MURIEL March 2009
LA GUEULE OUVERTE April 2009
UNE FEMME MARIEE May 2009
IL GRIDO May 2009

Eureka Entertainment have announced the UK DVD release of Alain Resnais’ Muriel ou le Temps d’un retour as part of their Masters of Cinema Series on 30th March 2009 priced at £19.99 RRP. Scripted by Jean Cayrol, the co-writer of Resnais’ landmark early short film Night and Fog, Muriel, or: The Time of a Return is proudly presented on UK DVD for the first time by The Masters of Cinema Series.

Features include:

* New anamorphic transfer of the film in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio
* English subtitles in a new and exclusive translation
* The original trailer for the film, newly subtitled
* 36-page booklet containing a new essay about the film from writer B. Kite; another new essay about the film from writer Anna Thorngate; writing by Henri Langlois; and excerpts from the famous 1963 Cahiers du cinema roundtable discussion about the film.

Eureka Entertainment have announced the UK DVD release of Jean-Luc Godard’s Une Femme Mariée as part of their Masters of Cinema Series on 20th April 2009 priced at £19.99 RRP. Long out of circulation and unavailable on home video, Jean-Luc Godard’s 1964 film Une femme mariée, fragments d’un film tourné en 1964 en noir et blanc [A Married Woman: Fragments of a Film Shot in 1964 in Black and White] is described as a lucid, complex, profoundly funny series of portraits, etched with Godardian acids, of the wife that represents either a singular case, or a universal example, of “a”/”the” married woman, and the men in her orbit.

The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present the film in a new Gaumont restoration for the first time on home video in the UK. Features include:

* New progressive transfer of the film in its original aspect ratio
* New and improved English subtitle translations
* The original trailer for the film, created and edited by Jean-Luc Godard at the time of the film’s original French release

There is also an 80-page book containing:

* A new “overture” by legendary French critic and filmmaker Luc Moullet
* A lengthy roundtable discussion between Luc Moullet; writer/critic and American correspondent for Cahiers du cinéma Bill Krohn; writer/critic Andy Rector; and MOC’s Craig Keller – on the film, and its relationship to Godard’s oeuvre from the 1950s through the 2000s
* A concentrated investigation into the film by Bill Krohn
* An image-essay by Andy Rector
* A new statement about the film by star Macha Méril
* A transcript of Godard’s late-‘70s lecture on Une femme mariée, Bergman’s Persona, Flaherty’s Nanook of the North, and Rossellini’s Francesco giullare di Dio, originally presented in Introduction à une véritable histoire du cinéma, translated here into English for the first time
* Relevant excerpts from Jean Racine’s Bérénice, in the original French, accompanied by a new parallel English translation
* A graphical consideration (running the course of the book) of the role of DVD booklets in the modern film-viewing era
* And more!


Eureka Entertainment have announced the UK DVD release of Maurice Pialat’s La Gueule Ouverte as part of their Masters of Cinema Series on 20th April 2009 priced at £19.99 RRP. The French director’s third film, also known as The Mouth Agape, is one about illness: a condition of the body, and a name for the capacity to injure the ones who love us most. The cast includes Nathalie Baye, Monique Mélinand, Philippe Léotard, and Hubert Deschamps.

The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present La Gueule Ouverte on a two-disc set accompanied by nine Pialat shorts – three narrative works from the earliest part of the director’s career, and the six poetic essay-documentaries he shot in Turkey in the early ‘60s – which alone total over two hours in length.

Features include:

* New anamorphic transfer of the film in its original aspect ratio
* New and improved English subtitle translation
* Three early short-films by Maurice Pialat:
o Drôles de bobines [Funny Reels] - 1957, 17 minutes
o L’Ombre familière [The Familiar Shadow] - 1958, 24 minutes
o Janine - 1961, 17 minutes
* The six short 1964 essay-documentaries made by Maurice Pialat in, and about, Turkey:
o Bosphore [Bosporus] - 14 minutes
o Byzance [Byzantium] - 12 minutes
o La Corne d’or [The Golden Horn] - 12 minutes
o Istanbul - 13 minutes
o Maître Galip [Master Galip] - 11 minutes
o Pehlivan - 12 minutes
* 12-minute 2004 interview with Pialat’s ex-wife and frequent collaborator, Micheline Pialat, conducted by former Cahiers du cinéma editor-in-chief, and current director of the Cinémathèque Française, Serge Toubiana
* 8-minute 2004 interview with actress Nathalie Baye
* 11 minutes of footage from the shoot of La Gueule ouverte, featuring commentary recorded in 2005 by actor Jean-François Balmer
* 16-minute 2004 interview with cinematographer Willy Kurant discussing his work with Pialat on the Turkish short-films
* 14-minute 1987 interview with Pialat about the Cinémathèque Française’s role in his film education
* 10-minute excerpt from a 2002 master class with Pialat, discussing the film Maître Galip
* Original theatrical trailer for La Gueule ouverte, along with trailers for the six other Maurice Pialat films released by The Masters of Cinema Series
* 36-page booklet containing a new essay by critic Adrian Martin, and newly translated interviews with Maurice Pialat

A cinematic “cry” from one of the most revered of all auteurs, Italian maestro Michelangelo Antonioni (L’avventura, La notte, Il deserto rosso) depicts a world of heartbreaking alienation, with characters riven by trauma, cast against the stunning backdrop of northern Italy’s Po Valley – where the director spent his childhood.

When sugar refinery worker Aldo (American actor Steve Cochran in a career-best performance) is jilted by his mistress, Irma (Alida Valli, famed for her role in The Third Man), he takes to the road. With daughter in tow, Aldo wanders the Po River delta, seeking temporary – but always illusory – respite with a series of lovers, who only serve to remind him of Irma. Unable to find a new life, Aldo’s haunted past gives way to a fateful finale.

With a script conceived by Antonioni, exquisite cinematography (including a signature concern with desolate vistas), and a plaintive score by renowned composer Giovanni Fusco, the award-winning Il grido – which scooped the “Golden Leopard” at Locarno – is an early key work in the director’s much-celebrated oeuvre. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Il grido for home viewing in the UK for the very first time.

Special Features

- New high-definition transfer of the film in its original aspect ratio
- Newly translated optional English subtitles
- Original 1957 Italian theatrical trailer
- Previously unseen footage deleted from the director’s cut
- 56-page booklet featuring a colour reproduction of the original Italian poster, archival publicity stills, an essay by William Arrowsmith (Antonioni: The Poet of Images), and writing and interviews from Michelangelo Antonioni

This progressive transfer does lack some detail and seems a little soft, and contrast is not as confident as you may like but the materials do seem a little worn and I am unsure whether, outside of some mild edge enhancement, there has been a lot of restoration here.