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The last person to die on New Year’s Eve before the clock strikes twelve is doomed to take the reins of Death’s chariot and work tirelessly collecting fresh souls for the next year. So says the legend that drives The Phantom Carriage (Körkarlen), directed by the father of Swedish cinema, Victor Sjöström, about an alcoholic, abusive ne’er-do-well (Sjöström himself) who is shown the error of his ways and the pure-of-heart Salvation Army sister who believes in his redemption. Based on a novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf, this extraordinarily rich and innovative silent classic (which inspired Ingmar Bergman to make movies) is a Dickensian ghost story and a deeply moving morality tale, as well as a showcase for groundbreaking special effects.

Disc Features

- New digital transfer, restored in collaboration with the Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute
- Two scores, one by acclaimed Swedish composer Matti Bye and the other by the experimental duo KTL
- Audio commentary featuring film historian Casper Tybjerg
- Interview with Ingmar Bergman excerpted from the 1981 documentary Victor Sjöström: A Portrait, by Gösta Werner
- The Bergman Connection, an original visual essay by film historian and Bergman scholar Peter Cowie on The Phantom Carriage’s influence on Bergman
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by screenwriter and filmmaker Paul Mayersberg
- More!

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In Les cousins, Claude Chabrol crafts a sly moral fable about a provincial boy who comes to live with his sophisticated bohemian cousin in Paris. Through these seeming opposites, Chabrol conjures a piercing, darkly comic character study that questions notions of good and evil, love and jealousy, and success in the modern world. A mirror image of Le beau Serge, Chabrol’s debut, Les cousins recasts that film’s stars, Jean-Claude Brialy and Gérard Blain, in startlingly reversed roles. This dagger-sharp drama won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and was an important precursor to the French New Wave.

Disc Features

- New digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- Audio commentary featuring film scholar Adrian Martin
- A 2011 documentary by filmmaker Pierre-Henri Gibert about the making of Les cousins, featuring director Claude Chabrol, star Stéphane Audran, assistant directors Charles Bitsch and Claude de Givray, and others
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- Theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Terrence Rafferty

Le beau Serge

Of the hallowed group of Cahiers du cinéma critics turned filmmakers who would transform French film history, Claude Chabrol was the first to direct his own feature. His stark and absorbing landmark debut, Le beau Serge, follows a successful yet sickly young man (Jean‑Claude Brialy) who returns home to the small village where he grew up. There, he finds himself at odds with his former close friend (Gérard Blain)—now unhappily married and a wretched alcoholic—and the provincial life he represents. The remarkable and raw Le beau Serge heralded the arrival of a cinematic titan who would go on to craft provocative, entertaining films for five more decades.

Disc Features

- New digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- New audio commentary featuring Guy Austin, author of Claude Chabrol
- Segment from a 1969 episode of the French television series L’invité du dimanche in which Chabrol revisits Sardent, the town he grew up in and the film’s location
- A 2011 documentary by filmmaker Pierre-Henri Gibert on the making of Le beau Serge
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- Theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Terrence Rafferty
- More!

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DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

New digital transfer, supervised and approved by directors of photography Denis Lenoir and Yorick Le Saux, with DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition
New video interviews with director Olivier Assayas, Lenoir, Le Saux, and actor Édgar Ramírez
Twenty-minute making-of documentary on the film’s OPEC raid scene
Original theatrical trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critics Colin MacCabe and Greil Marcus, plus biographies on selected historical figures portrayed in the film, written by the film’s historical adviser, Stephen Smith
Much more!

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Hard at work on our 2012 release schedule... It's going to be a great year!

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Greg Mank has recorded the audio commentary and there will be a talking heads documentary also. I expect there will be a formal announcement soon.

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