The Criterion Collection and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have confirmed the titles to be released on Blu-ray in the UK in February 2023. Coming on 13 February is Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre Sa Vie, a landmark film of the French New Wave that still surprises at every turn that stars Anna Karina, Godard's greatest muse. Following on 27 February is Imitation of Life, the devastating, enduringly relevant story of mothers and daughters, boldly confronts the complexities and contradictions of racial identity, economic exploitation, and the limits of the American dream.

VIVRE SA VIE [VIVRE SA VIE: FILM EN DOUZE TABLEAUX] (France 1962)

Vivre sa vie was a turning point for Jean-Luc Godard and remains one of his most dynamic films, combining brilliant visual design with a tragic character study. The lovely Anna Karina, Godard’s greatest muse, plays Nana, a young Parisian who aspires to be an actress but instead ends up a prostitute; her downward spiral is depicted in a series of discrete tableaux of daydreams and dances. Featuring some of Karina and Godard’s most iconic moments— from her movie theatre vigil with The Passion of Joan of Arc to her seductive pool-hall strut—Vivre sa vie is a landmark of the French New Wave that still surprises at every turn. 

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Audio commentary featuring film scholar Adrian Martin
• Video interview with film scholar Jean Narboni, conducted by historian Noël Simsolo
• Television interview from 1962 with actress Anna Karina
• Excerpts from a 1961 French television exposé on prostitution  
• Illustrated essay on La prostitution, the book that served as inspiration for the film
• Stills gallery
• Director Jean-Luc Godard’s original theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Atkinson, interviews with Godard, a reprint by critic Jean Collet on the film’s soundtrack, and Godard’s original scenario

IMITATION OF LIFE (USA 1934)

Melodrama master John M. Stahl (Magnificent Obsession) brings his exquisite restraint and almost spiritually pure visual style to this devastating, enduringly relevant story of mothers and daughters. Imitation of Life explores the friendship between two struggling single mothers: one (It Happened One Night’s Claudette Colbert) a workingclass white woman who ascends to the top of the business world, the other (Beulah’s Louise Beavers) her black housekeeper, whose life is shattered by the rejection of her rebellious, white-passing daughter (One Mile from Heaven’s Fredi Washington). It is this latter relationship—attuned to America’s bitter racial realities and heartbreakingly enacted by trailblazing Black performers Beavers and Washington—that lends the film its transcendent emotional power. This first adaptation of Fannie Hurst’s best-selling novel boldly confronts the complexities and contradictions of racial identity, economic exploitation, and the limits of the American dream.

• 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• New interview with Miriam J. Petty, author of Stealing the Show: African American Performers and Audiences in 1930s Hollywood, about the resonance of Louise Beavers’s and Fredi Washington’s performances
• New interview with Imogen Sara Smith, contributor to The Call of the Heart: John M. Stahl and Hollywood Melodrama, about director John M. Stahl and his work with actor Claudette Colbert and others
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by Petty