Tune in, Turn on…

harold wants to alert you: the Library at Watkins just received a large shipment of new DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, all from the well-loved Criterion Collection, replete with “liner notes” essays and special features for full contextual analyses. These are seminal works, films directed by some of the most highly respected auteurs in cinema history. Movies from 1940s England, 50s France, 60s Japan, 80s Australia, 90s Korea–this is a diverse set sure to inspire your independent spirit. Find a full list of what’s new after the jump.

On Blu-Ray

Fanny and Alexander [1982] — dir. by Ingmar Bergman
Island of Lost Souls [1932] — dir. by Erle C. Kenton
The Killing [1956] — dir. by Stanley Kubrik

Celebrated as Stanley Kubrik’s first mature film and made when he was only 28 years old, The Killing is remarkable for boldly announcing so many of the stylistic and thematic preoccupations that would become important constants of his cinema. The film’s dark, unrelenting irony and complexly fractured narrative immediately distinguished it from his previous work and revealed the posture of the willfully, often provocatively, “difficult” director that he would cultivate throughout his career. –from the included essay by Haden Guest

My Life as a Dog [1985] — dir. by Lasse Hallstrom
The Night of the Hunter [1955] — dir. by Charles Laughton
Sweetie [1989] — dir. by Jane Campion

On DVD

49th Parallel [1941] — dir. by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
Army of Shadows [1969] — dir. by Jean-Pierre Melville

This masterpiece from French auteur Jean-Pierre Melville (whose body of work heavily influenced the French New Wave, which he was neither part of nor apart from) finally made it to American shores in 2006 after nearly 40 years in exile. It is deeply compassionate and yet thrilling–at once a tragic contemplation of dignity in the face of death, and a genre-twisting gangster film set in the midst of the French Resistance to Nazi occupation.  As Roger Ebert put it: “Rarely has a film shown so truly that place in the heart where hope lives with fatalism.”

By Brakhage, Vol. II [1955-2003] — dir. by Stan Brakhage
Chunking Express [1994] — dir. by Wong Kar-Wai
Cronos [1993] — dir. by Guillermo del Toro
I am Curious (Yellow) [1967] — dir. by Vilgot Sjoman

Seized by customs upon entry to the United States, subject of a heated Supreme Court battle, banned in cities around the world, Vilgot Sjoman’s I am Curious (Yellow) is one of the most controversial films of all time. This landmark document has been declared both obscene and revolutionary. –from the DVD cover
Watch “Yellow” and/or “Blue” and decide for yourself.

Kuroneko [1968] — dir. by Kaneto Shindo
Lord of the Flies [1963] — dir. by Peter Brook
Loves of a Blonde [1965] — dir. by Milos Forman
The River [1951] — dir. by Jean Renoir
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs [1960] — dir. by Mikio Naruse

The great melodramas of the post-war period have this in common: a central female character who lives just on the fringe of polite society, who must navigate the treacherous corridors of power and lust to maintain self-respect in a corrupting world. In the US, these films starred Rock Hudson, Lana Turner and Lauren Bacall. In Japan, they merely played foil to the blockbuster action films of the day. Nevertheless, Mikio Naruse’s When a Woman Ascends the Stairs finally made it into the international spotlight in the 1980s, and has since become the touchstone for a more personal, more intimate contemporary Asian cinema.