Blu-ray, DVD Release: The Emigrants / The New Land

By
Laurence
– December 9, 2015Find Others: Blu-ray, DVD, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: , , , ,

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Feb. 9, 2015
Price: DVD $39.95, Blu-ray $49.95
Studio: Criterion

The monumental mid-nineteenth-century epic from Jan Troell (Here Is Your Life) The Emigrants (1971) and The New Land (1972) charts, over the course of two films, a poor Swedish farming family’s voyage to America and their efforts to put down roots in this beautiful but forbidding new world.

Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullmann are The Emigrants

Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullmann are The Emigrants

Movie legends Max Von Sydow (The Magician) and Liv Ullmann (Persona) give remarkably authentic performances as Karl-Oskar and Kristina, a couple who meet with one physical and emotional trial after another on their arduous journey.

The precise, minute detail with which Troell depicts the couple’s story—which is also the story of countless other people who sought better lives across the Atlantic—is a wonder to behold. Engrossing every step of the way, the duo of The Emigrants and The New Land makes for perhaps the greatest screen drama about the settling of America.

Presented in Swedish with English subtitles, Criterion’s Blu-ray and DVD editions of the two foreign language dramas include the following features:

  • New high-definition digital restorations of both films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks on the Blu-rays
  • New introduction by critic and Swedish-film expert John Simon
  • New conversation between film scholar Peter Cowie and director Jan Troell
  • New interview with actor Liv Ullmann
  • To Paint with Pictures, a 2005 documentary on the making of the films, featuring archival footage as well as interviews with Troell, Ullmann, producer and coscreenwriter Bengt Forslund, and actor Eddie Axberg
  • Trailers
  • New English subtitle translations
  • An essay by critic Terrence Rafferty
Buy or Rent The Emigrants / The New Land
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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.