My Top 5 DVD Box Sets
Jan Svankmajer – The Complete Short Films, in at No.3.
1. Bob Dylan – Dont Look Back: 65 Tour Deluxe Edition (Columbia)
This feels like the ultimate (if you’re a fan): Dont Look Back movie and extra DVD 65 Revisited. Plus reprinted (from 1968) paperback book of the film and a cute flick book of the Subterranean Homesick Blues opening sequence, all nicely packaged.
2. Luis Bunuel Collection (Optimum)
Eight mainly late but great Bunuel features plus postcards of original posters and a booklet. Contains Belle de Jour, Tristana, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Diary of a Chambermaid, That Obscure Object of Desire, The Phantom of Liberty, The Milky Way, and The Young One.
3. Jan Svankmajer – The Complete Short Films (BFI)
Superb collection of Svankmaker’s short animated films spanning some 40 years over 3 discs. Also includes documentaries, interviews and rarities.
4. The Jodorowsky Collection (Tartan)
Over six discs this sumptuous box set features three remastered Alejandro Jodorowsky features, El Topo, The Holy Mountain and Fando y Lis; plus a rare short as well as a feature-length documentary. Also comes with soundtrack CDs of El Topo and The Holy Mountain, which sound somewhere in between Morricone and Moondog (with Holy Mountain featuring trumpet by Don Cherry); and postcards.
5. The John Cassavetes Collection* (Optimum)
No amazing extras for this but five great films – Shadows, Faces, A Woman Under The Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night – and a booklet in a nicely designed box.
(I was going to include Dawson’s Creek: The Complete Collection – 34 discs with every episode but it might have ruined my art house credentials.)
*It would have been good to have Gloria included in the set. The ever excellent Gena Rowlands plays a tough-as-nails moll on the run (with a heart). She’s the kind of broad who has a beer for breakfast and she’s more gun crazy than Travis Bickle – and better looking. Rowlands was Cassavetes’ wife and acted in three of the films included in the box-set.