The Criterion Collection has informed us that two upcoming titles have been delayed:
The Magnificent Ambersons has been moved from 11/20/18 to 11/27/18, while
True Stories has been moved from 11/20/18 to 11/27/18.
The Magnificent Ambersons
Synopsis: Orson Welles's beautiful, nostalgia-suffused second feature—the subject of one of cinema's greatest missing-footage tragedies—harks back to turn-of-the-twentieth-century Indianapolis, chronicling the inexorable decline of the fortunes of an affluent family. Adapted from an acclaimed Booth Tarkington novel and characterized by restlessly inventive camera work and powerful performances from a cast including Joseph Cotten, Tim Holt, and Agnes Moorehead, the film traces the rifts deepening within the Amberson clan—at the same time as the forces of progress begin to transform the city they once ruled. Though RKO excised over forty minutes of footage, now lost to history, and added an incongruously upbeat ending, The Magnificent Ambersons is an emotionally rich family saga and a masterful elegy for a bygone chapter of American life.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
- BRAND NEW 4K RESTORATION, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Two audio commentaries, featuring film scholars Robert Carringer and James Naremore and critic Jonathan Rosenbaum
- New interviews with scholars Simon Callow and Joseph McBride
- New video essay on the film's cinematographers by scholar François Thomas
- New video essay on the film's score by scholar Christopher Husted
- Welles on The Dick Cavett Show in 1970
- Segment from Pampered Youth, a 1925 silent adaptation of The Magnificent Ambersons
- Audio from a 1979 AFI symposium on Welles
- Two Mercury Theatre radio plays: Seventeen (1938), an adaptation of another Booth Tarkington novel by Welles, and The Magnificent Ambersons (1939)
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic Molly Haskell and (Blu-ray only) essays by authors and critics Luc Sante, Geoffrey O'Brien, Farran Smith Nehme, and Jonathan Lethem, and excerpts from an unfinished 1982 memoir by Welles
True Stories
Synopsis: Music icon David Byrne was inspired by tabloid headlines to make this sole foray into feature film directing, an ode to the extraordinariness of ordinary American life and a distillation of what was in his own idiosyncratic mind. Byrne plays a visitor to Virgil, Texas, who introduces us to the citizens of the town during preparations for its Celebration of Specialness. As shot by cinematographer Ed Lachman, Texas becomes a hyperrealistic late-capitalist landscape of endless vistas, shopping malls, and prefab metal buildings. In True Stories, Byrne uses his songs to stitch together pop iconography, voodoo rituals, and a singular variety show—all in the service of uncovering the rich mysteries that lurk under the surface of everyday experience.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
- NEW, RESTORED 4K TRANSFER, supervised by director David Byrne and cinematographer Ed Lachman, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, supervised by Byrne, on the Blu-ray
- New documentary about the film's production, featuring Byrne, Lachman, writer Stephen Tobolowsky, executive producer Ed Pressman, coproducer Karen Murphy, fashion-show costume designer Adelle Lutz, consultant Christina Patoski, actor Jo Harvey Allen, and musician Terry Allen
- CD with 23 songs, containing the film's complete soundtrack, compiled here for the first time (Blu-ray only)
- Real Life (1986), a short documentary by Pamela Yates and Newton Thomas Sigel made on the set of the film
- No Time to Look Back, a new homage to Virgil, Texas, the fictional town where True Stories is set
- New program about designer Tibor Kalman and his influence on Byrne and role in the film, featuring Byrne and Kalman's wife, artist Maira Kalman
- Deleted scenes
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic Rebecca Bengal, along with, for the Blu-ray edition, new pieces by journalist and author Joe Nick Patoski and Byrne, a 1986 piece by actor Spalding Gray on the film's production, some of the tabloid stories that inspired the film, and a selection of Byrne's preproduction photography and writing about the film's visual motifs