STUDIOCANAL has confirmed that a 4K release of The Piano is set for shelves in September. The brand-new restoration of the ground-breaking Cannes Palme D’Or winner marks the first time that the film will be available on 4K UHD.
Bonus material for the release will include brand-new featurettes including interviews with cinematographer, Stuart Dryburgh, production Designer, Andrew McAlpine and the film’s Maori advisor, Waihoroi Shortland. The release also comes complete with limited addition poster.
Starring Holly Hunter (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Big Sick), Harvey Keitel (Mean Streets, Bad Lieutenant), Sam Neill (Dead Calm, Sirens, Hunt for The Wilderpeople) and Anna Paquin (X-Men, The Squid and The Whale, ‘True Blood’), The Piano won widespread critical and audience acclaim on its release. The film’s writer, director and producer, Jane Campion was the first female director to win the Cannes Palme d’Or for the triumphant masterpiece that centres on a mute woman’s rebellion in a newly colonised, Victorian-era New Zealand. Soundtracked by Michael Nyman’s evocative score, the film also won Oscars for both Holly Hunter (Best Actress in a Leading Role) and Anna Paquin (Best Actress in a Supporting Role) in career-defining roles as well as a Best Screenplay statue for Campion’s typically individualistic and female-centric script.
She is to marry frontiersman Alistair Stewart (Sam Neill), having been sold him by her father, but takes an immediate dislike to him after he refuses to carry her beloved piano home with them, instead selling it to his overseer George Baines (Harvey Keitel). Attracted to Ada, Baines agrees to return the piano in exchange for lessons that gradually become a series of erotically charged sexual encounters. As the story unfolds like a Greek tragedy, complete with a chorus of Maori tribes, all of the characters’ long suppressed emotions come to the fore, as if elicited by the wildness of the natural world around them.
Confirmed bonus features:
- Interview with Jane Campion & Jan Chapman
- Making of
- 25 Years On
- Cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh – Brand New
- Production Designer Andrew McAlpine – Brand New
- Maori advisor Waihoroi Shortland – Brand New
