The Criterion Collection

Life During Wartime

Edition no. 574

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Release Date: Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Country of Release: USA
MSRP: $29.95

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Licensor Information

IFC Films

Directed by: Todd Solondz

Featuring: Shirley Henderson, Ciaran Hinds, Gaby Hoffman, Allison Janney, Michael Lerner, Chris Marquette, Rich Pecci, Charlotte Rampling, Paul Reubens, Ally Sheedy, Dylan Riley Snyder, Renée Taylor, Michael Kenneth Williams

In Life During Wartime, independent filmmaker Todd Solondz explores contemporary American existence and the nature of forgiveness with his customary dry humor and queasy precision. The film functions as a distorted mirror image of Solondz’s acclaimed 1998 dark comedy Happiness, its emotionally stunted characters now groping for the possibility of change in a post-9/11 world. Happiness’s grim New Jersey setting is transposed mainly to sunny Florida, but the biggest twist is that new actors fill the roles from the earlier film—including Shirley Henderson, Allison Janney, and Ally Sheedy as alarmingly dissimilar sisters, and Ciarán Hinds hauntingly embodying a reformed pedophile. Shot in expressionistic tones by cinematographer extraordinaire Ed Lachman, Solondz’s film finds the humor in the tragic and the tragic in the everyday.

Year: 2010
Time: 97 min.

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Release Information:

Technical Specifications

Format:

DVD

Disc:

DVD-9 (1 Disc)

Total: 1 Disc

Regions:

1 (DVD)

Aspect Ratio:

1.78:1

Audio Options:

English Dolby Digital Surround 5.1

Subtitles:

English

Supplements

Types of Supplements Included: Q&A, Documentary, Interview, Theatrical Trailer, Booklet

Ask Todd, an audio Q&A with director Todd Solondz in which he responds to viewers’ questions
Making “Life During Wartime,” a new documentary featuring interviews with actors Shirley Henderson, Ciaran Hinds, Allison Janney, Michael Lerner, Paul Reubens, Ally Sheedy, and Michael Kenneth Williams, as well as on-set footage
New interview with Ed Lachman
Original theatrical trailer
A booklet featuring a new essay by film critic David Sterritt

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