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Paris nous appartient Blu-ray in September.

One less Criterion to import, I guess, and good to see the extras have been given a bit of an uplift. A decent encode please!

Yep, cat's out the bag. Wish more American labels realized they could employ the commentary services of Martin-- I think he's far better suited to this format than the video essays he's been making with his partner, and considering how few people are capable of making good commentaries, that's no small feat

Cool, coulda guessed this actually as they previously released it on DVD. Was actually discussing this the other day and wondering if BFI had let it go and Arrow Academy might try and get it from MK2.

One more Criterion to pawn off. I don't mind, really, but I wish BFI had been more punctual!

I'll be sad to lose the interview with Neupert from the Criterion, but otherwise, yeah cya l8r to the Crit

Full specs announced:

[quote]Paris nous appartient (Paris Belongs To Us)
Directed by Jacques Rivette

Blu-ray release on 24 September 2018

‘Rivette’s free-wheeling love letter to Paris at its hippest, with a host of cameos’ The Guardian

Jacques Rivette (Celine and Julie Go Boating), the great cinematic visionary, although the least known of the major French New Wave directors, started Paris nous appartient – his first feature – in 1957 and completed it over a two-year period.

On 24 September the BFI will bring this classic of French cinema to Blu-ray for the first time in the UK. Special features include a new full-length commentary.

Anne, a student in Paris, becomes involved with her brother’s artsy friends – US expat Philip, self-destructive femme fatale Terry, theatre director Gérard – and gets sucked into a mystery surrounding the death of Spanish activist Juan. When Philip warns that Gérard is in danger from the forces that killed Juan, Anne takes a part in his production of Shakespeare’s Pericles in an attempt to discover the truth.

Paris nous appartient includes cameos from directors Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Demy, as well as a striking musique concrète experimental score to accompany Charles Bitsch’s stunning black and white photography.

Special features
• Presented in High Definition
• Newly commissioned feature-length commentary by film scholar Adrian Martin (2018)
• Filmed introduction by Jonathan Romney on Rivette and Paris nous appartient (2006, 18 mins)
• Le Coup du berger (Jacques Rivette, 1957, 29 mins)
• Illustrated booklet with a new essay by So Mayer, Tom Milne’s 1962 review and a preview by Louis Marcorelles looking forward to the film’s release

Product details
RRP: £19.99/ Cat. no. BFIB1324 / Cert 12
France / 1961 / black and white / 142 mins / French language with English subtitles / original aspect ratio 1.37:1 / BD50: 1080p, 24fps, PCM 2.0 stereo audio (48kHz/24-bit), PCM 2.0 commentary audio (48kHz/16-bit)

I have yet to delve deep into Rivette-land to decide whether I love him much, but this film gave me a concrete reason for a sliver of hope the rest of his films will be as great as this.

Belatedly watched the Celine and Julie blu-ray, and addition to being a delightful and rich film, I must say that Adrian Martin's commentary is exemplary. For more than three hours he goes into depth on the film's literary and filmic antecedents, ably situates it in its cultural and political moment, traces the films it influenced, and introduces a variety of critical lenses through which to read it, all while using a 1968 interview Rivette conducted with Daisies director Věra Chytilová as a structuring motif, its a great track.