70 The Collector

[MichaelB]

(William Wyler, 1965)
Release date: 24 September 2018
Limited Blu-ray Edition (UK Blu-ray premiere) - preorder here

The great Hollywood director William Wyler (Jezebel, Wuthering Heights, The Heiress, Ben-Hur) took John Fowles’ celebrated novel and turned it into one of the finest – and most controversial – psychological thrillers of the 1960s.

A lonely, unbalanced young butterfly collector (Terence Stamp, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Mind of Mr. Soames, Superman II) stalks and abducts a young art student (Samantha Eggar, Psyche 59, The Brood), keeping her imprisoned in a stone cellar as if she were one of his specimens.

Stamp and Eggar won Best Actor prizes for their roles at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival, and the film remains a surprising and often shocking depiction of psychotic obsession.

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES
• 2K restoration
• Original mono audio
• The Guardian Interview with William Wyler (1981, 83 mins): archival audio recording of the celebrated filmmaker in conversation with Adrian Turner at London’s National Film Theatre
• The Guardian Interview with Terence Stamp (1989, 92 mins): archival audio recording of the award-winning actor in conversation with Tony Sloman at the National Film Theatre
• Selected scenes commentary with author and film historian Neil Sinyard
• Angel to Devil (2018, 13 mins): new and exclusive interview in which Terence Stamp remembers working with Wyler
• Nothing But Death (2018, 16 mins): Award-winning actor Samantha Eggar recalls her work on the film in this new and exclusive interview
• The Look of Stardom (1965, 3 mins): promotional film about the casting of Samantha Eggar
• The Location Collector (2018, 8 mins): identifying the places where The Collector’s exteriors were filmed
• Richard Combs on ‘The Collector’ (2018, 9 mins): a new appreciation by the renowned critic, lecturer and broadcaster
• Original theatrical trailer
• Original teaser trailers
• Image gallery: promotional photography and publicity material
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Limited edition exclusive 40-page booklet with a new essay by Carmen Gray, John Fowles and The Collector, a look at the making of the film, contemporary critical responses, and film credits
• UK premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited Edition of 3,000 copies

#PHILTD070
BBFC cert: 15
REGION FREE
EAN: 5037889071383

[domino harvey]

Good movie. Wyler completely misses the point of the novel, but what we get is still quite entertaining. Even considering how much the Academy loved him, I've always found Wyler's Oscar nomination for Best Director for this film to be surprising-- it's a dark movie, definitely not the kind of film one thought of as Oscar material back then, but Wyler's popularity with the Academy knew no limits

Looks like a typically good slate of extras too, the existing Blu just has a trailer

[nitin]

Normally do not comment about covers, but really really like the cover art here! Will definitely be offloading my Image disc and getting this.

[Boosmahn]

I've been wanting to read the book this is based on for a long time now! Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was basically the first in the "psychological thriller" genre, right?

[domino harvey]

Well, the point of the book is that the kidnapper resents/is unable to connect with the college student due to his anti-intellectual stance, which causes him to lash out. It's a rather vicious class commentary more than a crime thriller

[knives]

Well, the point of the book is that the kidnapper resents/is unable to connect with the college student due to his anti-intellectual stance, which causes him to lash out. It's a rather vicious class commentary more than a crime thriller

That's how I took the film (I haven't read the book).

[MichaelB]

A key difference between the film and the book is that in the book we properly get inside both characters' heads - his in the first half, hers in the second. So the whole class and cultural snobbery angle is explored in much more depth - sometimes unconsciously on the characters' parts; the virtue of not only using two different first-person narrators but also kicking off with his POV, which is likely to be further removed from that of the typical reader of a literary novel like The Collector.

[MichaelB]

Full and final specs:

[knives]

A key difference between the film and the book is that in the book we properly get inside both characters' heads - his in the first half, hers in the second. So the whole class and cultural snobbery angle is explored in much more depth - sometimes unconsciously on the characters' parts; the virtue of not only using two different first-person narrators but also kicking off with his POV, which is likely to be further removed from that of the typical reader of a literary novel like The Collector.

That's interesting though it seems to me that Wyler succeeded in doing that visually if not with the explicitness of a proper narration.

[domino harvey]

It should be interesting to hear Eggar's thoughts, as apparently Wyler terrorized her on set in order to get the rattled performance he wanted

[Finch]

^ I don't understand why directors feel the need to do this. As much as I love Stanley Kubrick, my respect for him went down a bit after what he did to Shelley Duvall on the Shining set. Such behaviour to me feels like a lack of confidence from the director in the actress' ability to get the desired effect of her own accord.

[pet42]

John Fowles wrote about the problems on the set: Link.

[Finch]

That was a fascinating read. Thank you!

[MichaelB]

Caps-a-holic.

[MichaelB]

CineOutsider and Mondo Digital.

[MichaelB]

Beaver.

[Beloved Aunt]

Maurice Jarre's music for this film is really extraordinary, one of the best scores ever written for any film, not just Hollywood, and Jarre's finest work ever (though I'd say it's almost matched by his rather unknown score for Jacques Demy's short film adaptation of Cocteau's (stupid) playlet Le bel indifferent--from 1959 I believe, when Jarre was still working in France.) It has such an extraordinary and arresting finesse, subtlety, intricacy, and maturity, of a kind that seem to belong to it and it alone. It's kind of amazing that Jarre won an Academy Award in 1965 for his score for Doctor Zhivago, which to my ear is infinitely inferior and amounts to nothing more than shapeless, aimless, vulgar musical drool, while his incredible work on The Collector went unrecognized by any awards body.