Criterion Blu-ray in February: Marker, Gosha, Dunham, Fassbinder, Preminger, Malle

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Criterion Blu-ray in February: Marker, Gosha, Dunham, Fassbinder, Preminger, Malle

Posted November 15, 2011 04:45 PM by Josh Katz

After much speculation, the Criterion Collection has finally posted their full roster of Blu-ray releases for February 2012.

Titles include Chris Marker's La Jetée & Sans Soleil, Hideo Gosha's Three Outlaw Samurai, Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's World on a Wire, Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder, and Louis Malle's Vanya on 42nd Street.

The La Jetée & Sans Soleil two-pack is the only previously available Criterion entry receiving a Blu-ray upgrade; the rest are new to the Criterion Collection.

Furthermore, the Gosha, Dunham, and Preminger titles mark their respective directors' debuts on the North American Blu-ray format (Olive Films already brought Fassbinder's Despair to high-definition on November 15th, 2011).

Quoted below are Criterion's release date and disc specifications for each film.


La Jetée / Sans Soleil double feature (February 7th, 2012) —
  • High-definition digital transfer, supervised by Chris Marker
  • Uncompressed monaural soundtracks
  • Gillo Pontecorvo: The Dictatorship of Truth, a documentary narrated by literary critic Edward Said
  • Two interviews with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
  • Chris on Chris, a video piece on Marker by filmmaker and critic Chris Darke
  • Two excerpts from the French television series Court-circuit (le magazine)
  • A look at David Bowie's music video for the song "Jump They Say," inspired by La Jetée
  • An analysis of Hitchcock's Vertigo and its influence on Marker
  • Junkopia, a six-minute film by Marker about the Emeryville Mudflats
  • A booklet featuring an essay by Marker scholar Catherine Lupton, an interview with Marker, notes on the films and filmmaking by Marker, and more

Three Outlaw Samurai (February 14th, 2012) —
  • New digital restoration
  • Uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Bilge Ebiri

Tiny Furniture (February 14th, 2012) —
  • New digital transfer
  • 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
  • Director Lena Dunham talks about filmmaking and autobiography in a new interview with writer and filmmaker Nora Ephron
  • New interview with writer-director Paul Schrader
  • Creative Nonfiction, Dunham's first feature film
  • Four short films by Dunham
  • Trailer
  • A booklet featuring an essay by critic Phillip Lopate

World on a Wire (February 21st, 2012) —
  • New high-definition digital restoration
  • Uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Fassbinder's "World on a Wire": Looking Ahead to Today, a fifty-minute documentary about the making of the film by Juliane Lorenz
  • New interview with German-film scholar Gerd Gemünden
  • New English subtitles
  • Trailer for the 2010 theatrical release
  • A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Ed Halter

Anatomy of a Murder (February 21st, 2012) —
  • New high-definition digital restoration
  • Two audio options: an uncompressed monaural soundtrack and an alternate 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track
  • New interview with Otto Preminger biographer Foster Hirsch
  • Critic Gary Giddins explores Duke Ellington's score in a new interview
  • A look at the relationship between graphic designer Saul Bass and Preminger with Bass biographer Pat Kirkham
  • Newsreel footage from the set
  • Excerpts from a 1967 episode of Firing Line, featuring Preminger in discussion with William F. Buckley Jr.
  • Excerpts from the work in progress Anatomy of "Anatomy": The Making of a Movie
  • Behind-the-scenes photographs by Life Magazine's Gjon Mili
  • Trailer, featuring on-set footage
  • A booklet featuring an essay by critic Nick Pinkerton and a 1959 Life Magazine article on real-life lawyer Joseph N. Welch, who plays the judge in the film

Vanya on 42nd Street (February 28th, 2012) —
  • New high-definition digital restoration
  • 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
  • New documentary featuring interviews with André Gregory, the play's director; actors Lynn Cohen, George Gaynes, Julianne Moore, Larry Pine, Wallace Shawn, and Brooke Smith; and producer Fred Berner
  • Trailer
  • A booklet featuring an essay by critic Steven Vineberg and a 1994 on-set report by film critic Amy Taubin

Amazon has not yet created pre-order listings for these six films. This link leads to Criterion's website and has further details about the distributor's February Blu-ray slate.