Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman (Criterion Collection) on DVD

Actor: Various
Director: Karel Zeman
Genre: Action/Adventure
Year: -
Studio: Criterion Collection
Length: 85
Released: 2/25/2020
Rating: Not Rated (MPAA Rating)
Format: DVD
Misc/Special Features: Subtitled, NTSC ,New 4K digital restorations of all three films • New programs with animation filmmaker John Stevenson and special-effects artists Phil Tippett and Jim Aupperle discussing director Karel Zeman and his complex visual trickery • Four early short films by Zeman: A Christmas Dream (1946), A Horseshoe for Luck (1946), Inspiration (1949), and King Lavra (1950) • Film Adventurer: Karel Zeman, a 2015 documentary about the director, featuring filmmakers Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam, illustrator Ludmila Zeman, and others • Short documentaries by the Karel Zeman Museum profiling the director and detailing the production and effects of all three films • U.S.-release version of Journey to the Beginning of Time from 1960 • Alternate English-dubbed soundtrack for Invention for Destruction, and the opening sequence of the 1961 U.S.-release version • Restoration demonstrations and an interview with restoration supervisor James Mockoski • Trailers • New English subtitle translations • PLUS: An essay by film critic Michael Atkinson JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING OF TIME A beguiling mix of natural history and science fiction
Language: English
Subtitles : N/A

DESCRIPTION:

A one-of-a-kind silver-screen illusionist, Czechoslovak filmmaker Karel Zeman devoted his career to transporting viewers to realms beyond their wildest imagining. The deft, breathtaking combinations of live-action and animation techniques that he pioneered in the postwar years earned him comparisons to legends such as Georges Melies, and an array of followers that includes Jan Svankmajer, Terry Gilliam, and Wes Anderson. Presented here are three of Zeman's most enchanting fantasies a boys' adventure into the mists of prehistory, a Jules Verne-derived flight of fancy, and an exotic eighteenth-century tall taleall of them treasure chests of wondrous sights, tactile textures, and headlong yarn-spinning that helped put Czechoslovak cinema on the international map.