Criterion closes out the year 2021 with two additions, Regina King’s One Night in Miami… and Gordon Parks’s The Learning Tree. They also upgrade Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes to 4K UHD. Read on to learn more about them.
One Night in Miami… (#1106) out Dec 7
Adapted by Kemp Powers from his acclaimed play, the feature directorial debut of Academy Award–winning actor Regina King puts viewers in a room with four icons at the forefront of Black American culture as they carouse, clash, bare their souls, and grapple with their places within the sweeping change of the civil rights movement. February 25, 1964, has gone down in history as the day that the brash young boxer Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) defeated Sonny Liston, but what happened after the fight was perhaps even more incredible: Ali, civil rights leader Malcolm X, NFL great Jim Brown, and “King of Soul” Sam Cooke all came together at a Miami motel. Electric with big ideas and activist spirit, One Night in Miami . . . plunges us into the midst of an intimate, ongoing conversation—and a defining moment in American history. The Director-Approved Special Features are:
- New 4K digital transfer, approved by director Regina King, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray
- New conversation between King and filmmaker Kasi Lemmons
- New conversation among King, screenwriter Kemp Powers, and critic Gil Robertson
- Conversation between King and filmmaker Barry Jenkins from a 2021 episode of The Director’s Cut – A DGA Podcast
- New program featuring King and actors Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, and Leslie Odom Jr.
- New program on the making of the film, featuring King, Powers, director of photography Tami Reiker, editor Tariq Anwar, producer Jody Klein, costume designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck, and set decorator Janessa Hitsman
- New program on the film’s sound design, featuring sound editor and mixer Andy Hay, sound mixer Paul Ledford, and music producer Nick Baxter
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- English descriptive audio
The Learning Tree (#1107) out Dec 14
With this tender and clear-eyed coming-of-age odyssey, the renowned photographer turned filmmaker Gordon Parks not only became the first Black American director to make a Hollywood studio film, he also served as writer, producer, and composer, resulting in a deeply personal artistic achievement. Based on Parks’s own semi-autobiographical novel, The Learning Tree follows the journey of Newt Winger (Kyle Johnson), a teenage descendant of Exodusters growing up in rural Kansas in the 1920s, as he experiences the bittersweet flowering of first love, finds his relationship with a close friend tested, and navigates the injustices embedded within a racist legal and educational system. Exquisitely capturing the bucolic splendor of its heartland setting, this landmark film tempers nostalgia with an incisive understanding of the harsh realities, hard-won lessons, and often wrenching moral choices that shape the road to self-determination of the young Black man at its center. The Special Features are:
- New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New documentary on the making of the film, featuring artist and critic Ina Diane Archer, curator Rhea L. Combs, and filmmakers Ernest R. Dickerson and Nelson George
- New conversation, moderated by film scholar Michael B. Gillespie, between artist Hank Willis Thomas and art historian Deborah Willis about the influence of director Gordon Parks
- My Father: Gordon Parks (1969), a documentary made on the set of The Learning Tree, narrated by Gordon Parks Jr., and featuring interviews with Gordon Parks Sr. and members of the cast and crew
- Diary of a Harlem Family and The World of Piri Thomas, two 1968 films on which Parks played creative roles, with a new introduction by Combs
- Unstoppable (2005), a documentary featuring producer Warrington Hudlin in conversation with Parks and filmmakers Ossie Davis and Melvin Van Peebles
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: “How It Feels to Be Black,” a 1963 Life magazine photo-essay by Parks, and an excerpt from the director’s 2005 book A Hungry Heart: A Memoir
The Red Shoes (#44) out Dec 14
The Red Shoes, the singular fantasia from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is cinema’s quintessential backstage drama, as well as one of the most glorious Technicolor feasts ever concocted for the screen. Moira Shearer is a rising star ballerina torn between an idealistic composer and a ruthless impresario intent on perfection. Featuring outstanding performances, blazingly beautiful cinematography by Jack Cardiff, Oscar-winning sets and music, and an unforgettable, hallucinatory central dance sequence, this beloved classic, dazzlingly restored, stands as an enthralling tribute to the life of the artist. The Special Features are:
- In the 4K UHD edition: 4K digital transfer from the 2009 restoration, with uncompressed monaural 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
- In the Blu-ray and DVD editions: High-definition digital transfer from the 2009 restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Introductory restoration demonstration with filmmaker Martin Scorsese
- Audio commentary from 1994 by film historian Ian Christie, featuring interviews with actors Marius Goring and Moira Shearer, cinematographer Jack Cardiff, composer Brian Easdale, and Scorsese
- Profile of “The Red Shoes,” a 2000 documentary on the making of the film, featuring interviews with members of the production team
- Interview with director Michael Powell’s widow, editor Thelma Schoonmaker Powell, from the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
- Audio recordings from 1994 of actor Jeremy Irons reading excerpts from Powell and screenwriter Emeric Pressburger’s novelization of The Red Shoes and the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Red Shoes”
- Collection of rare publicity stills and behind-the-scenes photos
- Gallery of memorabilia from Scorsese’s collection
- The “Red Shoes” Sketches, a 1948 animated film of Hein Heckroth’s painted storyboards, with the Red Shoes ballet as an alternate angle
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic David Ehrenstein and a description of the restoration by UCLA film archivist Robert Gitt
