Posted Mon Dec 23, 2013 at 12:00 PM PST by Tom Landy
Another favorite from Ingmar Bergman heads to Blu-ray in March. Pre-orders are also now available!
In an early announcement to retailers, Criterion says 'Persona' will be available on Blu-ray on March 25.
By the mid-sixties, Ingmar Bergman had already conjured many of the cinema's most unforgettable images. But with the radical 'Persona,' this supreme artist attained new levels of visual poetry. In the first of a series of legendary performances for Bergman, Liv Ullmann plays an actress who has inexplicably gone mute; an equally mesmerizing Bibi Andersson is the garrulous young nurse caring for her in a remote island cottage. While isolated together there, the women perform a mysterious spiritual and emotional transference that would prove to be one of cinema's most influential ideas. Acted with astonishing nuance and shot in stark shadows and soft light by the great Sven Nykvist, 'Persona' is a penetrating, dreamlike work of profound psychological depth.
The Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack will feature a new 1080p 2K digital restoration, a uncompressed mono soundtrack, and supplements include: New visual essay on the film's prologue by Ingmar Bergman scholar Peter Cowie; New interviews with actor Liv Ullmann and filmmaker Paul Schrader; Excerpted archival interviews with Bergman and actors Bibi Andersson and Ullmann; On-set footage, with audio commentary by Bergman historian Birgitta Steene Liv & Ingmar, a 2012 feature documentary directed by Dheeraj Akolkar; Trailer; and a booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Thomas Elsaesser, an excerpted 1969 interview with Bergman, and an excerpted 1977 conversation with Andersson.
Suggested list price for the Blu-ray is $39.95.
You can find the latest specs for 'Persona' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it is indexed under March 25.
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