The Criterion Collection has announced a record seven titles for Blu-ray release in May. On May 3, it will release
Fat Girl (
Ā ma soeur; Catherine Breillat, 2001) and
Smiles of a Summer Night (
Sommarnattens leende; Ingmar Bergman, 1955). A week later, it will release
Something Wild (Jonathan Demme, 1986). On May 17, the studio will put out
Diabolique (
Les diaboliques; Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1954) and
Pale Flower (
Kawaita Hana; Masahiro Shinoda, 1964). And last but not least, May 24 will see BD releases for
The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin, 1940) and
Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972).
The transfer of
Fat Girl has been director approved.
Something Wild is approved by director of photography Tak Fujimoto.
Special features include:
Diabolique
- Selected-scene commentary by French-film scholar Kelley Conway
- New video interview with Serge Bromberg, codirector of Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno
- New video interview with horror film expert Kim Newman
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- A booklet featuring a new essay by film critic Terrence Rafferty
Fat Girl
- Behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Fat Girl
- Two interviews with director Catherine Breillat, one conducted the night after the film's world premiere at the 2001 Berlin Film Festival, the other a look back at the film's production and alternate ending
- French and U.S. theatrical trailers
- A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau, a 2001 interview with Breillat, and a piece by Breillat on the title
The Great Dictator
- New audio commentary by Charlie Chaplin historians Dan Kamin and Hooman Mehran
- The Tramp and the Dictator (2001), a documentary narrated by filmmaker Kenneth Branagh and featuring interviews with author Ray Bradbury, director Sidney Lumet, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., screenwriter Budd Schulberg, and a host of others
- Two new visual essays, by Chaplin archivist Cecilia Cenciarelli and Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance
- On-set, color production footage shot by Chaplin's half-brother, Sydney
- Deleted scene from Chaplin's 1919 film Sunnyside
- Theatrical trailer
- A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Michael Wood and a 1940 article by Chaplin on the film
Pale Flower
- New video interview with director Masahiro Shinoda
- Selected-scene audio commentary by film scholar Peter Grilli, coproducer of Music for the Movies: Toru Takemitsu
- Original theatrical trailer
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- A new essay by film critic Chuck Stephens
Smiles of a Summer Night
- Video introduction to the film by director Ingmar Bergman
- Video conversation between Bergman scholar Peter Cowie and writer Jörn Donner, executive producer of Fanny and Alexander
- Original theatrical trailer
- A booklet featuring an essay by theater and film critic John Simon and a 1961 review by film critic Pauline Kael
Solaris
- Audio essay by Andrei Tarkovsky scholars Vida Johnson and Graham Petrie, coauthors of The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue
- Nine deleted and alternate scenes
- Video interviews with actress Natalya Bondarchuk, cinematographer Vadim Yusov, art director Mikhail Romadin, and composer Eduard Artemyev
- Excerpt from a documentary about Stanislaw Lem, the author of the film's source novel
- A booklet featuring an essay by critic Phillip Lopate and an appreciation by director Akira Kurosawa
Something Wild
- New video interviews with Demme and writer E. Max Frye
- Original theatrical trailer
- A booklet featuring a new essay by film critic David Thompson
Note for Canada readers
The Great Dictator, Solaris and
Something Wild will be available in all of Canada.
Fat Girl, Pale Flower and
Smiles of a Summer Night will be available in English-speaking Canada only.
Diabolique will be available in the US only.