Early Works Of Gus Van Sant (Drugstore Cowboy Feb. 18) And Nicolas Roeg (Performance Feb. 25) Topline The Criterion Collection's February 4K Ultra HD Product Offerings

The Criterion Collection announced its February slate of new film restorations this past week.   There will five new 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack heading home during the month.

There are two — again, always a subjective call — films getting the 4K treatment that are of special interest during the month of February.   Both films have something in common — new directors, rejections by Hollywood, who emerge as cinematic “rock stars” as their film careers bloomed!

The first of these arrives on Feb. 18 and this would be writer/director Gun Van Sant’s October of 1989 film release (Toronto International Film Festival debut in September), Drugstore Cowboy, starring Matt Dillion, Kelly Lynch, James Remar and Heather Graham.

In 1998, Van Sant failed again and again to find any studio interest in his script for Drugstore Cowboy and so he abandoned the Hollywood scene and set up an indie operation in Portland, Oregon.    It took him a full year to get his film shot, thru post-production and ready for the Toronto International Film Festival in September of 1989.   

He was a relatively unknown quantity, but after this indie film hit the theatrical circuit that all changed (Best Director Oscar nominations would follow for Good Will Hunting in 1998 and Milk in 2009) … National Society of Film Critics gave him wins for Best Director and Best Screenplay for Drugstore Cowboy.

Drugstore Cowboy, not only launched Van Sant’s film career, but it remains an important indie film to this day … and now a new 4K digital restoration (supervised and approved by both Van Sant and his director of photography Robert Yeoman).

Bonus features include commentary by Van Sant and actor Matt Dillon, newly minted video sessions with Yeoman and actor Kelly Lynch, deleted scenes and the featurette titled “The Making of Drugstore Cowboy.”

Arriving the following week, Feb. 25, is auteur filmmaker Nicolas Roeg’s directorial debut, Performance (one year before Walkabout), teaming Mick Jagger with James Fox.

Following World War II, Roeg learned the film production business from the ground up … finally getting a big break in the early 1960s as the second-unit cinematographer on director David Lean’s film masterpiece, Lawrence of Arabia.   

Despite his falling out with Lean, his work was noticed by none other than Roger Corman, who gave him the assignment of cinematographer for the Masque of the Red Death in 1964 and Francois Truffaut followed with Fahrenheit 451 in 1966.

By the time he got around to directing Performance in 1968 (he also acted as the cinematographer) he was a well-grounded filmmaker … in other words, he knew his stuff!
The film was completed, but when Warner Bros. (domestically) got a look at it there was panic.   No, no, no … not releasing this.   Too violent, too sexual and all that drug use … no, no, no.   But you do have The Rolling Stone’s Mick Jagger as the star, so that’s something.

The film was “re-worked” ... that’s Hollywood double-speak for other hands being laid upon the film before it finally got a theatrical release in the summer of 1970.   

Not only was it something of a surprise to the studio when it finally got a theatrical run, but the film became a staple of arthouse and repertory venues throughout the 1970s.

Bonus features included the documentary filmmaking team of Kevin Macdonald and Chris Rodley’s 1998 feature length documentary, Donald Cammell: The Ultimate Performance, Greg Carson’s 2007 short film titled Influence and Controversy: Making Performance and three featurettes — “The True Story of David Litvinoff,” “Performers on Performance” and “The Two Cockneys of Harry Flowers.”

Also on the 4K Ultra HD release calendar from the Criterion Collection in February are writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love (Feb. 4), director Joan Micklin Silver’s Crossing Delancey (Feb. 18) and writer/director Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos (Feb. 25).