Criterion will give your wallet a break in February by only releasing four mostly new titles. The new additions are The Coen Brothers’s Miller’s Crossing, Leo McCarey’s Love Affair, and Ann Hui’s Boat People. They also upgrade Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind to a high-definition Blu-ray. Read on to learn more about them.
Written on the Wind (#96) out Feb 1
Douglas Sirk’s Technicolor expressionism reached a fever pitch with this operatic tragedy, which finds the director pushing his florid visuals and his critiques of American culture to their subversive extremes. Alcoholism, nymphomania, impotence, and deadly jealousy—these are just some of the toxins coursing through a massively wealthy, degenerate Texan oil family. When a sensible secretary (Lauren Bacall) has the misfortune of marrying the clan’s neurotic scion (Robert Stack), it drives a wedge between him and his lifelong best friend (Rock Hudson) that unleashes a maelstrom of psychosexual angst and fury. Featuring an unforgettably debauched, Oscar-winning supporting performance by Dorothy Malone and some of Sirk’s most eye-popping mise-en-scène, Written on the Wind is as perverse a family portrait as has ever been splashed across the screen. The Special Features are:
- On the Blu-ray: New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- On the DVD: Widescreen digital transfer, enhanced for 16×9 televisions
- Acting for Douglas Sirk, a 2008 documentary featuring archival interviews with Sirk; actors Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone; and producer Albert Zugsmith (Blu-ray only)
- New interview with film scholar Patricia White about the film and melodrama (Blu-ray only)
- Trailer
- Trailer for All That Heaven Allows (DVD only)
- The Melodrama Archive: An annotated filmography of director Douglas Sirk with hundreds of behind-the-scenes and production photos, plus vintage lobby cards (DVD only)
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by filmmaker and critic Blair McClendon (Blu-ray only); an essay by film theorist Laura Mulvey (DVD only)
Miller’s Crossing (#1112) out Feb 8
A Roaring Twenties gangster saga that only the Coen brothers could concoct, Miller’s Crossing marries the hard-boiled sensibility of classic noir fiction with the filmmakers’ trademark savory dialogue, colorful characters, and finely calibrated set pieces. Gabriel Byrne brings a wry gravitas to the role of Tom Reagan, the quick-thinking right-hand man to a powerful crime boss (Albert Finney), whose unflappable cool is tested when he begins offering his services to a rival outfit—setting off a cascade of betrayals, reprisals, and increasingly berserk violence. The Hopperesque visuals of cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, majestically elegiac score by Carter Burwell, and vivid supporting performances from John Turturro and Marcia Gay Harden come together in an intricately constructed slice of pulp perfection that crackles with sardonic wit while plumbing existential questions about free will and our own terrifying capacity for evil. The Director-Approved Special Features are:
- 2K digital restoration, approved by director of photography Barry Sonnenfeld and filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, with new 5.1 surround soundtrack mix presented in DTS-HD Master Audio
- New conversation between author Megan Abbott and the Coens about film noir and hard-boiled crime fiction
- New interviews with Sonnenfeld, composer Carter Burwell, music editor Todd Kasow, and production designer Dennis Gassner
- New and archival interviews with actors Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, Jon Polito, and John Turturro
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Glenn Kenny
Love Affair (#1114) out Feb 15
McCarey brings his graceful touch and relaxed naturalism to this sublime romance, one of cinema’s most intoxicating tear-wringers. Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer are chic strangers who meet and fall in love aboard an ocean liner bound for New York. Though they are both involved with other people, they make a pact to reconnect six months later at the top of the Empire State Building—until the hand of fate throws their star-crossed affair tragically off course. Swooning passion and gentle comedy coexist in perfect harmony in the exquisitely tender Love Affair (nominated for six Oscars), a story so timeless that it has been remade by multiple filmmakers over the years—including McCarey himself, who updated it as the equally beloved An Affair to Remember. The Special Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration by The Museum of Modern Art and Lobster Films, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New interview with film critic Farran Smith Nehme about the movie’s complicated production history
- New interview with Serge Bromberg, founder of Lobster Films, about the restoration
- Two radio adaptations, featuring Irene Dunne, William Powell, and Charles Boyer
- Two shorts directed by Leo McCarey, both starring silent comedian Charley Chase: Looking for Sally (1925) and Mighty Like a Moose (1926)
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by author Megan McGurk
Boat People (#1113) out Feb 22
One of the preeminent works of the Hong Kong New Wave, Boat People is a shattering look at the circumstances that drove hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees to flee their homeland in the wake of the Vietnam War, told through images of haunting, unforgettable power. Three years after the Communist takeover, a Japanese photojournalist (George Lam) travels to Vietnam to document the country’s seemingly triumphant rebirth. When he befriends a teenage girl (Season Ma) and her destitute family, however, he begins to discover what the government doesn’t want him to see: the brutal, often shocking reality of life in a country where political repression and poverty have forced many to resort to desperate measures in order to survive. Transcending polemic, renowned director Ann Hui takes a deeply humanistic approach to a harrowing and urgent subject with searing contemporary resonance. The Director-Approved Special Features are:
- New, restored 4K digital transfer, approved by director Ann Hui, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New conversation between Hui and filmmaker Stanley Kwan, who was the movie’s assistant director
- Keep Rolling, a 2020 documentary about Hui made by Man Lim-chung, Hui’s longtime production designer and art director
- As Time Goes By, a 1997 documentary and self-portrait by Hui, produced by Peggy Chiao
- Press conference from the 1983 Cannes International Film Festival
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: Essays by film critic Justin Chang and scholar Vinh Nguyen
