Esther (DVD)
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Esther (DVD)
ESTHER was Amos Gitai's first narrative feature, and it sets the agenda for many of the thematic concerns he would continue to address throughout his career. The film starts inauspiciously, as a low budget biblical drama. It tells the Old Testament tale of Esther, who saved the Jewish people from the manipulations of Haman, one of the King Xerxes' most trusted advisors. When Haman persuades Xerxes to have all the Jews of Persia slaughtered, Esther risks her own life to intervene, and the king reverses his pronouncement, allowing the Jews to slaughter all their enemies in the realm. Gitai's subtle, dark wit, a staple of his work, is on display here. And documentary elements continually creep into the frame. Jackhammers and sirens can be heard in the background. A pivotal scene takes place at a modern junk yard. This is an intentionally anachronistic work, and Gitai's true concerns are made clear by the tragic tone the film takes at the conclusion of the story, which, in traditional Judaism, would conversely have a celebratory tone. Then, during the powerful finale, the actors break character to describe their own varied backgrounds, and their personal connections to the bigotry and conflict dramatized in the film.This film was screened as part of an Amos Gitai retrospective organized by New York City's Anthology Film Archives.DVD Features:Region 1Keep CaseFull Frame - 1.33
Drama
Golem - The Spirit of Exile (DVD)
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Golem - The Spirit of Exile (DVD)
GOLEM--THE SPIRIT OF EXILE was made in Paris while writer-director Amos Gitai was himself in exile. Gitai left his native Israel after his 1982 documentary, FIELD DIARY, openly critical of the Israeli military, met with a hostile reaction. His personal connection to the material is evident. He assembled a remarkable international cast, including Hanna Schygulla (THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN), Marisa Paredes (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER), and directors Sam Fuller (PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET) and Bernardo Bertolucci (THE CONFORMIST) to make this challenging, audacious film. GOLEM draws from the biblical story of Ruth, and the Jewish legend from the Kabbalah, of the golem (a clay figure brought to life by a powerful rabbi) to explore the theme of exile in a modern setting. The film offers many pleasures, the most obvious of which is Gitai's sumptuous visuals. While he has always been an intellectually driven filmmaker, Gitai, as much as any filmmaker, understands how to translate his themes into arresting imagery. Here, the plot of a woman and her sisters forced into exile after the deaths of their husbands is secondary to the shimmering beauty of Gitai's palette, and the poetic language of his script.This film was screened as part of an Amos Gitai retrospective organized by New York City's Anthology Film Archives.DVD Features:Region 1Keep CaseAnamorphic Widescreen - 1.85Additional Release Material: Interviews
Drama
Back Against the Wall (DVD)
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Back Against the Wall (DVD)
June (Debbie Mulcahy) and Levey (Martin Shannon) are passionless lovers of such indifference that they share what hardly constitutes a relationship of any kind. Their cramped apartment closes in tighter upon them due to the stacks of books that Levey, an abnormally fast reader, has devoured. Levey is disturbed by June's job at the local watering hole, The Funhouse, where she dances in lingerie fashion shows. His paranoia brims when Ed (Ernie E. Frantz), an obese man with no neck who is ridiculed at work with the nickname Woman Hands, sees June dancing one night. Fast forward to a short time later and much has changed. June is involved with underground figures starring as a cowgirl in a porno. Ed's health is in decline and his apartment is filled with women and drugs. Levey is mysteriously absent.A story is told within BACK AGAINST THE WALL of a man in prison who creates his own language. This could be a metaphor for the film's underground creator, James Fotopoulos (MIGRATING FORMS). The prolific Fotopoulos has crafted a haunting black and white nightmare shot in only eight days. The loose narrative structure stresses character paranoia over plot with most of the action taking place off-screen.DVD Features:Region 1Keep CaseFull Frame - 1.33Single Side - Dual LayerText/Galleries: Original Artwork Storyboards
Drama
It (DVD)
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It (DVD)
A silent showcase for Clara Bow, the world-famous It girl who had everything that everybody wanted. Here she plays a feisty shop girl out to land a man. Based on a story by Elinor Glyn.DVD Features:Region 0Keep CaseAddtional Release Materials: Documentary - CLARA BOW: DISCOVERING THE'IT' GIRL (65 min.) Narrated by
Courtney LoveInteractive Features: Scene Access Interactive Menus
Drama
A Fool There Was (DVD)
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A Fool There Was (DVD)
The vehicle for Theda Bara's initiation into the cult of vamp movies. Based on Rudyard Kipling's The Vampire, the film details the story of a just and moral man who falls from grace at the insidious hands of the unrepentant vamp. Notorious subtitling marks this as a genre-defining piece of cinema, especially Kiss me, my fool!DVD Features:Region 1Keep CaseFull FrameAudio: Mono - EnglishInteractive Features: Scene Access Interactive MenusText/Photo Galleries: Stills/Photos Production Notes Additional Text - 1. Complete Text of Rudyard Kipling'sThe Vampire
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It All Starts Today (DVD)
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It All Starts Today (DVD)
When a kindergarten teacher (Philippe Torreton) living in a rural town in France finds that the coal mines--the main source of income--have been closed down, his community changes, becoming increasingly poverty-stricken and decrepit. One day when a drunk mother collapses in the school yard, then abandons her children, Daniel decides to take the kids into his own home. That is the beginning of a critical, reactionary stand he decides to take against the deterioration of his village. A tough and endearing tale, director Bertrand Tavernier (ROUND MIDNIGHT) has made a fine picture with this one.DVD Features:Region 1Keep CaseAnamorphic Widescreen - 1.66Additional Release Material: Interview - 1. Michael Moore with Bertrand Tavernier Trailers - 1. Original Theatrical TrailerAdditional Products: Booklet
Drama
Biograph Shorts (DVD)
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Biograph Shorts (DVD)
This enjoyable collection showcases the diverse styles of films that director D.W. Griffith made for Biograph in the early days of cinema. There's the comedy of THOSE AWFUL HATS, the suspenseful action of AN UNSEEN ENEMY, THE LONEDALE OPERATOR and THE LONELY VILLA, and the social commentary of THE NEW YORK HAT. THE MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY is an early look at gangsters and New York tenement life, while THE YAQUI CUR--one of the last films Griffith made for Biograph--is a Native American drama starring Kate Bruce, Lionel Barrymore, and Robert Harron. Other fine and recognizable actors in these films include Dorothy and Lillian Gish (who make their starring debuts in AN UNSEEN ENEMY), Mary Pickford, Mae Marsh, Mack Sennett, Blanche Sweet, Donald Crisp, and the Biograph Girl, Florence Lawrence.Containing over 15 films recorded during Griffith's five years at the Biograph Studios, these shorts are a testament to Griffith's vision as a filmmaker that, after so many years, they are still vibrant with excitement and emotion.DVD Features:Region 12-Disc SetFull FrameInteractive Features: Scene Access Interactive Menus
Drama
Close-Up (DVD)
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Close-Up (DVD)
With his use of non-actors and his loose use of documentary rules, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami's (TASTE OF CHERRY) films can often be characterized by asking whether what the viewer is seeing is reality or fiction. The film which perhaps most exemplifies this is CLOSE-UP, ostensibly a documentary about an impostor of another Iranian director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf (GABBEH; ONCE UPON A TIME, CINEMA). Kiarostami tells the story by asking questions from off-screen to those involved in the legal case, then having the participants play themselves in a re-enactment of the events which actually occurred. A masterwork, considered by many to be Kiarostami's best.DVD FeaturesRegion 1Keep CaseAnamorphic Widescreen - 1.66Single Side - Dual LayerAdditional Release Material: Interview - 1. Abbas Kiarostami - DirectorText/Galleries: Filmographies - 1. Abbas Kiarostami - Director
2. Mohsen Makhmalbaf - Subject
Drama
Hamlet - Criterion Collection (DVD)
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Hamlet - Criterion Collection (DVD)
Before Kenneth Branagh, before Mel Gibson, Laurence Olivier gave the definitive portrayal of the man who could not make up his mind. In 15th-century Denmark, young Prince Hamlet is racked by torment and indecision after seeing a vision of his deceased father. The late king's ghost informs his son Hamlet that Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, was responsible for murdering the king. When the murderer married Hamlet's mother--the king's widow--scarcely two months after his funeral, he also took the throne that was his brother's. The ghost beseeches Hamlet to avenge him--yet Hamlet procrastinates, unsure of how best to accomplish his task. In what was only his second directorial effort, Olivier uses his misty, moody set and long tracking camera shots to complement his indecisive prince tortured by the murder of his father. Olivier's version of the Shakespeare tragedy eliminates the characters of Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Fortinbras.DVD FeaturesRegion 0Full Frame - 1.33Single Side - Single LayerAudio: Dolby Digital Mono 1.0 - EnglishInteractive Features: Interactive Menus Scene Access
Drama
Written on the Wind - Criterion Collection (DVD)
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Written on the Wind - Criterion Collection (DVD)
Douglas Sirk whips up a devastating maelstrom of melodrama in WRITTEN ON THE WIND, the explosive tale of the Hadleys, a wealthy Texas oil family whose debauched members are on a crash course for self-destruction. From the windswept drunken car ride and pistol shot opening the film, Sirk leads an artful backward glance at the misjudgments, cruelty and bad faith that led the Hadleys and their unfortunate hangers-on to the point of no return. Robert Stack is Kyle Hadley, number one black sheep of the Hadley Clan, who attempts to cure his troubled life with a whirlwind marriage to the beautiful and unsuspecting Lucy Moore (Lauren Bacall). Marylee Hadley is the rebellious and drunken younger Hadley, perpetually in trouble and eager for diversions from her vacant existence. Rock Hudson as Kyle's virtuous best friend Mitch is the pillar of sanity around which the entire Hadley Clan clings for its survival. However, when meddlesome Marylee, wounded from a spurned infatuation with Mitch, insinuates that Lucy's expected child is actually his, the already fragile and explosive situation devolves into a tragic battle to the death.
Virile and visceral performances from an all star cast played against symbolically saturated cinematography and art direction combine to forge an alcohol and tragedy soaked critique of fifties middle class America.DVD Features:Region 1Keep CaseAnamorphic Widescreen - 1.85Audio: Mono - EnglishAdditional Release Material: Trailers - 1. Original Theatrical Trailer
2. Bonus Trailer - ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWSText/Photo Galleries: Filmography - 1. Douglas Sirk - Director Stills/Photos - 1. THE MELODRAMA ARCHIVE Publicity Production Stills Lobby CardAdditional Products: Liner Notes - 1. Laura Mulvey - Film Theorist
Drama
Tartuffe (DVD)
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Tartuffe (DVD)
An expressionistic retelling of the classic Moliere story, Murnau contemporized his version by setting the exploration of morality and hypocrisy amidst a housekeeper's murder plot. Here, the housekeeper (Rosa Valetti) schemes to poison her employer (Hermann Picha) in order to take control of his estate and fortune. However, the employer's grandson (Andre Mattoni) becomes wise to her plot, and shows his grandfather a film of Moliere's TARTUFFE to expose her plan.DVD Features:Notes: 1. Newly Remastered from Original 35mm Print. 2. Restored by the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv of Berlin, L'Immagine Ritrovata, and the Library of CongressRegion [unknown}Keep CaseFull Frame - 1.33Additional Release Material: Documentary -The Way to Murnau
Drama
Little Fugitive (DVD)
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Little Fugitive (DVD)
When a seven-year-old Brooklyn boy's older brother tricks him into thinking the tyke has killed him, the youngster takes what money he can find and hightails it to Coney Island. While his brother searches for him, the scared runaway encounters all manner of adventures among the summer throngs. A pioneering independent dramedy from writer-producer-director Morris Engel, LITTLE FUGITIVE won the Silver Lion Award at the 1953 Venice Film Festival. Academy Award Nominations: Best Motion Picture Story.DVD Features:Region 1 EncodingKeep Case
Drama