Criterion Collection for August 2024 Finds Two Films from Directors Albert Brooks, Kira Muratova; ‘The Last Emperor’ and ‘Not a Pretty Picture’ on 4K

Right as the July Barnes and Noble summer fifty percent off sale ends, a brand-new batch of films enter the Criterion Collection, featuring directors previously in the collection thus expanding their filmography within the collection, an underrated gem, and a Best Picture winner getting a 4K Blu-ray upgrade. For the case of that Oscar winner, Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor won nine Academy Awards, winning every category it was nominated for, including Best Picture, and is the perfect film to get the upgrade as it is a visually luscious film that follows the life of Emperor Puyi, who oversaw decades of political changes during his rule of the Forbidden City starting at the age of three. Elevated by the impeccable work of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti, The Last Emperor is a fascinating epic that studies one man’s responsibility to rule an entire country while being mindful of the legacy he is building.

Next up is the Kira Muratova double feature of Brief Encounters and The Long Farewell, which both demonstrate the distinct, uncompromising voice of this Ukrainian filmmaker. As someone who spent years fighting censorship based on her expressionist vision, Brief Encounters and The Long Farewell are fascinatingly portraits of women navigating their everyday lives with a mix of deep yearning and playful pragmatism, with the director even stepping in front of the camera for Brief Encounters. These films are fascinating pieces of female focused filmmaking and make for essential purchases, just like Martha Coolidge’s entry to the collection this month, Not a Pretty Picture. This feature debut from Coolidge is a personal hybrid of documentary and fiction centered around the recreation of the filmmaker’s experience with sexual assault from their childhood. Harrowing and deeply impactful, Not a Pretty Picture is powerful experimental filmmaking that challenges the view to ask the right questions when it comes to sexual violence and looks at the idea of artistic catharsis is a fascinating way that very few films do.

The last two entries for the month come from wildly creative mind of writer-director Albert Brooks with Real Life and Mother. The former is the directorial debut for Brooks, as he plays a literal version of himself that is set to direct a fake documentary about the average American family, with the husband and wife played by Charles Grodin and Frances Lee McCain. As the film plays out, Brooks dives deeper and deeper in the meta rabbit hole and we see this mockumentary transform into a pitch perfect examination of today’s media and the obsession of controlling what is fact and what is fiction. The latter title finds Brooks playing a recent divorcee who is struggling to write their next novel, and in an act of artistic desperation to see where his life went wrong, he moves back into his childhood home with his overbearing mother (played by the legend Debbie Reynolds). In doing this little experiment, he finds shockingly positive results, leading to hilarious hijinks that only Brooks could create. They are excellent additions to the Criterion Collection that already houses Brook’s Defending Your Life and Lost in America.

Below are the special features for each other films from the August 2024 Criterion Collection releases.

THE LAST EMPEROR Director-Approved Special Edition Features:

• 4K digital restoration, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack

• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and two Blu-rays with the film and special features

• Audio commentary featuring director Bernardo Bertolucci, producer Jeremy Thomas, screenwriter Mark Peploe, and composer-actor Ryuichi Sakamoto

• 218-minute television version

• The Italian Traveler, Bernardo Bertolucci, a film by Fernand Moszkowicz tracing the director’s geographic influences, from Parma to China

• Footage taken by Bertolucci while on preproduction in China 

• Two documentaries about the making of the film

• Program featuring cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, editor Gabriella Cristiani, costume designer James Acheson, and art director Gianni Silvestri 

• Archival interview with Bertolucci

• Interviews with composer David Byrne and cultural historian Ian Buruma 

• Trailer

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• PLUS: An essay by film critic David Thomson, interviews with production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti and actor Ying Ruocheng, a reminiscence by Bertolucci, and an essay by Fabien S. Gerard

BRIEF ENCOUNTERS / THE LONG FAREWELL: TWO FILMS BY KIRA MURATOVA Special Edition Features:

• New 4K digital restorations, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks

• Interviews with scholars Elena Gorfinkel and Isabel Jacobs 

• Archival interview with director Kira Muratova 

• PLUS: An essay by film critic Jessica Kiang         

NOT A PRETTY PICTURE Director-Approved Special Edition Features:

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Martha Coolidge, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack

• Interview with Coolidge conducted by filmmaker Allison Anders

• Old-Fashioned Woman (1974), a documentary by Coolidge about her grandmother

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• PLUS: An essay by film critic Molly Haskell

REAL LIFE Director-Approved Special Edition Features:

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Albert Brooks, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack

• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features

• New interview with Brooks 

• New interview with actor Frances Lee McCain

• 3D trailer directed by Brooks

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

MOTHER Director-Approved Special Edition Features:

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Albert Brooks, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack

• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features

• New interview with Brooks

• New interview with actor Rob Morrow

• Teaser directed by Brooks

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• PLUS: An essay by critic Carrie Rickey