From the Collection: Night Moves
Arthur Penn’s 1975 neonoir Night Moves was recently added to the Criterion Collection.
Arthur Penn’s haunting neonoir reimagines the hard-boiled detective film for the disillusioned, paranoid 1970s. In one of his greatest performances, Gene Hackman oozes world-weary cynicism as a private investigator whose search for an actress’s missing daughter (Melanie Griffith) leads him from the Hollywood Hills to the Florida Keys, where he is pulled into a sordid family drama and a sinister conspiracy he can hardly grasp. Bolstered by Alan Sharp’s genre-scrambling script and Dede Allen’s elliptical editing, the daringly labyrinthine Night Moves is a defining work of post-Watergate cinema—a silent scream of existential dread and moral decay whose legend has only grown with time.
Here’s What the Disc Includes:
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- New audio commentary by Matthew Asprey Gear, author of Moseby Confidential
- New audio interview with actor Jennifer Warren
- Interview with director Arthur Penn from a 1975 episode of Cinema Showcase
- Interview with Penn from the 1995 documentary Arthur Penn: A Love Affair with Film
- The Day of the Director, a behind-the-scenes featurette
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- An essay by critic Mark Harris
- New cover by Greg Manchess
When Criterion announced that Night Moves was going to be added to the collection back in December, it became one of my most anticipated releases. I first saw Arthur Penn’s 1975 neonoir a few years ago and was blown away by it. It’s a tough and bitter detective story, yet one that is surprisingly calm in its delivery.
But the release of the Criterion edition of Night Moves only became more special following the passing of the great Gene Hackman in February. His performance in Night Moves is one of my favorites in his illustrious career and arguably his most underrated. He’s a perfect grizzled detective. He’s someone you don’t want to mess with but also exudes charisma and sex appeal, a trademark of a lot of Hackman performances. Night Moves is the third Hackman film in the Criterion Collection, along with Downhill Racer and The Royal Tenenbaums. All three would make a great Hackman marathon and showcase why he was one of the best actors ever to do it.
You can pick up Night Moves at the Criterion Collection website or anywhere Criterion Collection movies are sold.
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From the Collection is an analysis piece of non-new-release movies, whether seen on DVD, streaming, or in a theater. It includes a brief history of the film, a review of the film, and content about the experience of seeing the film and/or the contents of the film’s DVD.
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