Sawdust
and Tinsel from Criterion in November
9
September 2007
When
a travelling circus arrives in the town where the ringmaster
and owner Albert's wife Agda and his sons live, he is
presented with a dilemma, as he is now involved with the
young and beautiful Anne. He visits his wife nonetheless,
and the jealous Anne is seduced by leading player Frans,
and so begins the story of Albert's humiliation and eventual
downfall. Sawdust and Tinsel (Gycklarnas
afton) features dreamlike detours and twisted
psychosexual power plays that presage the director's Smiles
of a Summer Night and The Seventh Seal,
works that would soon change the landscape of art cinema
forever.
Already
available in the UK from Tartan both as a stand-alone
title and as part of their completists' Ingmar Bergman
Collection, the film has been announced for a November
relese in the US as part of The Criterion Collection with
the following features:
- New,
restored high-definition digital transfer of the film,
featuring five minutes of material not included in previous
U.S. editions;
- Audio
commentary by Bergman scholar Peter Cowie;
- Video
introduction by Bergman from 2003;
- New
and improved English subtitle translation;
- A
new essay by critic John Simon and an appreciation by
filmmaker Catherine Breillat.
Sawdust
and Tinsel
will be released on US DVD by Criterion on 20th November
2007 at the SRP of $39.95.
