The Criterion Collection will release the 2019 film Portrait of a Lady on Fire on Blu-ray Disc and DVD June 23, its first time on home video.
Written and directed by Céline Sciamma, the film tells the story of an artist in the 18th century named Marianne (Noémie Merlant), who is hired to paint a wedding portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), but instead the two end up engaged in a forbidden lesbian romance.
The film earned $3.76 million at the domestic box office.
The home video edition will include a 4K digital master, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras include a conversation between Sciamma and film critic Dana Stevens; interviews with Haenel and Merlant; an interview with cinematographer Claire Mathon from the 2019 Cannes Film Festival; an interview from 2019 with artist Hélène Delmaire on creating the paintings for the film, along with behind-the-scenes footage; and an essay by film critic Ela Bittencourt.
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Making its Blu-ray debut June 9 will be 1978’s An Unmarried Woman, a comedic chronicle of changing 1970s sexual politics directed by Paul Mazursky. When her husband of 16 years abruptly leaves her for a younger woman, Manhattan gallery worker Erica (Jill Clayburgh) finds herself alone, but also empowered to explore her desires as she tests a new relationship with a charismatic artist (Alan Bates).
The new Blu-ray and DVD editions from Criterion will include a 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras include an audio commentary from 2005 featuring Mazursky and Clayburgh; new interviews with actors Michael Murphy and Lisa Lucas; a new interview with author Sam Wasson on Mazursky’s work; an audio recording of Mazursky speaking at the American Film Institute in 1980; the film’s trailer; and an essay by critic Angelica Jade Bastién.
Arriving on Blu-ray Disc and DVD June 16 is Buster Keaton’s 1928 movie The Cameraman, the first film the silent-screen legend made after signing with MGM. In the final work over which he maintained creative control, Keaton plays a hapless newsreel cameraman desperate to impress both his new employer and his winsome office crush as he zigzags up and down Manhattan hustling for a scoop. The new home video edition comes with a new 4K digital restoration undertaken by the Cineteca di Bologna, the Criterion Collection and Warner Bros.; and a new score by composer Timothy Brock, conducted by Brock and performed by the orchestra of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna in 2020, presented in uncompressed stereo on the Blu-ray. Extras include audio commentary from 2004 featuring Glenn Mitchell, author of A-Z of Silent Film Comedy: An Illustrated Companion; 1929’s Spite Marriage, Keaton’s follow-up feature for MGM, in a new 2K restoration, with a 2004 commentary by film historians John Bengtson and Jeffrey Vance; Time Travelers, a new documentary by Daniel Raim featuring interviews with Bengtson and film historian Marc Wanamaker; So Funny It Hurt: Buster Keaton & MGM, a 2004 documentary by film historians Kevin Brownlow and Christopher Bird; a new interview with James L. Neibaur, author of The Fall of Buster Keaton: His Films for MGM, Educational Pictures, and Columbia; and an essay by film critic Imogen Sara Smith.
Coming June 23 on Blu-ray and DVD is Tokyo Olympiad, a documentary capturing images from the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The new edition includes a 4K digital restoration, a new English subtitle translation, and uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras include an introduction by film historian Peter Cowie; audio commentary from 2001 by Cowie; 80 minutes of additional material from the Tokyo Games, with a new introduction by Cowie; archival interviews with director Kon Ichikawa; a new documentary about Ichikawa featuring interviews with cameraman Masuo Yamaguchi, longtime Ichikawa collaborator Chizuko Osaka, and the director’s son, Tatsumi Ichikawa; trailers; and an essay by film scholar James Quandt.
Due June 30 on Blu-ray and DVD is Soviet director Elem Klimov’s 1985 film Come and See, a senses-shattering plunge into the dehumanizing horrors of war. As Nazi forces encroach on his small village in Belorussia, teenage Flyora (Alexei Kravchenko) eagerly joins the Soviet resistance. Rather than the adventure and glory he envisioned, what he finds is a waking nightmare of unimaginable carnage and cruelty. The disc includes a new 2K digital restoration by Mosfilm, a new English subtitle translation, and uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras include a new interview with cinematographer Roger Deakins; a new interview with the director’s brother and frequent collaborator, German Klimov; Flaming Memory, a three-film 1975-77 documentary series from by filmmaker Viktor Dashuk featuring firsthand accounts of survivors of the genocide in Belorussia during World War II; a 2001 interview with Elem Klimov; interviews from 2001 with actor Alexei Kravchenko and production designer Viktor Petrov; “How Come and See Was Filmed,” a 1985 short film about the making of the film featuring interviews with Elem Klimov, Kravchenko and writer Ales Adamovich; a theatrical re-release trailer; and Essays by critic Mark Le Fanu and poet Valzhyna Mort.