Criterion has announced their July 2015 line-up of releases and it’s a rather impressive one with the most notable title being a brand new release of the Alain Resnais‘ classic Hiroshima mon amour (July 14), a film I have never seen and there’s a small bit of shame in that fact considering its influence on so many filmmakers and its importance in establishing what is now referred to as the French New Wave. The release is not without new features as Criterion gives it the Blu-ray upgrade:
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Audio commentary by film historian Peter Cowie
- Interviews with director Alain Resnais from 1961 and 1980
- Interviews with actor Emmanuelle Riva from 1959 and 2003
- New interview with film scholar François Thomas, author of L’atelier d’Alain Resnais
- New interview with music scholar Tim Page about the film’s score
- Revoir Hiroshima . . . , a 2013 program about the film’s restoration
- New English subtitle translation
- An essay by critic Kent Jones and excerpts from a 1959 Cahiers du cinéma roundtable discussion about the film
Next we have the release of two adaptations of Ernest Hemingway’s short story The Killers (July 7), both Robert Siodmak‘s 1946 adaptation and the 1964 adaptation by Don Siegel. In fact, this is sort of a triple feature as it also includes Andrei Tarkovsky‘s short film adaptation “The Killers”, which he made when he was a student in 1956.
It’s also fascinating for me to see Carroll Ballard‘s The Black Stallion (July 14) making its way into the collection. I watched this Francis Ford Coppola presentation hundreds of times as a kid (including The Black Stallion Returns) and to now see it as part of the Criterion Collection is a bit fascinating. The release includes a new 4K digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Caleb Deschanel, five short films by Ballard, a new conversation between Ballard and film critic Scott Foundas, a new interview with Deschanel and a new piece featuring photographer Mary Ellen Mark discussing her images from the film’s set.
Wes Anderson‘s Moonrise Kingdom (July 21) is the latest from the filmmaker to make the collection, which means we should expect a release of The Grand Budapest Hotel soon enough. Among the features you won’t find on the previously released Fox edition you’ll get an audio commentary featuring Anderson, selected-scene storyboard animatics, auditions, home movies from the set and more.
On July 14 you can pick up Jan Troell‘s Here is Your Life, his first since the excellent Everlasting Moments, and on July 21 Stephen Frears‘ My Beautiful Laundrette starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
You can tour all of Criterion’s upcoming releases here.
