Blu-ray, DVD Release: ’Round Midnight

By
Laurence
– April 21, 2022Find Others: Blu-ray, DVD, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: , ,

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: April 26, 2022
Price: 2-disc DVD $21.99, Blu-ray $21.99
Studio: Criterion

The jazz-soaked1986 film ’Round Midnight is a love letter from director Bertrand Tavernier (A Sunday in the Country) to the heyday of bebop and to the Black American musicians who found refuge in the smoky underground jazz clubs of 1950s Paris.
In a remarkable fusion of performer and character that was nominated for an Oscar, legendary saxophonist Dexter Gordon plays Dale Turner, a brilliant New York jazz veteran whose music aches with beauty but whose personal life is ravaged by addiction. Searching for a fresh start in Paris, Turner strikes up an unlikely friendship with a struggling single father and ardent jazz fan (François Cluzet, The Intouchables) who finds his life transformed as he attempts to help the self-destructive musician.
Herbie Hancock’s evocative, Oscar-winning score sets the mood for what has been described as a definitive jazz film–a bittersweet opus that glows with lived-in, soulful authenticity.
Criterion’s Blu-ray and DVD releases contain the following features:
• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, supervised by composer Herbie Hancock and presented in DTS-HD Master Audio
• New interview with jazz and cultural critic Gary Giddins
• New conversation with music producer Michael Cuscuna and author Maxine Gordon, widow of musician Dexter Gordon
• Before Midnight, a 1986 behind-the-scenes documentary
• Panel discussion from 2014 featuring director Bertrand Tavernier, Cuscuna, Maxine Gordon, and jazz scholar John Szwed, moderated by jazz critic and broadcaster Mark Ruffin
• Performance from 1969 of “Fried Bananas” by Dexter Gordon, directed by Teit Jørgensen
• New English subtitle translation and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• An essay by scholar Mark Anthony Neal

Buy or Rent ’Round Midnight

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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.