Criterion has released two very different 4K-UHDs, an instant classic and an enduring classic.
Sentimental Value – 4K-UHD/Blu-ray — Criterion
Anyone who has followed my work here at The Contending is aware that I believe Sentimental Value is a filmmaking masterpiece. It justly won the International Feature Oscar and should have won a host more of the nine it was nominated for. The pic is emotionally searing and jarringly funny and, ultimately, transcendent.
I’ve written extensively about the film and had the pleasure of VIDEO chats with co-writer/director Joachim Trier and editor extraordinaire Olivier Bugge Coutté as well as Oscar-nominated actors Stellan Skarsgård and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas.
My fourth time Sentimental Value was via this stunning new Criterion disc, thanks to a new 4K digital master, approved by Trier, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Although I did see it on the big screen twice, this gorgeous transfer took my breath away. If you have a 4K HDTV, this disc is a must own.
Once again, I was transfixed by the dense and differing styles that blend so magnificently to give us a portrait of an artistic family trying to figure themselves out, and mostly being able to, via their art.
Renate Reinsve, Elle Fanning, Lilleaas and Skarsgård, all Oscar-nominated, all etch brilliant portraits and Trier weaves them together in a rich, nuanced and moving tapestry.
And as a child of suicide, I truly appreciated the way that key part of the story was handled. I can’t express this enough. Trier taps into the unexplainable. People are always seeking answers to the why’s a person could take their own life, and the how could they do that to their loved ones? They rarely bother to realize that killing oneself is a completely personal thing that can never really be explained…or understood. The act becomes a significant part of those left behind. It’s up to us, to find a way process it.
For more involved thoughts on the film itself you can read my New York Film Festival Review.
The Blu-ray offers a wonderful crop of special features including a 47-minute chat with Trier and filmmaker Mike Mills. The two are obviously friends and Mills is effusive in his admiration. Also included, a 30-minute featurette with all four actors waxing about their respective experiences as well as 11-minutes of terrific Deleted Scenes.
Sentimental Value taps more relatable themes each time I see it, asking more questions than it dare answer. And isn’t that what we need from cinema?
Charade — 4K-UHD/Blu-ray — Criterion
Audrey Hepburn was one of the great film stars of the 1950s and 1960s. From her impressive lead acting debut in William Wyler’s Roman Holiday to her charming titular ingenue in Billy Wider’s Sabrina to her brash, decade-defining turn in Blake Edwards’ Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the actress had a love affair with the screen and audiences couldn’t get enough.
The studios enjoyed teaming her up with some of the biggest names in movies like Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Rex Harrison—too often significantly older leading men. This was also the case in 1963 when Cary Grant teamed with Hepburn for Stanley Donen’s delightfully dark thriller, Charade, the director’s homage to Hitchcock (intentional or not).
Grant was rightly put off by the age difference and made sure a bunch of lines were added jesting about it.
Hepburn plays Mrs. Regina Lampert, a wealthy American translator living in France whose husband, Charles, winds up dead in the very opening scene. Regina arrives in Paris to find her home emptied. She is then whisked off to identify her husband’s body and is informed that he, along with three WW2 buddies, stole $250,000 from the OSS that they were supposed to deliver to the French Resistance. And that Charles took all the $$ for himself. Oh, and had several aliases.
At Charles’ funeral we meet the three other thieving goons (future Oscar winners George Kennedy and James Coburn as well as Ned Glass), all there to make sure Charles is really dead and threaten his widow about the whereabouts of the money. Regina is summoned to the CIA office of Hamilton Bartholomew (future Oscar winner Walter Matthau), where she learns about what Charles was up to.
Regina turns to Peter Joshua (Grant) for help and comfort. She (conveniently?) met Peter while on holiday in the Alps and we are instantly suspicious that he might also have something to do with the intrigue. And the twists keep twisting and turning…
There are some really exciting action sequence and a grisly throat stabbing that still hold up pretty well.
Hepburn is, to no surprise, an absolute delight, so at ease with the comic-thriller tone. Her terrific verbal gymnastics with Grant bring his work with another Hepburn to mind. And there’s a hilarious scene with Grant gaying it up in the shower that has extra camp meaning since we all know he was, most likely, bisexual.
The clever screenplay was written by Peter Stone (story by Stone and Marc Behm), who would go on to win an Oscar, one year later, for the Cary Grant starrer, Father Goose and would pen the Broadway books for the musicals 1776, Woman of the Year and Titanic—the latter two garnering him deserved Tony Awards.
Donen would team up with Hepburn again for the 1967 gem, Two For the Road, opposite a much-more age-appropriate Albert Finney. And although Hepburn would receive her fifth and final Oscar nomination that year, it would be for Wait Until Dark. Both performances were superb, but her work in Two For the Road was different level Audrey.
Charade received an Oscar nomination for the title song by composer Henry Mancini and lyricist Johnny Mercer. Both Hepburn and Grant garnered Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations and Hepburn won the BAFTA. The film was also nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Best Written American Comedy.
The Criterion disc is exquisite and boasts a new 4K digital restoration, with crisp and clear uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Charles Lang’s ravishing cinematography pops nicely.
The only negative here is the paucity of special features. The Blu-ray has a great audio commentary from 1999 with Donen and Stone and the trailer. That’s it. There must have been some archival interviews with Hepburn, Grant and/or Donen floating around. Perhaps we’ll get a special edition one day.
