On Homevision's website for June:



The Lower Depths: Two Films (Special Edition Double-Disc Boxed Set)
The Criterion Collection

Directed by Akira Kurosawa, Jean Renoir

Starring Toshiro Mifune (1957), Isuzu Yamada (1957), Minoru Chiaki (1957), Jean Gabin (1936), Louis Jouvet (1936)

•New high-definition digital transfer, with restored image and sound

•Original theatrical trailer

•A documentary on the making of The Lower Depths, part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create

•Audio commentary featuring Japanese-film expert Donald Richie (A Hundred Years of Japanese Film)

•New high-definition digital transfer, with restored image and sound

•New essay by Keiko McDonald (From Book to Screen: Modern Japanese Literature in Film) and Thomas Rimer (A Reader’s Guide to Japanese Literature)

•New and improved English subtitle translation by renowned Japanese-film translator Linda Hoaglund

•Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

•Cast biographies by Stephen Prince (The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa)

•1.33:1 aspect ratio

•Monaural

•Jean Renoir's The Lower Depths features:

•New high-definition digital transfer, with restored image and sound

•Introduction to the film by Jean Renoir

•New essay by film scholar Alexander Sesonske, author of Jean Renoir: The French Films 1924–1939

•New and improved English subtitle translation

•1.33:1 aspect ratio

•Monaural

The Criterion Collection is proud to present two dramatically different interpretations of Maxim Gorsky's classic play by two of cinema's greatest masters.

Jean Renoir's The Lower Depths
(Les Bas-fonds—1936)
Made in the 1930s, amidst the rise of Hitler in Germany and the Popular Front in France, Jean Renoir took license with Maxim Gorky’s source material for The Lower Depths. Aware that the plight of Gorky’s desperates might sit uneasily in his own country on the edge of war, Renoir never lets his derelicts sink quite to the depths, offering them—like in so many of his other films—the possibility of hope. Marking the first time the director would work with Jean Gabin (Grand Illusion) and featuring the great Louis Jouvet (Quai des Orfèvres, Carnival in Flanders), The Lower Depths demonstrates one of cinema’s greatest directors transforming a classic play into his own terms for a distinct time.

Akira Kurosawa's The Lower Depths (Donzoko—1957)
Director Akira Kurosawa’s transformation of Maxim Gorky’s classic proletarian play, The Lower Depths, demonstrates another side of the acclaimed filmmaker’s remarkable versatility. In contrast to his usual broad canvas and kinetic filmmaking style, here he explores the possibilities of the stage, finding intimacy in his examination of a group of destitutes set, ironically, within Japan’s prosperous Edo period. Starring an ensemble cast that includes Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, and Minoru Chiaki, this adaptation is a Buddhist meditation on the human condition, a poignant yet comic investigation of one of Kurosawa’s favorite themes—the conflict between illusion and reality.

1957 • Japan • Runtime 85 / 125 min. • BW • DVD • In French / Japanese with optional English subtitles • $39.95



Mamma Roma (Special Edition Double-Disc Set)
The Criterion Collection

Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Starring Anna Magnani, Ettore Garofolo

"One of Pasolini’s very best. Mamma Roma stars Anna Magnani at her most volcanic, hyperbolic, and magnificent. Not to be missed."
—JONATHAN ROSENBAUM, CHICAGO READER


•New high-definition digital transfer, with restored image and sound

•Three new interviews about director Pier Paolo Pasolini: Bernardo Bertolucci, an assistant to Pasolini on his early films; Tonino Delli Colli, cinematographer on eleven of Pasolini’s fourteen films; and Enzo Siciliano, author of Pasolini: A Biography

•Pier Paolo Pasolini (1995), a 55-minute documentary by filmmaker Ivo Barnabò Micheli covering the career of the controversial artist

•La Ricotta (1963), a 35-minute film by Pasolini about a director who sets out to make a film about the Passion of Jesus

•Original theatrical trailer

•Poster gallery

•New essay by novelist and cultural critic Gary Indiana

•New and improved English subtitle translation

•Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

•1.33:1 aspect ratio

•Monaural


Anna Magnani is Mamma Roma, a middle-aged prostitute who attempts to extricate herself from her sordid past for the sake of her son. Filmed in the great tradition of Italian neorealism, Mamma Roma offers an unflinching look at the struggle for survival in postwar Italy, and highlights director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s lifelong fascination with the marginalized and dispossessed. Though banned upon its release in Italy for obscenity, today Mamma Roma is considered a classic: a glimpse at a country’s most controversial director in the process of finding his style and a powerhouse performance by one of cinema’s greatest actresses.


"Combines formal audacity, unflinching candor, and heartbreaking compassion to produce a work of shattering beauty."
—TIME OUT FILM GUIDE


1962 • Italy • Runtime 110 min. • BW • DVD • In Italian with optional English subtitles • $39.95



A Woman is a Woman
The Criterion Collection

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard

Starring Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Claude Brialy

"Deliriously kooky…staccato bursts of adorable visual jokes, precocious editing and in-crowd movie asides…Godard’s mischief is front and center."
—TIME OUT NEW YORK


•New digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Raoul Coutard, with restored image and sound and enhanced for widescreen televisions

•An early short film by director Jean-Luc Godard

•Qui êtes-vous Anna Karina: Excerpts from a 1966 French television interview with Karina, Brialy, and Serge Gainsbourg

•Collection of A Woman Is a Woman posters from around the world

•Original theatrical trailer

•New essay by film critic J. Hoberman, author of The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties

•New and improved English subtitle translation

•Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

•2.35:1 aspect ratio

•Monaural


With A Woman Is a Woman (Une Femme est une femme), compulsively innovative director Jean-Luc Godard presents “a neorealist musical, that is, a contradiction in terms.” Featuring French superstars Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Jean-Claude Brialy at their peak of adorability, A Woman Is a Woman is a sly, playful tribute to—and interrogation of—the American musical comedy, showcasing Godard’s signature wit and intellectual acumen. The film tells the story of exotic dancer Angéla (Karina) as she attempts to have a child with her unwilling lover Émile (Brialy). In the process, she finds herself torn between him and his best friend Alfred (Belmondo). A dizzying compendium of color, humor, and the music of renowned composer Michel Legrand, A Woman Is a Woman finds the young Godard at his warmest and most accessible, reveling in and scrutinizing the mechanics of his great obsession— the cinema.


"A Woman Is a Woman is an important stage in the development of modern cinema. It is cinema in its pure form. It is spectacle and the charm of spectacle."
—ANDRE S. LABARTHE, CAHIERS DU CINEMA

"Not since the most tortured days of Sternberg and Dietrich has the female principle been expressed so triumphantly.Woman employs all the resources of the cinema to express the exquisite agony of heterosexual love."
—ANDREW SARRIS, VILLAGE VOICE


1961 • France • Runtime 84 min. • Color • DVD • In French with optional English subtitles • $29.95



Dan

Godard's A Woman is A woman....a MUST BUY FOR ME!!

but...I am even more excited about Mamma Roma!!! GREAT GREAT FILM!


Pro-B

This post just made my day. Thanks Dan.

Me too! Mamma Roma somehow escaped me for years, and it was only fairly recently that I caught this for the first time - an almost-forgotton treasure!

I'm glad to finally see The Lower Depths get a release date again. I was curious to see what Criterion would add since this was originally slated for last year. I didn't expect another movie.

I am embarrassed to admit (given my moniker):

I have never heard of Momma Roma.

The special features alone on that disc are extraordinary. I can't wait.

I wonder if this adds hope that they may reissue some of the out of print (in region 1) Pasolini films from other distributors (i don't know who owns the rights to Canterbury Tales, Arabian Nights, Teorema, etc)

Very nice. I hope to buy them all. Very happy to see A Woman is a Woman is only $29.95

I need to take a second job.

scandulous!

I saw Momma Roma last spring at the National Gallery of Art here in DC, and the print was very good, can't wait to own this on DVD, way to go Criterion.

I know that MGM released "The Decameron" on dvd, not sure if they own the rights to the remaining film in the Trilogy of Life series: Canterbury Tales, Arabian Nights.

Would look forward to trading in my Image laserdisc editions of the three films for fresh DVD editions.

more kurosawa, nice!

I'm always happy to buy more Renoir and Godard, especially on Criterion.

I'm not a big fan of "A Woman is a Woman" - (in fact, I kind of hated it) - But I am all over the Kurosaw/Renoir and the Pasolini.

Great news, thanks for the info!

I'm with you on this. I'm not a fan of Pasolini (b/c I haven't seen much of his work), but I am VERY eager for a solid release of his Gospel According to St. Matthew. I watched that in one of my religion classes, and I felt it was a great film. Also, didn't he do a film based on Oedipus Rex? I know I watched that film in a lit class, but I can't remember if it was Pasolini's or not. Regardless, I hope this opens the door to these films being released. Thanks to the OP.

Covers:

Gospel is regarded by many as his finest film (and shows up on a few of film critic's and filmmakers' top 10 lists of all time).

Oedipus Rex and Gospel are actually two of his that are currently in print, on Waterbearer Films, who actually did the last set of dvds that are now out of print through Image ( tales, nights, etc) and they've always been the logo on his vhs.

i managed to pick up 6 of his films for very cheap during that DDD 20% sale a while back. There are two boxsets: 1) Oedipus Rex, Love Meetings, Porcile and 2) Accatone; the Hawks and the Sparrows, and Gospel According to St. Matthew.

I haven't opened them yet, so i can't comment on quality.

And the hits just keep on coming!..........will certainly be picking up The Lower Depths

I wanted to pick up Gospel, but I've read some reviews that the image quality is terrible. I don't really expect that much, but my understanding is that there wasn't much restoring taht went in to releasing. Thanks for the confirmation on Oedipus Rex. As I said, I'm not a fan of Pasolini's in particular and as of right now I'd just prefer to own top-notch releases of only these two films (Gospel especially) and maybe just look into the others. Thanks for the info, BTW!

Here is an entertaining review of A Woman Is A Woman:

http://www.dumbassandthefag.com/revi...aniswoman.html

Keep in mind, it's more of a humor piece than it is an actual review.

Godard & Pasolini in one and the same month, great news!!! Thanks!

But it cannot measure up with the Renoir & Kurosawa combination...

Cheers

DVD Smurf

Great to see more Criterion Godard on the way. Maybe they will pick up the rights to the OOP "Pierrot le fou" too. And a Criterion "Breathless" could be another great jewel in their catalog.

Glad to see that 2004 is Criterion's greatest year to date.

Although it's getting expensive because I want just about every disc they put out!

New Lower Depths cover is up:

Love the Lower Depths cover

I'm sure the Lower Depths cover will be just like the cover for The Killers, in that the picture above is just a sheet on top of the case and the actual cover will be a full-sheet for each film on each side of the case.