The Criterion Collection Announces Its June Release Slate Of New Film Restorations

The Criterion Collection announced its June line-up of film restorations set for both DVD and Blu-ray delivery during the month … the selections are bookended by a trio of films from auteur filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (June 4) and are capped-off by director Sergey Bondarchuk’s 1966 Russian epic, War and Peace (June 25).

The Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman (a three-disc Blu-ray set; four-disc DVD product offering) features new 2K restorations of Through a Glass Darkly (1961; domestic 1962 … Best Foreign Language Oscar-winner), Winter Light (1963) and The Silence (1963; domestic 1964).

As to bonus features, all three films include English-dubbed soundtracks, plus vintage video sessions with film historian and author Peter Cowie (“Ingmar Bergman: A Critical Biography”).

The following week, June 11, a new 2K restoration of director George Stevens’ 1936 musical masterpiece, Swing Time, which is often regarded as the best on-screen dance teaming of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers … they made ten films together and the four set-pieces in Swing Time showcase the pair at the top of their form.   Of note, “The Way You Look Tonight” won the Oscar for Best Song.

Bonus goodies include a vintage commentary featuring author John Mueller (“Astaire Dancing: The Musical Films”), a newly prepared video session with George Stevens, Jr., a new video session with film scholar Mia Mask (Professor of Film at Vassar College) focusing on the “Bojangles of Harlem” music number and vintage interviews with both Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, who are joined by choreographer Hermes Pan (nominated for an Oscar for his “Dance Direction”).

A new 2K restoration of the Soviet-era film behemoth, director Sergei Bondarchuk’s 1966 film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, arrives as double-disc Blu-ray and three-disc DVD product offerings on June 25.  

The epic, clocking in at 422 minutes (Gone With the Wind only runs 238 minutes), would capture the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Bonus features include newly prepared video sessions with cinematographer Anatoly Petritsky, filmmaker Fedor Bondarchuk (son of Sergei Bondarchuk) and historian Denise J. Youngblood (“Bondarchuk’s “War and Peace”: Literary Classic to Soviet Cinematic Epic”), plus there are two vintage documentaries on the film and a vintage 1967 television program featuring actor Lyudmila Savelyeva and Sergei Bondarchuk.

Rounding out the June selections from the Criterion Collection are L’humanité (June 18), La vie de Jésus (June 18) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (June 25).