Overlord (The Criterion Collection) - Blu-ray

During the war a young lad is called up and, with an increasing sense of foreboding, undertakes his army training ready for D-day.

SYNOPSIS:

Seamlessly interweaving archival war footage and a fictional narrative, this immersive account by STUART COOPER of one twenty-year-old’s journey from basic training to the front lines of D-Day brings to life all the terrors and isolation of war with jolting authenticity. Overlord, impressionistically shot by Stanley Kubrick’s long-time cinematographer JOHN ALCOTT, is both a document of World War II and a dreamlike meditation on human smallness in a large, incomprehensible machine.

DIRECTOR APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:

• Restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Stuart Cooper, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Audio commentary featuring Cooper and actor Brian Stirner
• Mining the Archive, a 2007 video piece featuring archivists from London’s Imperial War Museum detailing the footage used in the film
• Capa Influences Cooper, a 2007 photo essay featuring Cooper on photographer Robert Capa
• Cameramen at War, the British Ministry of Information’s 1943 film tribute to newsreel and service film unit cameramen
• A Test of Violence, Cooper’s 1969 short film about the Spanish artist Juan Genovés
• Germany Calling, a 1941 Ministry of Information propaganda film, clips of which appear in Overlord
• Excerpts from the journals of two D-day soldiers, read by Stirner
• Trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kent Jones, a short history of the Imperial War Museum, and excerpts from the Overlord novelization by Cooper and Christopher Hudson