Why the BFI Maurice release (4 March 2019) seems so cool :-)
1. The cover!!! Not ‘This film is not called Clive’ style anymore but something much MUCH better
2. The NEW EXTRAS, made in 2019:
- a brand new interview with James Wilby (!)
- James Ivory and Ismail Merchant in a panel discussion, audio and 8 min only but also very new
- newly recorded audio commentaries, including one for Deleted scenes :) (!)
3. The rest, of course, including the film itself ;-) and the older extras.
All this makes me happy. In fact, the cover itself would probably be enough for me to buy it, but now it is just A MUST.
Here’s the link, just in case anyone here hasn’t heard about it before:
@fermencja :)))
1. The cover (previously the BFI’s 2018 poster artwork) is so bloody pretty, and we should all thank the BFI for ditching Cohen’s agonising shadow!Maurice artwork from the 2017 US release. But its nostalgic pastelness has some disadvantages, as I discovered in my futile attempts to photograph the poster in situ at BFI Southbank last year:
2. Re. the NEW 2019 BFI EXTRAS (details via @fermencja’s link), it’s important to add that the BFI release is a case of ‘gain some, lose some’. Pro tip: Fans who already have the Criterion 2-disk DVD or the 2017 Cohen 2-disk US release will want to hold onto those editions if you want the full set of now-available Maurice extras.
Short version:
• The 2017 Cohen 2-disk US release of Maurice had all the old 2004 Criterion US extras, plus the new 2017 filmed extras produced by Cohen (of which, IMO, the 40min filmed conversation between Jim Ivory and younger director Tom McCarthy, Maurice: A Director’s Perspective, is the best), plus the new 2017 Cohen booklet extras.
• The 2019 BFI 2-disk UK release of Maurice has (for the first time in the UK) the new digital restoration and all the deleted scenes, the new 2017 Cohen filmed extras, a lot of new 2019 BFI filmed and audio extras (as listed in the link), and (with the BFI Blu-ray only) the new 2017 Cohen print booklet content – but, NB, not the 2004 Criterion extras.
A bit more on the new BFI extras!
• Everyone excited about the (19min!) brand-new filmed interview with James Wilby might like to know that there’s more to come. On 25 Mar 2019, cult specialists Powerhouse Films/Indicator Blu-ray are releasing a new restoration of Immaculate Conception (Jamil Dehlavi, 1992) on region-free Blu-ray too, with copious new extras which include a further new 2019 20min interview with James Wilby: https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/products/immaculate-conception-le
- • Hugh Grant and James Wilby in Conversation (2018, 5 mins): this will be the BFI’s video interview with them during BFI Flare 2018.
- • Screening E M Forster (2019, 8 mins): audio extracts only of James Ivory and Ismail Merchant in a NFT/BFI Southbank panel discussion from 1992 (the year of Howards End’s release). New to me. :)
• And, yes – new audio commentaries, including on the deleted scenes(!)
* Also, with the BFI Blu-ray, an illustrated booklet with a lovely introduction by Ivory, an essay on Maurice by veteran critic and Merchant Ivory insider John Pym, and a detailed interview with James Wilby about the film’s production.
NB: The pre-order price of £19.99 for the Blu-ray is a discount on the advertised RRP (£24.99 Blu-ray or £19.99 DVD).
Here I am, doing my "YES, YES, YES" dance! Love the new cover. It looks as if the boys shine with their own light, how romantic is that?