Criterion Restores Kubrick’s Rare Cuts and Mono Mixes — SkimNews
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- The Complete Kubrick reached stores and mailboxes as a $599.95 Criterion set, sold at 30% off at most retailers after the project began in 2024 with Eyes Wide Shut as its first remastering target.
- The Seafarers required Criterion to untangle an unexpected rights holder for Kubrick’s 30-minute 1953 documentary, commissioned by the Seafarers International Union, before restoring his first color film for the collection.
- Day of the Fight is represented by both a restored 12-minute version Kubrick made for Look in 1949 and an RKO re-edit four minutes longer, with footage he did not shoot, altered narration and a changed Gerald Fried soundtrack.
- The Shining includes the U.S. theatrical cut from May 1980 and Kubrick’s September 1980 international director’s cut, 25 minutes shorter and previously unavailable on U.S. video, with a new Lee Unkrich commentary for the international version.
- Stanley Kubrick maintained mono through his final films because he would rather have good mono than bad stereo, so Criterion remastered original mono mixes that had gone untouched for home video in 30 years, made mono the default and still offered 5.1 versions.
- Full Metal Jacket posed a mono-mix identification problem, but Nigel Galt pointed Criterion to the version with “Paint It Black” over the credits at 25 frames per second, about 4% faster than the Rolling Stones recorded it.
- Eyes Wide Shut exposed the limits of matching film to digital video: Chaiken’s work with cinematographer Larry Smith traced its “dreamy quality” to their celluloid-development process, which no 4K transfer duplicates one-to-one.
Why it matters: At $599.95, Criterion gives collectors a broader Kubrick archive than a conventional remaster: the set includes alternate cuts of The Shining and Day of the Fight, plus mono masters whose original mixes had gone untouched for home video in 30 years. Kubrick’s own choices remain visible instead of being flattened into a single modern 4K/5.1 presentation.
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