that his luck is about to run out. A cornerstone in the career of this most economical and profoundly spiritual of filmmakers, Pickpocket is an elegantly crafted, tautly choreographed study of humanity in all its mischief and grace, the work of a director at the height of his powers.
Special Features:
- New, 2K digital film restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Audio commentary by film scholar James Quandt
- Introduction by writer-director Paul Schrader
- The Models of "Pickpocket," a 2003 documentary by Babette Mangolte that features actors from the film
- Interview from 1960 with director Robert Bresson, from the French television program Cinépanorama
- Q&A on Pickpocket from 2000 with actor Marika Green and filmmakers Paul Vecchiali and Jean-Pierre Améris
- Footage of the sleight-of-hand artist and Pickpocket consultant Kassagi from a 1962 episode of the French television show La piste aux étoiles
- Trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by novelist and critic Gary Indiana
Scanners
With Scanners, David Cronenberg plunges us into one of his most terrifying and thrilling sci-fi worlds. After a man with extraordinary—and frighteningly destructive—telepathic abilities is nabbed by agents from a mysterious rogue corporation, he discovers he is far from the only possessor of such strange powers, and that some of the other "scanners" have their minds set on world domination, while others are trying to stop them. A trademark Cronenberg combination of the visceral and the cerebral, this phenomenally gruesome and provocative film about the expanses and limits of the human brain was the Canadian director's breakout hit in the United States.
Special Features:
- New, restored 2K digital film transfer, supervised by director David Cronenberg, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- The "Scanners" Way, a new documentary on the film's special effects
- New interview with actor Michael Ironside
- The Ephemerol Diaries, a 2012 interview with actor and artist Stephen Lack
- Excerpt from a 1981 interview with Cronenberg on the CBC's The Bob McLean Show
Stereo (1969), Cronenberg's first feature film
- Trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kim Newman
The Essential Jacques Demy
French director Jacques Demy didn't just make movies—he created an entire cinematic world. Demy launched his glorious feature filmmaking career in the sixties, a decade of astonishing invention in his national cinema. He stood out from the crowd of his fellow New Wavers, however, by filtering his self-conscious formalism through deeply emotional storytelling. Fate and coincidence, doomed love, and storybook romance surface throughout his films, many of which are further united by the intersecting lives of characters who either appear or are referenced across titles. Demy's films—which range from musical to melodrama to fantasia—are triumphs of visual and sound design, camera work, and music, and they are galvanized by the great stars of French cinema at their centers, including Anouk Aimée, Catherine Deneuve, and Jeanne Moreau. The works collected here, made from the sixties to the eighties, touch the heart and mind in equal measure.
Special Features:
- New 2K digital restorations of all six films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks on the Blu-rays of Lola and Bay of Angels/ and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 surround soundtracks on the Blu-rays of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Donkey Skin, and Une chambre en ville
- Two documentaries by filmmaker Agnès Varda: The World of Jacques Demy (1995) and The Young Girls Turn 25 (1993)
- Four short films by director Jacques Demy: Les horizons morts (1951), Le sabotier du Val de Loire (1956), Ars (1959), and La luxure (1962)
- Jacques Demy A to Z, a new visual essay by film critic James Quandt
- Two archival interviews from French television with Demy and composer Michel Legrand, one on The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and the other on The Young Girls of Rochefort
- French television interview from 1962 with actor Jeanne Moreau on the set of Bay of Angels
Once Upon a Time . . . "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," a 2008 documentary
- French television program about the making of Donkey Skin
- "Donkey Skin" Illustrated, a video program on the many versions of Charles Perrault's fairy tale
- "Donkey Skin" and the Thinkers, a video program on the themes of the film, featuring critic Camille Tabouley
- New video conversation with Demy biographer Jean-Pierre Berthomé and costume designer Jacqueline Moreau
- New interviews with author Marie Colmant and film scholar Rodney Hill
- Q&A with Demy from the 1987 Midnight Sun Film Festival, as well as an audio Q&A with him from the American Film Institute in 1971
- Archival audio recordings of interviews with Demy, Legrand, and actor Catherine Deneuve at the National Film Theatre in London
- Interview with actor Anouk Aimée conducted by Varda in 2012
- Interview from 2012 with Varda on the origin of Lola's song
- Video programs on the restorations of Lola, Bay of Angels, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Une chambre en ville
- Trailers
- New English subtitle translations
- PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critics Ginette Vincendeau, Terrence Rafferty, Jim Ridley, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Anne Duggan, and Geoff Andrew, and a postscript by Berthomé
Lola
Jacques Demy's crystalline debut gave birth to the fictional universe in which so many of his characters would live, play, and love. It's among his most profoundly felt films, a tale of crisscrossing lives in Nantes (Demy's hometown) that floats on waves of longing and desire. Heading the film's ensemble is the enchanting Anouk Aimeé as the title character, a cabaret chanteuse; she's awaiting the return of a long-lost lover and unwilling to entertain the adoration of another love-struck soul, the wanderer Roland (Marc Michel). Humane, wistful, and witty, Lola is a testament to the resilience of the heartbroken.
Bay of Angels
This precisely wrought, emotionally penetrating romantic drama from Jacques Demy, set largely in the casinos of Nice, is a visually lovely but darkly pragmatic investigation into love and obsession. A bottle-blonde Jeanne Moreau is at her blithe best as a gorgeous gambling addict, and Claude Mann (Army of Shadows) is the bank clerk drawn into her risky world. Featuring a glittering score by Michel Legrand, Bay of Angels is among Demy's most somber works.
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.
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.
Donkey Skin
In this lovingly crafted, wildly quirky adaptation of a classic French fairy tale, Jacques Demy casts Catherine Deneuve as a princess who must go into hiding as a scullery maid in order to fend off an unwanted marriage proposal—from her own father, the king (Jean Marais)! A topsy-turvy riches-to-rags fable featuring songs by Michel Legrand, Donkey Skin creates a tactile fantasy world that's perched on the border between the earnest and the satiric, and features Delphine Seyrig in a delicious supporting role as a fashionable fairy godmother.
Une chambre en ville
In this musical melodrama set against the backdrop of a workers' strike in Nantes, Dominique Sanda plays a young woman who wishes to leave her brutish fiancé (Michel Piccoli) for an earthy steelworker (Richard Berry), though he is engaged to another. Unbeknownst to the girl, the object of her affection boards with her no-nonsense baroness mother (Danielle Darrieux). A late-career triumph from Jacques Demy, Une chambre en ville received nine César Award nominations and features a rich, operatic score by Michel Colombier.
Insomnia
In this elegantly unsettling murder mystery, Stellan Skarsgård plays an engimatic Swedish detective with a checkered past who arrives in a small town in northern Norway to investigate the death of a teenage girl. As he digs deeper into the heinous killing, his own demons and the tyrannical midnight sun begin to take a toll. Erik Skjoldbjærg's chilling procedural anticipated the international hunger for Scandinavian noirs and serial killer fictions, and features one of Skarsgård's greatest performances.
Special Features:
- New 4K digital restoration, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New conversation between director Erik Skjoldbjærg and actor Stellan Skarsgård
- Trailer and TV spot
- One Blu-ray and one DVD, with all content available in both formats
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Jonathan Romney
The Big Chill
After the shocking suicide of their friend, a group of thirtysomethings reunite for his funeral and end up spending a weekend together, reminiscing about their shared pasts as children of the sixties and confronting the uncertainty of their lives as adults of the eighties. Poignant and warmly humorous in equal measure, this 1983 baby boomer milestone made a star of writer-director Lawrence Kasdan and is perhaps the decade's defining ensemble film, featuring memorable performances by Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, and JoBeth Williams. And with its playlist of hit songs from the sixties, The Big Chill all but invented the consummately curated soundtrack.
Special Features:
- New, restored 4K digital film transfer, supervised by cinematographer John Bailey and approved by director Lawrence Kasdan, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Alternate remastered 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray
- Reunion with cast and crew, including Kasdan, actors Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, and JoBeth Williams, from the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival
- Documentary from 1998 on the making of the film
- Deleted scenes
- Trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by writer, director, and actor Lena Dunham