Blu-ray Reviews - Aguirre: Wrath of God (1972) Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

DVD Review: Seven Samurai (1954, Shichinin no samurai)

Blu-ray Review - That Sinking Feeling (1979)

Bradford International Film Festival: Early Short Films by Sally Potter

DVD Review - The Big Melt

BFI To Release Runaways As Fifth Volume Of Their Children’s Film Foundation Series

BFI Player Snags Nymphomaniac for March 1st Release

BFI to Release Claude Sautet’s Classe tous risques (1960) on Duel Format This February

Brilliantly suspenseful and surprisingly moving, Classe tous risques is a devastating study of loyalty and betrayal, distinguished by a bleak, incisive psychological realism. Previously unseen in the UK, it was released in cinemas by the BFI last September and now comes to DVD and Blu-ray in a Dual Format Edition on 24 February 2014. Special features include a documentary on the life and career of the great Italian-born character actor Lino Ventura.

French gangland boss Abel Davos (Lino Ventura) has been on the run in Italy for a decade in order to escape a death sentence. But when police finally close in, he turns to his old criminal friends to help him and his young family return to Paris. With loyalty in short supply, it takes an insouciant stranger (coolly played by Jean Paul Belmondo in the same year as his breakthrough performance in A Bout de souffle), to come to the rescue.

The directorial debut of the influential Claude Sautet (Un Coeur en hiver, Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud), and based on the novel by death-row-inmate-turned-writer José Giovanni (Le Trou, Le Deuxième souffle), Classe tous risques features a stand-out performance from Ventura as a bad man trying to do right by his children.

Special features

• Presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition
• Brand new restoration
• Monsieur Ventura (Doug Headline, 1996/2014): documentary on the life and career of Lino Ventura
• Original French and US trailers
• Illustrated booklet with newly commissioned essay by the Guardian’s John Patterson

Check out the film's trailer....


Classe tous risques will be released on Dual Format (DVD&Blu-ray) by BFI on 24 February,pre-order/buy Classe Tous Risques (DVD + Blu-ray) [Amazon]

BFI To Release 1924's The Epic Of Everest

Genre:
History, Documentary
Distributor:
BFI
Release Date:
27th January 2014 (UK)
Buy:The Epic of Everest (DVD + Blu-ray) [Amazon]
Following the world premiere of The Epic of Everest at the 2013 BFI London Film Festival and its critically acclaimed cinema release, Captain John Noel’s stunning official record of the 1924 Everest expedition,

When George Mallory and Sandy Irvine attempted to reach the summit of Everest in 1924 they came closer than any previous attempt. Captain John Noel filmed in the harshest of conditions to capture the drama of this fateful expedition. Now restored by the BFI National Archive, The Epic of Everest with a new score by Simon Fisher Turner, will be released in a Dual Format Edition (DVD and Blu-ray discs) on 27 January 2014.

Inspired by Herbert Ponting (The Great White Silence), Captain Noel recorded images of breathtaking beauty and considerable historic significance using specially adapted equipment. The film is also amongst the earliest filmed records of life in Tibet. But it is the brooding presence of the mountain itself that is the heart of Noel’s film, and his photography captures the magical play of light and shadow on an alien landscape which enhances the vulnerability, isolation and courage of the mountaineers.

The restoration – undertaken in collaboration with Sandra Noel, the director’s daughter – has transformed the quality of the surviving elements of the film and reintroduced the original coloured tints and tones.

The BFI commissioned a new score by Simon Fisher Turner which was released on LP/CD by Mute in October and has been voted No.1 soundtrack of the year by Mojo magazine.

Also included on the release are three documentary featurettes about the film, the restoration and the score, and an optional alternative musical accompaniment; the original 1924 score as recreated by Julie Brown, a specialist on film music and early twentieth-century concert music.


Special features

• Presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition
• Introducing The Epic of Everest (2013): Sandra Noel and Bryony Dixon (BFI National Archive) discuss the background and filming process
• Scoring The Epic of Everest (2013): Composer Simon Fisher Turner discusses the production of the new score
• Restoring The Epic of Everest (2013): Bryony Dixon, Ben Thompson (BFI National Archive) and Lisa Copson (Deluxe Digital) discuss the restoration process
• Alternative score – the original 1924 score recreated by Julie Brown. Performed by Cambridge University Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andrew Gourlay
• Additional musical pieces that accompanied the film on its first screening at the Scala, London in 1924
• Original 1924 film programme (downloadable PDF, DVD only)
• 30 page illustrated booklet with essays/contributions from explorer and writer Wade Davis, Simon Fisher Turner, Sandra Noel, Julie Brown and the BFI National Archive’s Kieron Webb, plus notes on the musical extras and full credits.

The Epic of Everest Dual Format Edition will be launched by the BFI and Caught by the River at Rough Trade East, Dray Walk, 91 Brick Lane, E1 6QL on Friday 17 January at 6.30pm. A FREE screening of the film will be followed by a Q&A with Sandra Noel and Simon Fisher Turner, hosted by Luke Turner of TheQuietus.com.
Open to all, no booking necessary – full details here: http://www.roughtrade.com/events/2014/1/305

Nosferatu (1922) Masters Of Cinema Review

Rating:
PG
Release Date:
25th October 2013 (UK Cinema)
Distributor:
Eureka! Video, BFI
Director:
F.W. Murnau
Cast:
Max Schreck, Greta Schröder, Ruth Landshoff

It's easy to call yourself a film fan or even a cinephile but when you dig a little deeper to find out why they call themselves fans its then you truly find out how much of a fan you really are. Film is one of the most culturally diverse art forms ever created, true cinephiles will appreciate it in all it's forms including Silent Film. With Halloween creeping up on us what better time to (re-)release of the most iconic horror  films in cinematic history getting a rare appearance on the big screen, F.W Murnau's Nosferatu (1922).

Whilst Bela Lugosi then Hammer Films romanticized that many of us perceive Dracula to be, the reclusive black cloaked fanged count  who has women falling at his feet ,under his hypnotic spell, Murnau's masterpiece is film's earliest adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel seen on the big screen.

Set in post world war one Germany, Nosferatu sees Knock (Alexander Grauach) a estate agent and his assistant Hutter (Gustav Von Nagenheim) go on assignment deep into the mysterious Carpathian Hills in heart of Transylvania. They arrive at Count Orlock's castle (Max Schreck)to broker the sale of Orlock home back in Germany but as the days fly past Hutter starts to notice unusual things start to happen he reverts back to the book he is reading Orlock might actually be a vampire. As the horror of realization sinks into Hutter he discover Orlock has escaped his castle back to Germany amongst a shipment of coffins leaving a trail of death in his wake forcing Hutter to Hunt the parasitic killer before a veil of death destroys his hometown.

To be screened part of BFI's Gothic The Dark Heart Of Film,Nosferatu deserves its rightful place next to modern horror, frankly because of its superior quality. The film might be 9 years short of been 100 years old some may call it outdated, cliched but in reality this film's craftmanship, technical ability are second to none. This film is essential viewing for any wanna be horror filmmaker though scare factor maybe non-existent but the visual power and atmosphere stands up against any modern horror film making one of the best with the genre (possibly best within Vampire sub genre). The shadowy silhouettes, male leads exact doubles of each other, broody Gothic horror in its prime but most of all make up the symbolic German Expressionism.

If there's any case for the importance of music within a feature film, the silent film era will act as your best case to support your argument. Nowdays it seem many bands fight to get a hip points however like when you talk about football matches the crowd been the '12th Man' the score is that '12th Man' providing the heartbeat of the audience delivering an extra dimension of fear, tension. Even with a modern score Nosferatu never loses it's power still delivers the platform for Max Schreck to deliver the ultimate legendary performance as Count Orlock.

Schreck's portrayal of Orlock was delivered with such conviction, terrifying passion by an actor who actually believed he was a  vampire. There is no comparisons from any other  actor coming close to matching Schreck,but the closest comparsions could possibly be seen in two  more recent films, the highly underrated Shadow Of The Vampire (2000) and Werner Herzog's Nosferatu The Vampyre (1979) with Klaus Kinski.

So why has Stoker's legendary creature of the night always been romantized rather been a predatory monester, one a argument comes from film historians with the possibe connections with Nazism. Whilst the film was created well before the rise of the Nazis Nosferatu is believed by some to be an account based around the Weimar Republic. A state within Post World War One Germany born out off corruption, anti antisemitism delivering the National Socialist Party  but it's the visual attributes of Orlock that could be seen as the most terrifying. The Nazis looked to have hijacked Murnau's vision for how they symbolized the Jewish people as rat like creatures for their propaganda films. If anything the main argument could all be down to Bram Stoer's widow taking the German auteur to court for breach of copyright despite the change to the novel

Whatever your think about Nosferatu, it may not feel part of modern romantic vision of the vampire but it has it's rightful place in horror folklore. When you look back at the story of how Murnau's masterpiece was created it makes you wonder did  he know something we didn't know when he kept that single copy despite the court order to destroy all copies. Though sometimes if he had a time machine he may have thought twice about destroying the remaining if he knew that Twilight Saga lay ahead?! Whatever you think or how many versions of the film you may have on DVD or Blu-Ray  F.W Murnau's Nosferatu was made for one thing, that's the big screen, don't miss a piece of cinematic gold getting a rare run on the big screen.

★★★★★

Paul Devine

BFI To Screen Claude Sautet's Classe Tous Risques (The Big Risk) This September

Highly rated by Jean-Pierre Melville, Robert Bresson and Bertrand Tavernier, Classe tous risques is a truly great, astonishingly neglected French crime movie, deserving of far wider renown. The dazzling directorial debut of Claude Sautet (1924 - 2000), better known for his later films Un Coeur en hiver (1992) and Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud (1995), it will be released in cinemas nationwide on 13 September.

Classe tous risques stars the great Italian-born character actor Lino Ventura as Abel Davos, a once powerful Parisian gangster, convicted of multiple crimes in France and sentenced to death in absentia, who has grown weary of his Italian exile and longs to return home with his wife and two small children. In order to finance this ambition, he decides to pull one last job  boldly executed in broad daylight on the streets of Milan  before heading in the direction of Nice. The getaway proves highly perilous, and Abel realises that he will never make it to Paris without a little help from his friends. But his old pals and partners-in-crime despite the incredible debt they all owe him  are reluctant to risk their own safety. Instead they send a complete stranger, the fresh-faced Eric Stark (the young, still unknown Jean-Paul Belmondo), to escort their former comrade from Nice to Paris.

Scored by Georges Delerue and shot in expressive black and white by Ghislain Cloquet (who was to win an Oscar for Tess), Classe tous risques is based on a novel by death-row-inmate-turned-writer José Giovanni (Le trou, Le deuxième souffle) whose intimate knowledge of the underworld helped steer him away from cliché. Brilliantly suspenseful and surprisingly moving, it is a devastating study of loyalty and betrayal, distinguished by a bleak, incisive psychological realism.

The relative obscurity of Sautet’s superb thriller is in many ways an accident of history. It was simply swept away in the frenzy of excitement generated by the Nouvelle Vague which made its classical virtues appear old-fashioned. Released in Paris in March 1960, it was almost immediately overshadowed by Godard’s Breathless (Belmondo’s international breakthrough) which opened a week later.

Now, more than half a century on, the mists which obscured Sautet’s achievement have cleared. In the words of Tavernier: “We’ve come to understand that Classe tous risques … was just as revolutionary as Breathless … Sautet was renewing the genre, profoundly, from the inside, instantly turning dozens of contemporary films into dusty relics.” The BFI’s release will enable cinema audiences to relish in full this wonderful rediscovery.



The film’s nationwide release will coincide with a month long retrospective of Claude Sautet’s work at BFI Southbank from 11 September until 7th October.Check your local independent/Arthouse cinema for listings

BFI Announces It's DVD & Blu Ray Releases For Remaining Part of 2013

This autumn the BFI will make available on DVD a superb collection of rare and previously unseen ghost and horror titles from the BBC archives. Released as part of the BFI’s GOTHIC: THE DARK HEART OF FILM blockbuster project (www.bfi.org.uk/gothic), these long-unseen gems will delight many fans of British horror and classic TV drama.

Highlights in October include:

• The legendary Play for Today drama Robin Redbreast (1970) – an unsettling tale of ‘folk horror’ that’s considered a precursor to 1973’s The Wicker Man (DVD)
• The three surviving, terrifying episodes of the long-unseen 1972 ghost story anthology Dead of Night (DVD)
• Classic Ghost Stories (1986), five spine-tingling tales from the pen of MR James, presented by Robert Powell (DVD)
• An extended six-disc repackage of the best-selling BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas (DVD)

Highlights in November include:

• A BFI Flipside Dual Format Edition presentation of the BBC’s Schalcken the Painter (1979). This highpoint of BBC arts filmmaking will be presented in High Definition from a rare 16mm source recently discovered in the BFI National Archive
• The 1977 BBC gothic horror anthology Supernatural starring a host of British acting legends including Billie Whitelaw, Robert Hardy, Denholm Elliot and Jeremy Brett (DVD)

Other Gothic releases include:

• Scary Stories – a collection of creepy films from The Children’s Film Foundation featuring The Man From Nowhere (1976), Haunters of the Deep (1984) and Out of the Darkness (1985) (September 2013, DVD)
• A three-disc Dual Format special edition of Rupert Julian / Lon Chaney’s original The Phantom of the Opera (1925) (November 2013)
• The BFI National Archive digital re-mastering of Thorold Dickinson’s dark psychological drama Gaslight (1940) (November 2013, Dual Format Edition)

October also sees the long-awaited Blu-ray premiere of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) – presented as a steelbook exclusively at www.zavvi.com .

Rescheduled releases for December include the previously announced Dual Format Editions of Roberto Rossellini’s Stromboli (1950) and Journey to Italy (1954), and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Trans-Europ Express (1967) and Successive Slidings of Pleasure (1974).

Click here to see a picture gallery of packshots along with the news: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/announcements/bfi-dvdblu-ray-releases-announced-autumn-2013

Lotte Reiniger's The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) on BFI Blu-ray & DVD

Director:
Lotte Reiniger
Dual DVD Release Date:
19th August 2013 (UK)
Buy:
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (DVD + Blu-ray)
On 19 August 2013, the BFI will release Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed) on Blu-ray for the first time in a Dual Format Edition (includes a DVD disc) with a newly recorded narration and the original orchestral score, along with a selection of short films and an illustrated booklet with contributors including Marina Warner.

Three years in the making, this beautiful 1926 silhouette animation brings to life magical tales from the Arabian Nights. The earliest surviving animated feature film – preserved in the BFI National Archive – it has been hailed as one of the world’s most innovative and influential animations.

Handsome young Prince Achmed is brave and eager for adventure, so when the most powerful sorcerer in the world challenges him to fly a magic horse, Achmed plunges headlong into a series of exciting escapades which take him from Baghdad to China via the enchanted spirit lands of Wak-Wak.

Made in card, cut entirely by hand, and then manipulated using sheets of lead joined by wires, Reiniger’s exquisite shadow characters move intricately through colourful worlds of demons, witches, beautiful princesses and flying castles. The incredible talent and creativity shown here has influenced the animation in other films including Snow White, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and The Sword in the Stone.

Special Features

• Presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition
• Original orchestral score by Wolfgang Zeller
• Newly recorded alternative narration based on Lotte Reiniger's own translation of her German text Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, spoken by actress Penelope McGhie
• The Adventures of Dr Dolittle (Lotte Reiniger, 1928, 30 mins): a series of three short films based on the classic stories by Hugh Lofting
• The Flying Coffer (Lotte Reiniger, 1921, 8 mins): a poor young fisherman tries to rescue the Emperor of China's daughter who is imprisoned in a sky high pagoda
• The Secret of the Marquise (Lotte Reiniger, 1922, 2 mins): an early advert for Nivea skin care products
• The Lost Son (Lotte Reiniger, 1974, 14 mins): the New Testament parable animated in Lotte Reiniger's inimitable style
• The Star of Bethlehem (Lotte Reiniger, 1956, 18 mins): the nativity story with music by Peter Gellhorn, performed by the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus
• Illustrated booklet with newly commissioned essays by Jez Stewart and Philip Kemp and a contribution by Marina Warner

The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie Blu-Ray Review

Rating:
15
BD Release Date:
15th July 2013
Director:
John Cassavetes
Cast:
John Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara, Timothy Carey, Seymour Cassel
Buy: (3-Disc Limited Edition) The Killing of a Chinese Bookie was my introduction to work of John Cassavetes many years ago. It’s probably his most accessible film in a way; it’s inspired by film noir (which John Cassavetes acted in a handful in his time) but it’s a very arty and gritty take on it. Its much more story focused than most of his work that certainly helps its accessibility. It also came near the end of his golden period of filmmaking, which was from Faces to Gloria.

The film stars frequent Cassavetes collaborator Ben Gazzara who plays Cosmo Vittelli. He is a strip club owner and is making his last payment of his gambling debt to this sleazebag loanshark (played by the film’s producer/cinematographer Al Ruban). He celebrates this by taking his 3 favourite dancers out and it eventually ends in another poker game and he looses $23,000. The mob uses this against him so he will do a hit for them. He believes it to be some small-time Chinese bookie but in reality it’s a capo of the Chinese mafia “the heaviest cat on the West Coast”. He manages to perform the hit but soon realises he is double-crossed.

The film not unlike many of his other films was originally released in a much longer cut. It was originally released in a 135 minute cut but he pulled it after a week and Ben Gazzara hated this version and said it was too long. It was eventually recut in a much more accessible shorter cut of 108 minutes. It mostly cut the strip club routines but true to Cassavetes’ form he ordered the scenes in the new cut. The BFI Blu-ray includes both cuts.

The film is a great piece of cynical neo-noir 70s filmmaking in the vein of Chinatown or Night Moves. It’s boosts a wonderful performance by the always great Ben Gazzara (I’m sure the Coens watched this before they cast him in The Big Lebowski due to his role in this). His performance really makes the film, which is not unlike most of Cassavetes’ films where the leading actor or actress makes the film like for example his wife Gena Rowlands in many of the films. It’s different cause it’s male protagonist when a good majority of his films have a female one.

It’s one of John Cassavetes’ best films partly due to its accessibility. If you’re a fan of Scorsese’s early films and other noir inspired films of the 70s it’s very much worth your time. BFI has released a 3-disc special edition, which includes the film on both Blu-ray and dvd and a bonus disc with a feature length doc on John Cassavetes, a short, a interview and the film itself includes scene selected commentaries by the producer and Cassavetes’ friend and contemporary Peter Bogdanovich.

★★★★★

Ian Schultz

BFI To Bring Satyajit Ray’s The Big City To Cinema's Across UK.

On 16 August the BFI brings Satyajit Ray’s The Big City to cinemas across the UK. This richly absorbing tale of family and city life from the master of Bengali cinema is set in mid-50s Calcutta, a society still adjusting to Independence and gripped by social and financial crisis.

The film’s nationwide release will coincide with a two-month complete retrospective of the director’s work at BFI Southbank during August and September.

Subrata Mazumdar (Anil Chatterjee), a young bank clerk struggling to support his entire extended family on a meagre salary, firmly believes that ‘a woman’s place is with her cooking pots’. Unsurprisingly, he experiences conflicting emotions when his wife Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee) helps out by taking a job as a door-to-door ‘salesgirl’ peddling knitting machines to rich housewives. Though shy and nervous to begin with, Arati soon proves a huge success, relishing her new-found independence (not to mention the joys of lipstick) and thoroughly upsetting the family dynamic.

Bengali star Madhabi Mukherjee, with her expressive frown and mischievous smile, gives a ravishing, spirited performance as Arati. This was Mukherjee’s first film with Ray (she was later to star in his Charulata) and she confessed herself ‘stunned’ by his extraordinary ‘woman-centred’ screenplay, so different from anything she had previously encountered. Indeed, Ray originally considered calling the film ‘A Woman’s Place’.

Yet, for all his focus on Arati’s problems, Ray – who is renowned for his breadth of sympathy – also deploys warmth, abundant humour and deep psychological insight in his depiction of a large, multi-generational cast of characters, including Arati’s conservative old father-in-law, her studious teenage sister-in-law, her feisty Anglo-Indian colleague and her benevolently despotic boss.

For this new restoration of The Big City, undertaken in India, the original negative was scanned at a high resolution (2K), enabling the film’s epic scale and intimate detail – from the portrayal of bustling urban life to the exquisite play of emotions on Arati’s face – to emerge in greater beauty and clarity.

Now re-released by the BFI to mark its fiftieth anniversary, The Big City, with its emphasis on conflicting social values – and most particularly on the role of women – feels as fresh and relevant as ever.



The Big City is part of The Sayjit Ray season next month at The BFI Southbank from 16th August, more details here.For listings of when The Big City will be playing near you please check with your local independent/Arthouse cinema for exact dates.

BFI To Release A London Trilogy: The Films of Saint Etienne (2003-2007) On DVD In July

On 15 July the BFI will release A London Trilogy: The Films of Saint Etienne 2003-2007, bringing Finisterre, What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day? and This is Tomorrow together on one DVD for the first time. The trilogy is accompanied by a selection of rare and previously unavailable short films.

From a beautifully conceived film-poem and an imaginative exploration of the Lower Lea Valley to an uplifting documentary on a London landmark, the collaborations between electronic indie trio Saint Etienne and filmmaker Paul Kelly (Lawrence of Belgravia) document London's ever-changing environment and landscapes with music by the band.

Finisterre (2003), directed by Paul Kelly and Kieran Evans, is a homage to London featuring a host of well-known voices including Mark Perry, Julian Opie, Vic Godard and Lawrence who’ve made the capital their own, soundtracked by songs from the Saint Etienne album of the same name.

What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day? (2005) follows paperboy Mervyn Day on his round, tracing the fascinating hidden history of East London’s Lower Lea Valley in the years before it was redeveloped to become the Olympic Park. Guest voices include David Essex and Linda Robson.

Commissioned by the Royal Festival Hall to mark its renovation and grand reopening, This is Tomorrow (2007) lovingly records the immense labour and attention to detail that went into the refurbishment of one of London’s most distinguished concert venues.

The additional short films are:

• Today’s Special (2004): three shorts about London’s disappearing cafés
• Banksy in London (2003): outtakes from Finisterre documenting the artist’s work, some of which is no longer in situ
• Monty the Lamb (2006): a day in the life of Monty, mascot for North London’s Hendon FC
• Seven Summers (2012): Sarah Cracknell narrates this follow up to What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day?
• The Other South Bank (2008): a look at Teeside’s South Bank. 

Pre-order/Buy:A London Trilogy: The Films of Saint Etienne 2003-2007 [DVD]


Also included in a 32-page illustrated booklet with an introduction by Paul Kelly and new essays by Bob Stanley, Sukhdev Sandhu, Owen Hatherley and Tom Dyckhoff.

The DVD will be a launched with a BFI &Caught by the River screening event and Q&A attended by the band, at Rough Trade East, Brick Lane, E1 on Friday 12 July at 6.30pm which is free and open to all. More details here: Rough Trade

BFI To Release John Casavettes' The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie On DualPlay This July

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, released on 15 July 2013, is the fifth and final title in the BFI's John Cassavetes Collection. Presented on Blu-ray for the first time, it is released in a Dual Format Edition (containing both DVD and Blu-ray) in both its original 1976 cut and Cassavetes’ re-edited shorter 1978 version. Also available on the same date will be a Limited 3-Disc Collector’s Edition which has a bonus DVD containing the documentary Anything for John (1993), the short film The Haircut (1982), and an interview with Tamar Hoffs, director of The Haircut.

In an absorbing performance, Ben Gazzara plays small-time Sunset Strip entrepreneur Cosmo Vitelli, owner of the Crazy Horse West night spot. An obsessive showman, Cosmo navigates a murky world of loan sharks and crooks to keep his club afloat, but, when a gambling debt spirals out of control, he is blackmailed into accepting a murderous commission.

Featuring standout turns by Seymour Cassel and Timothy Agoglia Carey as the underworld racketeers out to fleece Cosmo, John Cassavetes' portrayal of one man's hubristic descent subverts the conventions of its plot to explore the darker regions of the American dream.

Arguably the most plot-driven of all his films, Cassavetes withdrew The Killing of a Chinese Bookie shortly after the initial release and subsequently cut a new version which features different scenes.

Check out this funny clip from the documentary Anything For John, in which actor Ben Gazzara talks about the time he and Cassavetes discussed the film's title. The documentary the clip is from is included as a bonus on the BFI's 3-Disc Collector's Edition of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.

Special features
• Presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition
• Includes the original 1976 cut of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
• Selected scenes commentary on 1976 version by Al Ruban and Peter Bogdanovich
• Illustrated booklet with a newly commissioned essay by Tom Charity

Limited 3-Disc Collector's Edition - Dual Format - As above, plus:
• The Haircut (Tamar Simon Hoffs, 1982, bonus DVD only): John Cassavetes stars as a busy music executive sidetracked by a haircut in Hoffs' delightful directorial debut
• Anything for John (Doug Headline, 1993, 91 mins, bonus DVD only): feature length documentary tribute to John Cassavetes, featuring interviews with Peter Falk, Gena Rowlands and Al Ruban
• Tamar Hoffs interview (Doug Headline, 1993, 6 mins, bonus DVD only)

Pre-Order/Buy The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie:Dual Play (DVD + Blu-ray) / 3-Disc Limited Edition (DVD & Blu-ray)

BFI To Release Complete Humphrey Jennings Vol 3 - A Diary for Timothy This July

Widely celebrated as one of Britain’s greatest filmmakers, Humphrey Jennings is a true poet of the cinema, and his work was the inspiration for Danny Boyle’s 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. Released on 15 July 2013, this is the third and final volume of Dual Format Edition (DVD and Blu-ray) releases that bring together his entire directorial output. It includes the films he made between 1944 and 1951, and charts his transition from wartime to peacetime filmmaking.

Featuring A Diary for Timothy, Jennings’ much-loved collaboration with E M Forster, The Dim Little Island, a muted but affecting celebration of Britishness, and Family Portrait, the esoteric Festival of Britain film, this essential collection confirms Jennings as a master of the cinematic art.

Films
The True Story of Lili Marlene (1944)
The Eighty Days (1944)
Myra Hess (1945)
A Diary for Timothy (1945)
A Defeated People (1946)
The Cumberland Story (1947)
The Dim Little Island (1949)
Family Portrait (1950)

Special Features

• Presented in High Definition and Standard Definition
• V.1. (1944): alternative cut of The Eighty Days
• The Good Life (Graham Wallace, 1951): the film Jennings was working on at his death
• Illustrated booklet with film notes, credits and biographies by John Wyver, Patrick Russell, Kevin Jackson, Scott Anthony and others.

The Complete Humphrey Jennings volume 3: A Diary for Timothy [Blu-ray] [DVD]

Theorem (Teorema) Blu-Ray Review

Theorem is very important film in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s career in many different ways. It was the first time he had worked with primarily with professional actors (and international actors), first film he did with dealt explicitly with homosexuality and the influence of Luis Buñuel was evident.

Theorem is about a mysterious visitor (played by Terrence Stamp) who appears in the lives of an Italian bourgeois family. He has sexual affairs with all of family… the religious maid, the son, the sexually repressed mother, the daughter and lastly the father. The first half of the film is basically that but about half way thought the film he disappears as mysteriously as he appears. The rest of film is about what happens to the family and how the live their lives after the visitor have touched them in some way.

The film is quite clearly about divine intervention and Terrence Stamp is clearly playing a angel of some kind. Curiously the film was given a special award by the International Catholic Film Office at the Venice Film Festival but was quickly withdrawn when the Vatican protested for obviously reasons. The film has long been talked about because of the ambiguousness of the film. It has been interpreted as statement as a disgust at bourgeois society and the emergence of consumerism in Italian Society. Other interpretations are it’s both a critique of bourgeois society and the working class maid and Pasolini’s other struggle with his homosexuality.

It’s a fascinating film from one of Cinema’s great enigma’s Pasolini who was of course brutally murdered soon after the release of his still shocking Salo. He worked in neo-realism, films based on mythology, surrealism, and social satire and often in the same film. He was full of many contractions but his body of work is one of the most fascinating in post-war European cinema.

★★★★☆

Ian Schultz

Rating: 15
DVD/BD Release Date: 27th May 2013 (UK)
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Cast: Terence Stamp, Massimo Girotti, Anne Wiazemsky, Silvana Mangano

Buy: Theorem (DVD + Blu-ray)

Chronicle Of A Summer Blu-Ray Review

Made during the summer of 1960 by anthropologist filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist Edgar Morin, Chronicle of a Summer set out to record the everyday lives of a diverse array of Parisians through an highly influential approach to documentary filmmaking that made use of an original mixture of intimate interviews, debates, and observation.

The idea for the film arose when Rouch and Morin served as members of the jury for the first International Festival of Ethnographic Film in Florence, 1959. Rouch remembers Morin approaching him with the following question: “You have made all your films abroad; do you know anything about contemporary France?” Morin then proposed that Rouch should move away from his devotion to African rituals and customs and instead turn his gaze onto the Parisians “and do anthropological research about my own tribe.”

The film hinged on a simple theme: ‘How do you live?’ For Morin, this was a question that “should encompass not only the way of life (housing, work) but also ‘How do you manage in life?’ and
'What do you do with your life?’” These questions were tackled through the film’s redefined approach to the documentary form which was, as the opening voice-over announces, “made without actors but lived by men and women who devoted some of their time to a novel experiment of film-truth’,” or, as it is more commonly known, cinéma vérité.

The film’s interviews, debates, and observations reveal many fascinating insights into Parisian society at the onset of the 1960s. We witness factory workers and mechanics who talk about the oppressive nature of daily work and life; with one interviewee evoking the words of Albert Camus as read in his The Myth of Sisyphus. Then there are the debates surrounding the independence wars in Algeria and Congo which situate the film within discussions of racism and decolonisation.

More recently, Chronicle of a Summer has been read by Richard Brody as “one of the greatest, and perhaps the primordial, Holocaust film.” This interpretation of Rouch and Morin’s documentary as a ‘Holocaust film’ can be seen in the story of Marceline. We are first introduced to Marceline at the beginning of the film; first as an interviewee for the filmmakers’ as they make a first attempt at their experimental documentary technique, and then as an interviewer asking random passers-by: “Are you happy?” It isn’t until much later in the film that the numbered tattoo on her arm is revealed.

Immediately after the revelation that Marceline was a Holocaust survivor, the film presents us with its most intense, haunting, beautiful, and powerful scene. Marceline walks along an almost deserted Place de la Concorde, reminiscing about her experience of the Occupation. Far from making this film one about the Holocaust, what this scene demonstrates is a direct link between the legacy of the Second World War and France’s position as a colonial power clinging onto its territories during a time of decolonisation.

As this review as shown, it is often the filmmakers themselves who can provide the best analysis of their film. So I will end this piece on the excellent Chronicle of a Summer with two quotes by Morin. The first quote relates to the films questioning of how much reality and truth is presented in documentary filmmaking: “I thought we would start from a basis of truth and that an even greater truth would develop. Now I realise that if we achieved anything, it was to present the problem of truth.”

The final quote is taken from the films end in which Rouch and Morin pace up and down the Musée de l’Homme before Morin states: “We wanted to make a film about love, but it turns out to be about indifference.”

★★★★½

Shane James

Rating: 12
DVD/BD Release Date: 27th May 2013 (UK)
Director: Edgar Morin, Jean Rouch
Cast: Marceline Loridan Ivens, Landry, Régis Debray

Buy: Chronicle of a Summer (DVD + Blu-ray)