Fists in the Pocket Blu-ray

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S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

(aka 'Fists in the Pocket' or 'Fists in hise Pocket')

Directed by Marco Bellocchio
Italy 1965

Tormented by twisted desires, a young man takes drastic measures to rid his grotesquely dysfunctional family of its various afflictions in this astonishing 1965 debut from Marco Bellocchio. Charged by a coolly assured style, shocking perversity, and savage gallows humor, Fists in the Pocket (I pugni in tasca) was a gleaming ice pick in the eye of bourgeois family values and Catholic morality, a truly unique work that continues to rank as one of the great achievements of Italian cinema.

***

An epileptic teenager channels all his hopes and dreams into a single project: the mass murder of his wealthy family, which he intends as a public service. Marco Bellocchio's first film (1965) is a fierce, punkish mash of political satire and family melodrama, veins that Bellocchio would continue to pursue until his career petered out in an unexpected academicism.

Excerpt from Dave Kehr's comments at the Chicago Reader located HERE

Posters

Theatrical Release: October 31st, 1965

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Comparison:

Criterion - Region 1 - NTSC vs. Criterion - Region 'A' - Blu-ray

Box Cover		Coming to the UK on Blu-ray from Criterion in June 2023:
Distribution	Criterion Home Video - Region 1 - NTSC	Criterion - Region 'A' - Blu-ray
Runtime	1:48:40	1:49:38.488
Video	1.85:1 Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 6.93 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s	1.85:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 48,297,923,134 bytes Feature: 32,821,413,888 bytes Video Bitrate: 35.79 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate:
Bitrate Blu-ray:
Audio	Italian (Dolby Digital 1.0)	LPCM Audio Italian 1152 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 1152 kbps / 24-bit
Subtitles	English, None	English, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Criterion Collection Aspect Ratio: Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1 Edition Details: • Featurette: A Need For a Change Video interviews with director Marco Bellocchio, actors Lou Castel and Paola Pitagora, and editor Silvano Agosti (33:27) • Afterward by Bernardo Bertolucci (10:25) • Original theatrical trailer • Liner notes booklet with an essay by film critic Deborah Young and an interview with Bellochio from 1967 DVD Release Date: April 25th, 2006 Keep Case Chapters: 18	Release Information: Studio: Criterion 1.85:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 48,297,923,134 bytes Feature: 32,821,413,888 bytes Video Bitrate: 35.79 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video Edition Details: • Featurette: A Need For a Change Video interviews with director Marco Bellocchio, actors Lou Castel and Paola Pitagora, and editor Silvano Agosti (33:27) • Afterward by Bernardo Bertolucci (10:25) • New interview with scholar Stefano Albertini (Blu-ray only) (10:45) • Trailer • PLUS: An essay by film critic Deborah Young and (with the DVD) an interview with Bellocchio Cover by Neil Kellerhouse and Peter Grant Blu-ray Release Date: September 3rd, 2019 Standard Blu-ray Case inside cardboard sleeve Chapters 17

Comments:

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Criterion Blu-ray (August 2019): A new 4K digital restoration, approved by director Marco Bellocchio certainly benefits via the maxed-out bitrate (over 5x the Criterion DVD). The film is housed on a dual-layered Blu-ray and features this title card (translated here from Italian); "The restoration of I pugni in tasca (1965, Italy) was promoted by the Cineteca di Bologna Foundation in collaboration with Kavac Film with the support of Giorgio Armani and curated by Marco Bellocchio. It was created starting from the negative camera, on Dupont film, which was scanned under liquid at a resolution of 4K. Some questions, which in the negative had been replaced over time with a second-generation internegative, were resized and restored starting from a first-generation lavender. The digital vote was supervised by Marco Bellocchio and edited by Daniele Ciprì. Due to the will of the director, the sequence of the kiss was reinstated in the editing of the film. The restoration was performed at the L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, completed in August 2015."
The film features a much stronger level of detail than the previous DVD, not to mention an added boost in contrast. The captures below should speak for themselves.

Criterion include the film with its uncompressed 1.0 monarual soundtrack, in 24-bit linear PCM. The music from Ennio Morricone certainly gets a boost from this uncompressed track, as does the dialogue (though I know little to no Italian, but it seems intelligible). There is a new English subtitle translation on this Region 'A' Blu-ray from Criterion.

"A Need For Change" is the 34-minute documentary from 2005 that previously appeared on Criterion's DVD. "Bernardo Bertolucci" also reappears here on this new Blu-ray. The trailer for "Fists in the Pocket" is also included. "A Shock to the System" is an all-new interview from 2019, featuring scholar Stefano Albertini discussing the impact of "Fists in the Pocket" on Italian cinema and culture. There is a booklet included which features an essay by film critic Deborah Young and an interview with Bellocchio. The cover is by Neil Kellerhouse and Peter Grant.

Criterion's new 4K digital restoration on Blu-ray is a worthy upgrade over their older 2005 SD DVD release with a new worthwhile supplement. This is such an impressive film - you want it in the best a/v presentation quality.