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When a coal mine collapses on the frontier between Germany and France, trapping a team of French miners inside, workers on both sides of the border spring into action, putting aside national prejudices and wartime grudges to launch a dangerous rescue operation. Director G. W. Pabst brings a claustrophobic realism to this ticking-clock scenario, using realistic sets and sound design to create the maze of soot-choked shafts where the miners struggle for survival. A gripping disaster film and a stirring plea for international cooperation, Kameradschaft cemented Pabst s status as one of the most morally engaged and formally dexterous filmmakers of his time. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES - New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack - New interview with German film scholar Hermann Barth on the film s production - 1988 interview with editor Jean Oser - 2016 interview with film scholar Jan-Christopher Horak on the historical context of the film - New English subtitle translation - PLUS: An essay by author and critic Luc Sante

Description

An epic of the Weimar cinema, The Love of Jeanne Ney follows a young French woman’s struggle for happiness amid the political turbulence and corruption of post-World War I Europe. A tour-de-force for director G.W. Pabst (Diary of a Lost Girl, Pandora’s Box), the film blends a variety of cinematic approaches as it weaves its complex narrative of moral chaos and political upheaval: the “American Style,” evocative of the Hollywood studio blockbuster; the avant-garde techniques of Soviet montage; as well as the eerie moving camerawork and shadowy perspectives typical of German Expressionism. The result is a stunning cinematic experiment that never fails to surprise the viewer as it races towards its exhilarting conclusion. Special Features: -Audio commentary by film historian Eddy von Mueller -Restored German release version with music adapted and orchestrated by Bernd Thewes -U.S. release version with music by Andrew Earle Simpson

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One of the masters of early German cinema, G. W. Pabst seemed to have an innate talent for discovering actresses. And perhaps none of his female stars shone brighter than Kansas native and onetime Ziegfeld girl Louise Brooks, whose legendary persona was defined by Pabst’s lurid, controversial melodrama Pandora’s Box. Sensationally modern, the film follows the downward spiral of the fiery, brash, yet innocent showgirl Lulu, whose sexual vivacity has a devastating effect on everyone around her. Daring and stylish, Pandora’s Box is one of silent cinema’s great masterworks and a testament to Brooks’s dazzling individuality. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 2K digital restoration Four musical scores, by Gillian Anderson, Dimitar Pentchev, Peer Raben, and Stéphan Oliva Audio commentary by film scholars Thomas Elsaesser and Mary Ann Doane Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu (1998), a documentary by Hugh Munro Neely Lulu in Berlin (1971), a rare interview with actor Louise Brooks, by Richard Leacock and Susan Steinberg Woll Interviews with Leacock and Michael Pabst, director G. W. Pabst’s son PLUS: An essay by critic J. Hoberman, notes on the scores, Kenneth Tynan’s 1979 “The Girl in the Black Helmet,” and an article by Brooks on her relationship with Pabst

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A physician, alchemist, and spiritual guru, Paracelsus (1493-1541) was one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of science. And, like its subject, this 1943 film is shrouded in mystery, even though it was directed by one of the supreme stylists of the German cinema: G.W. Pabst. Werner Krauss (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) stars as the Swiss-born scientist, who faces the seemingly impossible task of protecting the German people from a coming plague, and calming a rising tide of mass hysteria. Despite being called “a remarkably interesting film” by The New York Times’s Vincent Canby (when it received its belated U.S. premiere in 1974), Paracelsus continues to be overlooked, along with most all of the films made in Germany during World War II. With fresh eyes, however, we can see that Paracelsus is not a propaganda film, but the work of an oppressed artist attempting to convey a humanist, possibly subersive message under the gaze of Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. Special Features: -Audio commentary by film historian Samm Deighan Top About this item Similar From the Brand Reviews Paracelsus [Blu-ray]

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G. W. Pabst brought the war movie into a new era with his first sound film, a mercilessly realistic depiction of the nightmare that scarred a generation, in the director s native Germany and beyond. Digging into the trenches with four infantrymen stationed in France in the final months of World War I, Pabst illustrates the harrowing ordeals of battle with unprecedented naturalism, as the men are worn away in body and spirit by firefights, shelling, and the disillusion that greets them on the home front. Long unavailable, the newly restored Westfront 1918 is a visceral, sobering antiwar statement that is as urgent today as when it was made. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES - New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack - Hour-long French television broadcast of World War I veterans reacting to the film in 1969 - 2016 interview with film scholar Jan-Christopher Horak - New restoration demonstration featuring Martin Koerber and Julia Wallmüller of the Deutsche Kinemathek - New English subtitle translation - PLUS: An essay by author and critic Luc Sante