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Release: February 18, 2020

$7.99

Description

Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) designed some of the world’s most astonishing buildings, interiors, and parks; Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara constructed some of the most aesthetically audacious films ever made. In Antonio Gaudí, their artistry melds in a unique, enthralling cinematic experience. Less a documentary than a visual poem, Teshigahara’s film takes viewers on a tour of Gaudí’s truly spectacular architecture, including his massive, still-unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Família basilica in Barcelona. With camera work as bold and sensual as the curves of his subject’s organic structures, Teshigahara immortalizes Gaudí on film. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • High-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack • Interview with architect Arata Isozaki from 2008 • Gaudí, Catalunya, 1959, footage from director Hiroshi Teshigahara’s first trip to Spain • Visions of Space: “Antoni Gaudí,” an hour-long documentary from 2003 on the architect’s life and work • BBC program on Gaudí by filmmaker Ken Russell • Sculptures by Sofu—Vita, a 1963 short film by Teshigahara on the sculpture work of his father, Sofu Teshigahara • Trailer • PLUS: An essay by art historian Dore Ashton, a 1986 reminiscence by Hiroshi Teshigahara, and excerpts from a 1959 conversation between Hiroshi and Sofu Teshigahara on their trip to the West

Release: August 23, 2016

$6.99

Description

One of the 1960s great international art-house sensations, Woman in the Dunes was for many the grand unveiling of the surreal, idiosyncratic world of Hiroshi Teshigahara (The Face of Another). Eiji Okada (Hiroshima mon amour) plays an amateur entomologist who has left Tokyo to study an unclassified species of beetle found in a vast desert. When he misses his bus back to civilization, he is persuaded to spend the night with a young widow (Kyoko Kishida) in her hut at the bottom of a sand dune. What results is one of cinema s most unnerving and palpably erotic battles of the sexes, as well as a nightmarish depiction of the Sisyphean struggle of everyday life an achievement that garnered Teshigahara an Academy Award nomination for best director. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES - New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack - Video essay on the film from 2007 by film scholar James Quandt - Four short films from director Hiroshi Teshigahara s early career: Hokusai (1953), Ikebana (1956), Tokyo 1958 (1958), and Ako (1965) - Teshigahara and Abe, a 2007 documentary examining the collaboration between Teshigahara and novelist Kobo Abe, featuring interviews with film scholars Donald Richie and Tadao Sato, film programmer Richard Peña, set designer Arata Isozaki, producer Noriko Nomura, and screenwriter John Nathan - Trailer - PLUS: An essay by film scholar Audie Bock and a 1980 interview with Teshigahara