More Criterion

Two new titles are coming from Criterion in September, Pierrot le fou and The Complete Montery Pop Festival.

Dissatisfied in marriage and life, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) takes to the road with the babysitter, his ex-lover Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), and leaves the bourgeoisie behind. Yet this is no normal road trip: genius auteur Jean-Luc Godard’s tenth feature in six years is a stylish mash-up of consumerist satire, politics, and comic-book aesthetics, as well as a violent, zigzag tale of, as Godard called them, “the last romantic couple.” With blissful color imagery by cinematographer Raoul Coutard and Belmondo and Karina at their most animated, “Pierrot le fou” is one of the high points of the French New Wave, and was Godard’s last frolic before he moved ever further into radical cinema.

“Pierrot le fou” comes with a Pierroy Primer, the French documentary Godard, l’amour, la poesie, interviews, a trailer and a Criterion booklet.

On a beautiful June weekend in 1967, at the height of the “Summer of Love,” the first and only Monterey International Pop Festival roared forward—capturing a decade’s spirit and ushering in a new era of rock and roll. Monterey would launch the careers of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding, but they were just a few among a wildly diverse cast including Simon and Garfunkel, The Mamas and the Papas, The Who, The Byrds, Hugh Masekela, and the extraordinary Ravi Shankar.

The very complete set of Monterey Pop comes with two hours of additional concert performances, four commentaries, interviews, a photo essay, trailers, radio spots for the festival, a scrapbook, trailers and a video exceprt.

The Montery set will be available compete or as individual releases. All titles arrive on September 22nd.

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