PIERROT LE FOU
 

Dissatisfied in marriage and life, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) takes to the road with the babysitter, his ex-lover Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), and leaves the bourgeoisie behind. Yet this is no normal road trip: genius auteur Jean-Luc Godard’s tenth feature in six years is a stylish mash-up of consumerist satire, politics, and comic-book aesthetics, as well as a violent, zigzag tale of, as Godard called them, “the last romantic couple.” With blissful color imagery by cinematographer Raoul Coutard and Belmondo and Karina at their most animated, Pierrot le fou is one of the high points of the French new wave, and one last frolic before Godard moved ever further into radical cinema.  

Info
€ Directed by Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless, Contempt, Masculin féminin)
€ Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless, A Woman Is a Woman, Le Doulos)
€ Starring Anna Karina (A Woman Is a Woman, Band of Outsiders, Alphaville)
€ Cinematography by Raoul Coutard (Jules and Jim, Contempt, Z)

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
€ New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by cinematographer Raoul Coutard
€ New video interview with actor Anna Karina
€ A “Pierrot” Primer, a new video program with audio commentary by filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
€ Godard, l’amour, la poésie, a fifty-minute French documentary about Godard and his collaborative life and films with Anna Karina
€ Archival interview excerpts with director Jean-Luc Godard, actors Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Anna Karina
€ Theatrical trailer
€ New and improved English subtitle translation
€ PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Richard Brody, an review by Andrew Sarris, and an interview with Godard

Title: Pierrot le fou
CAT: CC1738D
UPC: 7-15515-02782-3
ISBN: 978-1-60465-013-6
SRP: $39.95
Prebook: 1/15/08
Street date: 2/19/08

 

WALKER
 

A hallucinatory biopic that breaks all cinematic conventions, Walker, from British director Alex Cox (Repo Man, Sid & Nancy), tells the story of nineteenth-century American adventurer William Walker (Ed Harris), who abandoned a series of careers in law, politics, journalism, and medicine to become a soldier of fortune, and for several years dictator of Nicaragua. Made with mad abandon and political acuity—and the support of the Sandinista army and government during the Contra war—the film uses this true tale as a satirical attack on American ultrapatriotism and a freewheeling condemnation of “manifest destiny.” Featuring a powerful score by Joe Strummer and a performance of intense, repressed rage by Harris, Walker remains one of Cox’s most daring works.

Info
€ Directed by Alex Cox (Sid & Nancy, Repo Man)
€ Starring Ed Harris (The Right Stuff, Pollock, A History of Violence)
€ Written by Marlee Matlin (Children of a Lesser God, The L Word)
€ Written by Rudy Wurlitzer (Two-Lane Blacktop, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid)

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
€ New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Alex Cox
€ Audio commentary by Cox and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer
€ Dispatches from Nicaragua, an original documentary about the filming of Walker
€ On Moviemaking and the Revolution, an audio reminiscence by actor and writer Linda Sandoval about the shoot
€ Rare behind-the-scenes photos
€ PLUS: A booklet featuring writings by film critic Graham Fuller, Wurlitzer, and Linda Sandoval

Title: Walker
CAT: CC1740D
UPC: 7-15515-02802-8
ISBN: 978-1-60465-015-0
SRP: $39.95
Prebook: 1/15/08
Street date: 2/19/08

 

THE LAST EMPEROR
 

Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor won nine Academy Awards, unexpectedly sweeping every category in which it was nominated—quite a feat for a challenging, multilayered epic directed by an Italian and starring an international cast. Yet the power and scope of the film was, and remains, undeniable—the life of emperor Pu Yi, who took the throne at age three, in 1908, before witnessing decades of cultural and political upheaval, within and outside of the walls of the Forbidden City. Recreating Qing-dynasty China with astonishing detail and unparalleled craftsmanship by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti, The Last Emperor is also an intimate character study of one man reconciling personal responsibility and political legacy.

Info
€ Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci (La commare seca, The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris)
€ Starring John Lone (Year of the Dragon, M Butterfly, War)
€ Starring Joan Chen (Twin Peaks; Heaven on Earth; Lust, Caution)
€ Starring Peter O’Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, The Ruling Class, Venus)
€ Cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (The Conformist, Apocalypse Now, Reds)

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FOUR-DISC SET FEATURES:
€  All new restored, high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro
€ All new restored, high-definition digital transfer of the extended television version
€ Audio commentary by director Bernardo Bertolucci, producer Jeremy Thomas, composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, and screenwriter Mark Peploe
€ Bernardo Bertolucci, a sixty-minute documentary exploring the director’s creative process and the making of The Last Emperor
€ The Italian Traveler, a documentary by Fernand Mozskowicz, exploring Bertolucci’s journey from Parma to China
€ The Making of “The Last Emperor,” a new documentary featuring Storaro, editor Gabriella Cristiana, costume designer James Acheson, and art director Gianni Silvestre
€ Postcards from China, video images taken by Bertolucci while on preproduction in China
€ The Late Show: Face to Face, a 30-minute BBC interview with Bertolucci from 1989
€ New video interviews with composers David Byrne and Sakamoto
€ Theatrical trailer
€ PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by David Thomson and an extract from script supervisor Fabien Gerard’s journals from the production
€ More!

Title: The Last Emperor
CAT: CC1739D
UPC: 7-15515-02792-2
ISBN: 978-1-60465-014-3
SRP: $59.95
Prebook: 1/22/08
Street date: 2/26/08

Eclipse Series #8: Lubitsch Musicals
Not only the man who refined Hollywood comedy with such masterpieces as Trouble in Paradise, The Shop Around the Corner, and To Be or Not to Be, Ernst Lubitsch also helped invent the modern movie musical. With the advent of sound and audiences clamoring for “talkies,” Lubitsch combined his love of European operettas and his mastery of film to produce this entirely new genre. These elegant, bawdy films, created before strict enforcement of the morality code, feature some of the greatest stars of early Hollywood (Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Claudette Colbert, Miriam Hopkins), as well as that elusive style of comedy that would thereafter be known as “the Lubitsch touch.” Unavailable until now, these American comedy classics are sure to continue to delight viewers.

FOUR-DISC BOX SET FEATURES:

The Love Parade (1929)
Ernst Lubitsch’s first “talking picture” was also Hollywood’s first movie musical to integrate songs with narrative. Additionally, The Love Parade made stars out of toast-of-Paris Maurice Chevalier and girl-from-Philly Jeanette MacDonald, cast as a womanizing military attaché and the man-hungry queen of “Sylvania.” With its naughty innuendo and satiric romance, The Love Parade opened the door for a decade of witty screen battles of the sexes.

Monte Carlo (1930)
Jeanette MacDonald’s independent-minded countess leaves her foppish prince fiancé at the altar, and whisks herself away to the Riviera. There, she strikes the fancy of the sly Count Rudolph (Broadway crossover Jack Buchanan), who poses as a hairdresser to get into her boudoir. Lubitsch’s follow-up to The Love Parade shows even more musical invention, and presents MacDonald at her sexily haughty best.
 

The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
Maurice Chevalier’s randy Viennese lieutenant is enamored of Claudette Colbert’s freethinking, all-girl-orchestra-leading cutie. Yet complications ensue when the sexually repressed princess of the fictional kingdom of Flausenthurm, played by newcomer Miriam Hopkins, sets her sights on him. The Smiling Lieutenant is a delightful showcase for its rising female stars, who are never more charming than when Colbert tunefully instructs Hopkins, “Jazz Up Your Lingerie.”

One Hour With You (1932)
Lubitsch reunites Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, this time as a seemingly blissful couple whose marriage hits the skids when her flirtatious school chum comes on to her husband a bit too strong. Necking in the park at nighttime, husbands and wives having casual dalliances, and a butler telling his master, “I did so want to see you in tights!”: it’s one of Lubitsch’s sauciest escapades and his final “pre-code” musical.

Info
€ Directed by Ernst Lubitsch (Trouble in Paradise, Ninotchka. Heaven Can Wait)  
€ Starring Maurice Chevalier (The Big Pond, The Merry Widow, Gigi)
€ Starring Jeanette MacDonald (The Merry Widow, Maytime, Rose Marie)
€ Starring Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night, Since You Went Away)
€ Starring Miriam Hopkins (Becky Sharp, Trouble in Paradise, Design for Living)

Title: Lubitsch Musicals (series #8)
CAT: ECL036
UPC: 7-15515-02812-7
ISBN: 978-1-60465-016-8
SRP: $59.95
Prebook: 1/8/08
Street date: 2/12/08