While sports fans turn to college basketball, movie fans can turn to Criterion next March with five titles being released. Four new titles to the collection are Márta Mészáros’s Adoption, Robert Aldrich’s The Flight of the Phoenix, Theodore Witcher’s love jones, and Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, which will be available on Blu-ray and 4K. Getting an upgrade to 4K is Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le cercle rouge. Read on to learn more about them.
Adoption (#1115) out Mar 8
Trailblazing auteur Márta Mészáros gives aching expression to the experiences of women in 1970s Hungary in this sensitive and absorbing drama, which became the first film directed by a woman to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Through intimate camera work, Adoption immerses the viewer in the worlds of two women, each searching for fulfillment: Kata (Katalin Berek), a middle-aged factory worker who wants to have a child with her married lover, and Anna (Gyöngyvér Vígh), a teenage ward of the state determined to emancipate herself in order to marry her boyfriend. The bond that forms between the two speaks quietly but powerfully to the social and political forces that shape women’s lives, as each navigates the realities of love, marriage, and motherhood in her quest for self-determination. The Special Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration undertaken by the National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive, supervised by cinematographer Lajos Koltai and approved by director Márta Mészáros, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New video essay by scholar Catherine Portuges
- Interview with Mészáros from 2019
- Blow-Ball, a 1964 short film by Mészáros
- Márta Mészáros: Portrait of the Hungarian Filmmaker, a 1979 documentary by Katja Raganelli featuring on-set interviews with the director and creative collaborators
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by film scholar Elena Gorfinkel
Le cercle rouge (#218) out Mar 15
Alain Delon plays a master thief, fresh out of prison, who crosses paths with a notorious escapee (Gian Maria Volontè) and an alcoholic ex-cop (Yves Montand). The unlikely trio plot a heist, against impossible odds, until a relentless inspector and their own pasts seal their fates. With its honorable antiheroes, coolly atmospheric cinematography, and breathtaking set pieces, Le cercle rouge is the quintessential film by Jean-Pierre Melville—the master of ambiguous, introspective crime cinema. The Special Features are:
- New 4K restoration from STUDIOCANAL of the uncut version of the film, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Segments from a 1971 episode of Cinéastes de notre temps featuring director Jean-Pierre Melville
- Interviews with assistant director Bernard Stora and Rui Nogueira, author of Melville on Melville
- On-set and archival footage, featuring interviews with Melville and actors Alain Delon, Yves Montand, and André Bourvil
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: Essays by film critics Michael Sragow and Chris Fujiwara, excerpts from Melville on Melville, a 2000 interview with composer Eric Demarsan, and an appreciation by filmmaker John Woo
The Flight of the Phoenix (#1116) out Mar 22
A downed airplane is a motley group of men’s only protection from the relentless desert sun, in this psychologically charged disaster epic, one of the all-time great survival movies. James Stewart is the veteran pilot whose Benghazi-bound plane—carrying passengers played by an unshaven ensemble of screen icons including Richard Attenborough, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Dan Duryea, Peter Finch, and George Kennedy—crash-lands in the remote Sahara. As tensions simmer among the survivors, they find themselves forced to trust a coldly logical engineer (Hardy Krüger) whose plan to get them out may just be crazy enough to work—or could kill them all. Directed with characteristic punch by Hollywood iconoclast Robert Aldrich, The Flight of the Phoenix balances adventure with human drama as it conducts a surprising and complex examination of authority, honor, and camaraderie among desperate men. The Special Features are:
- 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New conversation between filmmaker Walter Hill and film scholar Alain Silver
- New interview with biographer Donald Dewey on actor James Stewart and his service as a bomber pilot
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by filmmaker and critic Gina Telaroli
love jones (#1117) out Mar 29
Steeped in the bohemian cool of Chicago’s 1990s Black creative scene, love jones—the smart, sexy, and stylish debut feature of writer-director Theodore Witcher—is a love story for anyone who has ever wondered: How do I know when I’ve found the one? Larenz Tate and Nia Long have magnetism and chemistry to burn as the striving, artistically talented twentysomethings—he’s a poet, she’s a photographer—who spark over their love of literature and jazz, but whose mutual reluctance to commit to a relationship leaves them both navigating an emotional minefield of confusion, jealousy, and regrets. Velvety cinematography; an unforgettable, eclectic soundtrack; sophisticated dialogue; and refreshingly low-key, naturalistic performances by an ensemble cast that also includes Isaiah Washington, Lisa Nicole Carson, Bill Bellamy, Bernadette Speakes, and Leonard Roberts come together in an intoxicating, seductively moody romance that engages both the heart and the mind. The Director-Approved Special Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director Theodore Witcher, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- New interview with Witcher and film scholar Racquel J. Gates
- New interview with music scholars Mark Anthony Neal and Shana L. Redmond on the soundtrack
- Panel discussion featuring Witcher and members of the cast and crew
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Danielle A. Jackson
The Last Waltz (#1118) out Mar 29
More than just one of the greatest concert films ever made, The Last Waltz is an at once ecstatic and elegiac summation of a vital era in American rock music. Invited to document the farewell performance of the legendary group the Band at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving, 1976, Martin Scorsese conceived a new kind of music documentary. Enlisting seven camera operators (including renowned cinematographers Vilmos Zsigmond, László Kovács, and Michael Chapman) and art director Boris Leven to design the strikingly theatrical sets, Scorsese created a grandly immersive experience that brings viewers onstage and inside the music itself. That music—as performed by the Band and a host of other generation-defining artists, including Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, the Staple Singers, Muddy Waters, and Neil Young—lives on as an almost religious expression of the transcendent possibilities of rock and roll. The Director-Approved Special Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by musician Robbie Robertson, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Alternate uncompressed stereo soundtrack
- Two audio commentaries, featuring director Martin Scorsese; Robertson; other members of the Band; members of the production crew; and performers Dr. John, Ronnie Hawkins, and Mavis Staples
- New interview with Scorsese, conducted by critic David Fear
- Documentary from 2002 about the making of the film
- Outtakes
- Interview from 1978 with Scorsese and Robertson
- Trailer and TV spot
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Amanda Petrusich
