The Criterion Collection will be opening the New Year with a new 4K film restoration of director John M. Stahl’s 1934 film adaptation of Fannie Hurst’s 1933 novel (previously serialized in Pictorial Review as “Sugar House”), Imitation of Life. Both DVD and Blu-ray editions will be available on Jan. 10, 2023.
It is a wonder that Imitation of Life was even made. When the anti-arts and anti-First Amendment Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Commission) got wind of the novel being acquired by Universal they became extremely concerned that the subject of miscegenation would be up there on the silver screen for all to see … sex between the races, horror of horror! Negros. No, no, no, we can’t have a story about a bi-racial woman released as a movie.
Eventually a deal was hammered out — some major script changes were made and careful attention was paid as to which words could be used.
In November of 1934 the film opened theatrically and the rest, as they say, is history … a Best Picture-nominee (ironically, Claudette Colbert, also starred in another Best Picture-nominee that year, It Happened One Night … she won the Oscar for her performance as Ellie Andrews and It Happened One Night won Best Picture laurels).
Bonus features include video sessions with author Miriam J. Petty (“Stealing the Show: African American Performers and Audiences in 1930s Hollywood”) and Imogen Sara Smith, a contributor to “The Call of the Heart: John M. Stahl and Hollywood Melodrama.”
Also, to be found on the New Year release docket from Criterion is a the 4K Ultra HD debut of director Terry Gilliam’s 1989 flight of fancy film, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. The street date is Jan. 3 for a 4K Ultra HD/2 Blu-ray Combo Pack edition (a double-disc Blu-ray purchasing option will also be available on Jan. 3 as well).
Bonus features include commentary from Gilliam, who is joined by co-screenwriter, Charles McKeown, deleted scenes, a making-of documentary, a newly-prepared video session with film critic David Cairns and Gilliam’s 1974 short film titled Miracle of Flight.
Rounding out the January new release slate are the Blu-ray-only collection of Lars von Trier’s Europe Trilogy (featuring The Element of Crime, Epidemic and Europa … Jan. 17); Blu-ray and double-disc DVD editions of director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s This is Not a Burial, it’s a Resurrection, and on Jan. 31 look for both DVD and Blu-ray selections of writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve’s 2021 art house entry, Bergman Island (the ARR is 473 days and domestic box office receipts were $145,191).
No comments:
Post a Comment