Jun 2010
Feyder and Imamura
Just in time for summer, MoC are releasing two of our most primal, sun-drenched titles, both crucial missing links in our filmic heritage.
First: Jacques Feyder’s Le Grand jeu is a vivid example of what’s been termed the cinema of poetic realism. With its easy-going performances, relaxed charm, character-led plotting and richly imbued atmosphere, it’s a work of such startling modernity as to seem a spiritual cousin of ’70s New Hollywood. Among other amazements of this great film, we now see that what Lubitsch was to Wilder, or Rex Ingram to Michael Powell, Jacques Feyder was to Marcel Carné. A sultry, aching masterwork that we are pleased to release in the UK for the first time on any home-viewing platform. This DVD package contains a booklet featuring a brand new essay by Ginette Vincendeau and newly-translated material by, and in testimonial to, Jacques Feyder.
Then, on Blu-ray only, Shôhei Imamura’s Profound Desires of the Gods [Kamigami no fukaki yokubô] is one of the thunderous epics of post-war cinema. A richly orchestrated examination of human foibles and “progress” in the midst of paradise, this glorious tragedy deserves mention in the same breath as Murnau’s Tabu: A Story of the South Seas. With this BD release, its reputation as one of the most extraordinary examples of ‘Scope and colour cinematography in the history of the medium should be secure. Taken from a stunning HD master, to which we have applied extensive additional restoration, we are thrilled to present this masterwork with an exclusively filmed introduction from Tony Rayns, the remarkable original trailer featuring footage not seen in the finished film, a brand new subtitle translation, and a 44-page booklet containing an essay by Rayns to accompany his introduction (but to be read after the film), two statements by Imamura on filmmaking and his influences, and a previously unpublished transcription of an introduction and Q&A session featuring Imamura and Mark Cousins which followed the Edinburgh International Film Festival’s 1994 screening.
This is only the beginning of an all-Blu summer; six more BD-only titles are planned before the clocks go back!