Christopher Nolan will join the Criterion Collection’s roster of directorial heavyweights this holiday season, as the highbrow label releases Nolan’s 1990 stalker chronicle debut “Following” on Blu-ray and DVD. Criterion’s version, recently unveiled as part of the brand’s small-batch December lineup, will feature a new interview and audio commentary from the director, as well as a chronological rendering of the film’s fragmented story.
Also arriving from Criterion in time for Christmas shoppers will be Godfrey Reggio’s “Qatsi” trilogy. A mostly wordless trio of films produced in concert with composer Philip Glass, this best-known entry to Reggio’s oeuvre examines the relationships between man, nature and technology through stirring interplays of sound and image. The box set containing “Koyaanisqatsi,” “Powaqqatsi” and “Naquoyqatsi” will include an early demo version of “Koyaanisqatsi” with a scratch soundtrack by Allen Ginsberg, and interviews with Glass, Reggio, and cinematographer Ron Fricke, as well as an ample array of other worthwhile goodies.
Patricia Highsmith, that classic authoress of clever nastiness, also joins Criterion’s ranks in December by way of René Clément’s 1960 “Purple Noon,” an adaptation of Highsmith’s novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” with Alain Delon in the title role. Among the special edition highlights is a digital restoration with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray version, and a new interview with Clément scholar Denitza Bantcheva, plus archival conversations with Delon and Highsmith.
Rounding out the list will be Terry Gilliam’s and Tom Stoppard’s mid-eighties vision of dystopian bureaucracy, “Brazil.” Already available as a three-disc DVD set, Criterion’s December offering will see “Brazil” transferred to Blu-ray, on two discs. The newest iteration will boast a 142-minute director’s cut, and a host of ephemera collected in a Production Notebook feature.
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