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Academy Award-winning director Bernardo Bertolucci (The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, The Last Emperor) brings a stunning adaptation of Paul Bowles’ heartbreaking classic novel to the screen that Vincent Canby in The New York Times called “a long, beautifully modulated cry of despair... the sort of dark, romantic movie that only Mr. Bertolucci could bring off.”

In the hopes of rekindling their marriage, sophisticated American couple Port and Kit Moresby (John Malkovich and Debra Winger) set off for North Africa intending to travel through Algeria – uncertain of exactly where they are heading but determined to leave the modern world behind. They are instead tested to their limits by the unfathomable emptiness and impassive cruelty of the desert.

A distinguished and emotive follow up to his Best Picture-winning The Last Emperor (Academy Awards 1988) and a sensual highlight in an extraordinary filmmaking career, The Sheltering Sky won a BAFTA for Vittorio Storaro’s outstanding cinematography and a Golden Globe for Ryuichi Sakamoto’s haunting original score.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

• High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation
• Original uncompressed stereo audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Archival audio commentary with director Bernardo Bertolucci, producer Jeremy Thomas, and screenwriter Mark Peploe
• Desert Roses (47 mins) – archival featurette
• Brand new video essay by David Cairns & Fiona Watson
• Brand new interview with art director Andrew Sanders
• Image Gallery
• Original Trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring original theatrical artwork

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Kat Ellinger

Was hoping for a new restoration but does not look like it.

Still had been holding off seeing this till a blu ray hit so this will do!

"Special Edition"? What? Where? How?

02/11/2020 from Arrow Academy

nitin wrote: Sat Aug 22, 2020 5:20 am Was hoping for a new restoration but does not look like it.

Still had been holding off seeing this till a blu ray hit so this will do!

And I only just recently picked up the German Blu, which is excellent btw. Whatever, I'll probably pick this one up too just for the unique extras and the English subs on the (admittedly spare) French dialogue.

John Cope wrote: Sat Aug 22, 2020 7:27 amand the English subs on the (admittedly spare) French dialogue.

Not that I want to discourage your purchase, but there are no subtitles for any of the foreign-language dialogue in the film on the Arrow disc. Bertolucci left them out to heighten the audience’s feelings of alienation, and that’s how we’ve kept it here.