Coming in February: Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons, a quartet of bittersweet tales about the follies of the human heart; The Heroic Trio / Executioners, two dazzling superhero sagas from martial-arts auteur Johnnie To; Nothing but a Man, Michael Roemer’s civil rights–era American classic; and The Roaring Twenties, one of the most influential crime films of all time, directed by Raoul Walsh. Plus: Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller, a brilliant deglamorization of the American western, now on 4K UHD.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (#782) out Feb 6
This unorthodox dream western by Robert Altman may be the most radically beautiful film to come out of the New American Cinema. It stars Warren Beatty and Julie Christie as two newcomers to the raw Pacific Northwest mining town of Presbyterian Church, who join forces to provide the miners with a superior kind of whorehouse experience. The appearance of representatives for a powerful mining company with interests of its own, however, threatens to be the undoing of their plans. With its fascinating, flawed characters, evocative cinematography by the great Vilmos Zsigmond, innovative overlapping dialogue, and haunting use of Leonard Cohen songs, McCabe & Mrs. Miller brilliantly deglamorized and revitalized the most American of genres. The Special Edition Features are:
- 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Audio commentary from 2002 featuring director Robert Altman and producer David Foster
- Making-of documentary, featuring members of the cast and crew
- Conversation about the film and Altman’s career between film historians Cari Beauchamp and Rick Jewell
- Featurette from the film’s 1970 production
- Art Directors Guild Film Society Q&A from 1999 with production designer Leon Ericksen
- Excerpts from archival interviews with cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond
- Gallery of stills from the set by photographer Steve Schapiro
- Excerpts from two 1971 episodes of The Dick Cavett Show featuring Altman and film critic Pauline Kael
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by novelist and critic Nathaniel Rich
Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons (#1206) out Feb 13
The seasons may change, but the follies of the heart are constant in this ineffably lovely quartet of films by Eric Rohmer, one of cinema’s most perceptive chroniclers of the pangs and perils of romance. Set throughout France, Tales of the Four Seasons is a cycle to stand alongside the director’s two earlier acclaimed film series, Six Moral Tales and Comedies and Proverbs. By turns comic and melancholic, breezy and richly philosophical, these bittersweet tales of love, longing, and the inevitable misunderstandings that shape human relationships probe the most complex of emotions with the utmost grace. The Special Edition Features are:
- New 2K digital restorations, supervised by cinematographer Diane Baratier and Laurent Schérer, director Eric Rohmer’s son, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
- New interview program recorded at Rohmer’s house in Tulle, France, featuring Baratier, producer Françoise Etchegaray, sound engineer Pascal Ribier, and editor Mary Stephen
- Excerpts of radio interviews with Rohmer conducted by film critics Michel Ciment and Serge Daney
- Documentary from 2005 on the making of A Tale of Summer, by Etchegaray and Jean-André Fieschi
- Two short films directed by Rohmer: A Farmer in Montfaucon (1968) and The Kreutzer Sonata (1956)
- New English subtitle translations
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Imogen Sara Smith
The Heroic Trio / Executioners (#1207) out Feb 20)
The star power of cinema icons Maggie Cheung, Anita Mui, and Michelle Yeoh fuels these gloriously unrestrained action joyrides from auteur Johnnie To and action choreographer Ching Siu-tung. The Heroic Trio and its sequel, Executioners, follow a new kind of justice league: a team of blade-throwing, shotgun-toting, kung fu–fighting heroines who join forces to battle evildoers in a dystopian, noirish city. Blending dazzling martial-arts mayhem with exhilarating blasts of comic-book lunacy, these beloved superhero movies reimagine the genre through the giddy genius of the Hong Kong film industry at its height. The Special Edition Features are:
- 4K digital restorations of The Heroic Trio and Executioners, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
- In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the films and two Blu-rays with the films and special features
- Alternate 5.1 surround Cantonese and English-dubbed soundtracks
- New interview with actor Anthony Wong
- New interview with film critic Samm Deighan (cohost of the podcast Twitch of the Death Nerve)
- New English subtitle translations
- PLUS: An essay by critic Beatrice Loayza
Nothing but a Man (#1209) out Feb 20
Michael Roemer’s groundbreaking first feature, sensitively shot by his close collaborator Robert M. Young, is a still-resonant expression of humanity in the face of virulent prejudice. Made at the height of the civil rights movement, Nothing but a Man reveals the toll of systemic racism through its honest portrait of a southern Black railroad worker (Ivan Dixon) confronting the daily challenges of discrimination and economic precarity, as he attempts to settle down with his new wife (jazz great Abbey Lincoln) and track down his father (Julius Harris). Admired by Malcolm X and now recognized as a landmark of American cinema, this tender film grounds its social critique in characters of unforgettable complexity and truth. The Director-Approved Special Edition Features are:
- New, restored 4K digital master, approved by director Michael Roemer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- An Introduction to Michael Roemer, a new interview program featuring Roemer
- Conversation from 2004 between Roemer and coproducer and cinematographer Robert M. Young
- Program featuring archival interviews with actors Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln, and Julius Harris
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Gene Seymour
The Roaring Twenties (#1209) out Feb 27
Ripped from the headlines of the turbulent era between the Great War and the Great Depression, this dynamic, nostalgia-tinged crime drama balances tommy-gun action with epic historical sweep. Legends James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart star as army buddies whose fortunes rise and fall as their fates intersect, first in a foxhole on the front lines of World War I, then in Manhattan’s Prohibition-era underworld. Directed by Hollywood master Raoul Walsh, and based on a story by prolific journalist turned screenwriter and producer Mark Hellinger, The Roaring Twenties brought to a close the celebrated Warner Bros. gangster cycle of the 1930s, and it remains one of the greatest and most influential crime films of all time. The Special Edition Features are:
- New 4K digital restoration, 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
- Audio commentary with film historian Lincoln Hurst
- New interview with critic Gary Giddins
- Excerpt from a 1973 interview with director Raoul Walsh
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Mark Asch
