Word: criterion
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...Rebecca is one of a number of Criterion titles that the company no longer produces, frequently because their licensing agreement with the studio has expired. But it can still be tracked down from on-line retailers, and of course on eBay, where there's a lively trade in discontinued Criterion titles like Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo. And anyway, to the real collector, scarcity is catnip...
...perfect example of what Criterion does. Just days after its disastrous Paris 1939 premiere, Renoir cut the film from 94 to 81 minutes. The negative of his original cut was destroyed in World War II bombing raid. In 1959, a time when the film was rising steeply in critical estimation, two Frenchmen reconstructed it, with Renoir's approval, to 106 minutes. This is the version released by Criterion, but in a superb high definition digital restoration that removed thousands of scratches, stains and other defects, and with enhanced subtitles that translate more dialogue than earlier versions. Extras include interviews shot...
...greatest films. So long as there is a world that includes Vertigo, Notorious, Psycho and Marnie, those people will be wrong. All the same, Hitchcock's lustrous American debut, the film David O. Selznick tempted him across the Atlantic to do, is a pleasure no sane person refuses. And Criterion's package is particularly rich with extras. In addition to footage from the 1941 Academy Award ceremony, where Rebecca picked up Oscars for Best Picture and Cinematography, the disc's extras include three one-hour radio adaptations, among them one by Orson Welles, and footage of the screen tests...
...this disc to provide a new introduction to the film and to Bresson's demanding but ultimately captivating approach to the medium. The audio commentary is by the film scholar James Quandt, editor of the best single volume work on Bresson in English. In the way typical of Criterion, which regularly hunts through the archives of foreign television, the disc's producers have also tracked down a 1960 French TV interview with the elusive Bresson, as well as a 2003 documentary about the film's unconventional cast...
...occasions Criterion has reissued a film that was already in its collection to produce a higher-quality transfer, offer more extras and - dare we suspect? - make a buck. A comparison of the original one-disc edition of Kurosawa's 1954 epic and its recent three-disc release shows that sometimes more really is more. Dividing the 3hr.27min. film between two discs allows a much crisper and richer image and a greatly enlarged gallery of extras. Those include a two-hour video conversation from 1993 between Kurosawa and Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, documentaries on the making of the film...