BAAL (1970) CRITERION LIKE NEW BLU-RAY DIRECTOR VOLKER SCHLÖNDORFF GERMAN 

Volker Schlöndorff transported Bertolt Brecht’s 1918 debut play to contemporary West Germany for this vicious experiment in adaptation, seldom seen for nearly half a century. Oozing with brutish charisma, Rainer Werner Fassbinder embodies the eponymous anarchist poet, who feels that bourgeois society has rejected him and sets off on a schnapps-soaked rampage. Hewing faithfully to Brecht’s text, Schlöndorff juxtaposes the theatricality of the prose with bare-bones, handheld 16 mm camera work, which gives immediacy to this savage story of rebellion. Featuring a supporting cast drawn from Fassbinder’s troupe of theater actors that also includes Margarethe von Trotta, Baal demonstrates the uncompromising vision of its director, a trailblazer of the New German Cinema.

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DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration, supervised by director Volker Schlöndorff, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Interviews from 1973 and 2015 with Schlöndorff
• New conversation between actor Ethan Hawke and playwright Jonathan Marc Sherman about the play and adaptation
• New interview with actor and filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta
• New interview with film historian Eric Rentschler
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Dennis Lim