Sawdust And Tinsel – Criterion Collection – Blu-ray

Ingmar Bergman’s early masterpiece, a wrenching battle of the sexes, in a new 2K restoration. Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal) presents the battle of the sexes as a ramshackle, grotesque carnival of humiliation in Sawdust and Tinsel, one of the master’s most vivid early works and his first of many collaborations with the great cinematographer Sven Nykvist (Persona). The story of the charged relationship between a turn-of-the-twentieth-century circus owner (A Lesson in Love’s Åke Grönberg) and his younger mistress (Harriet Andersson), a horseback rider in the traveling show, the film features dreamlike detours and twisted psychosexual power plays, making for a piercingly brilliant depiction of physical and spiritual degradation.

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Audio commentary by Ingmar Bergman scholar Peter Cowie
Introduction by Bergman from 2003
PLUS: An essay by critic John Simon