Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba (1964) uses the striking cinematography of Sergei Urusevsky to create a fever dream version of the Cuban Revolution, a series of archetypal moments of oppression and resistance leading to an ecstatic explosion of justified communal violence. Filled with heightened emotions rendered in breathtaking images and seemingly impossible camera movements, the film looks gorgeous in a 4K restoration on Criterion’s Blu-ray.
Criterion’s two-disk Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers showcases three of the director’s best movies, including the peak of his long collaboration with Lon Chaney in The Unknown (1927) and Browning’s masterpiece Freaks (1932) along with the lesser-known The Mystic (1925). Fine 2K transfers and some illuminating extras leave you hoping that more of Tod Browning’s work will turn up on disk in restored versions.
Satyajit Ray’s The Apu Trilogy, which follows the life of its titular character from birth to a difficult adulthood, from an impoverished rural village to India’s crowded cities, recognized as a masterpiece of world cinema, shines in Criterion’s new dual-format edition.
Although overshadowed by his hugely influential cycle of zombie movies, Martin (1976), George A. Romero’s treatment of vampirism, is his finest work, a complex and subtle meditation on myth, madness, violence and social collapse in mid-’70s America. Second Sight’s 4K restoration finally gives this masterpiece the release it deserves.
Excellent Blu-ray editions from Criterion and the BFI respectively do full justice to Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944) and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear (1953), two very dark examinations of the post-war crisis of masculinity.
Doomed romance is offset by a vibrant sense of community in Marcel Carné’s Hôtel du Nord (1938), one of the filmmaker’s remarkable string of poetic realist masterpieces from the late 1930s to the mid-’40s. The film’s rich atmosphere comes to life in the 2K restoration used by Criterion for their new Blu-ray release.
Digital tools put in service of restoring films from a century ago produce spectacular results with Blu-rays of Carl Th. Dreyer’s uncanny Vampyr (1932) and Louis Feuillade’s serial Tih-Minh (1919).
However many times you watch a movie, there’s always a possibility to see something new and find new responses which surprise you out of complacent familiarity – two recent cases in point: Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).
It’s been a good year for movies on disk, with a remarkable range of releases from many companies which are devoting considerable resources to rediscovering, restoring and preserving movies in numerous genres. Ranging across nationalities and spanning cinema history, there was plenty to divert attention from a real world which has become so depressing and exhausting.
Criterion showcase a key ’50s sci-fi movie with their extras-loaded Blu-ray of Jack Arnold’s The Incredible Shrinking Man. The 4K restoration makes this the definitive visual presentation of the film, while the numerous special features – commentary, interviews, documentary – cover the production and the critical importance of the movie in detail.