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Snow Falling on Cedars is a film worth discovering or rediscovering, whichever the case may be.

The new 4K transfer and restoration by Shout Select was supervised by three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson (JFK, The Aviator, Hugo) who earned the fourth of his nine Oscar nominations so far for the film. Also included are brand-new on-camera interviews with Richardson, director Scott Hicks, novelist David Guterson, and composer James Newton Howard. Hicks’ commentary on the 2000 DVD of the 1999 film was imported for the Blu-ray.

Hicks’ commentary helps answer a lot of questions about the film which can be confusing at times. The director explains that this was intentional, that there are three mysteries in the film: the question of the guilt or innocence of the man on trial, the mystery surrounding the long-ago romance of the local investigative reporter and the wife of the man on trial, and the clarity of the event in the opening sequence in the fog.

The film takes place in 1950 when racial tensions ran high between the predominantly white residents of a small island off the coast of the State of Washington in the Pacific Northwest and the Japanese-Americans who were rounded up after the attack on Pearl Harbor and bused to concentration camps in California.

The film’s story is told in non-linear fashion beginning with the death of a fisherman (Eric Thal), the investigation into his death by the town sheriff (Richard Jenkins), and the arrest of his neighbor (Rick Yune) with whom he had an argument earlier that day. It then moves to the courtroom where his trial takes place, presided over by judge James Cromwell with James Rebhorn as the prosecutor and Max von Sydow as the defense counsel. The rest of the film goes back and forth between events in the present and memories of previous events in the minds of the witnesses as a reporter (Ethan Hawke) looks for evidence that the sheriff and his crew may have missed.

This was Hicks’ first film since he came to prominence with his Oscar-nominated direction of 1996’s Shine. He gets fine performances out of Hawke and Yuki Kudo as the wife of the man on trial and Reeve Carney and Anne Suzuki as Hawke and Kudo’s characters as teenagers when they were madly in love as well as Cromwell, Jenkins, Yune, Thal, and especially von Sydow who provides a master class in acting in one of his most stirring performances.

Sam Shepard stands out in his cameo as Hawke’s late father, a crusading newspaper editor who fought for the rights of the downtrodden. In one of the film’s most emotional scenes, he has to say goodbye to his Japanese-American friends, some of whom are played by actual survivors of the concentration camps.

Shepard also has a prominent role in 1980’s Resurrection which has been released on Blu-ray by Universal.

Ellen Burstyn received her fifth Oscar nomination in ten years for her portrayal of a woman who experiences clinical death and returns to life with ability to heal others. Shepard plays a young farmer who falls in love with her. He tries to get her to confess that her powers come from God and not from within, which she refuses. The film’s tender conclusion still has the power to move jaded audiences to tears.

The film was directed by Daniel Petrie (A Raisin in the Sun) from a screenplay by Lewis John Carlino (The Great Santini) with a score by Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia). The cast also includes Lois Smith, Richard Farnsworth, Roberts Blossom, and stage legend Eva Le Gallienne (The Royal Family) in her first film since 1959’s The Devil’s Disciple. Her portrayal of Burstyn’s grandmother earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Kino Lorber continues to release major classic films on Blu-ray at a staggering pace. New releases include It Always Rains on Sunday, Woman in Hiding, Seven Days to Noon, and The Man Between.

Robert Hamer’s 1947 film, It Always Rains on Sunday is one of those little late 1940s masterpieces that England produced after the war, this one starring Googie Withers as a woman who enters into an adulterous affair with her former lover, an escaped gangster played by John McCallum who would become her husband a year later. Edward Chapman as her husband and Jack Warner as the detective who hunts McCallum down co-star. Hamer would become better known for his Ealing comedies beginning with 1949’s Kind Hearts and Coronets.

Michael Gordon’s 1950 film Woman in Hiding is an unfairly forgotten film noir with Ida Lupino in a terrify central performance as a woman who finds out on her wedding night that the man she married murdered her father and plans to kill her as well. The rest of the film is pretty much a cat and mouse game as she tries to stay two steps ahead of him. Howard Duff, who would become her third husband the following year, plays her would-be savior. Stephen McNally plays her loathsome husband with Peggy Dow in a featured role as McNally’s previous squeeze. Gordon, who was Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s grandfather, is best remembered for directing Pillow Talk.

The Boulting Brothers’ 1950 thriller Seven Days to Noon won an Oscar for Best Original Story about a scientist who threatens to blow up central London if the British government doesn’t announce the end of atomic research in a week. Barry Jones, who is probably best remembered for playing Claudius in 1954’sDemetrius and the Gladiators, starred as the scientist. The Oscar winners for their story were Paul Dehn and James Bernard. Dehn was a prolific writer who was again nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay for 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express. This was the only story written by Bernard who was better known as the composer of a long list of British horror films.

Carol Reed’s 1953 film The Man Between reunited Reed with James Mason, the star of his 1947 classic Odd Man Out. Co-starring Claire Bloom and Hildegard Knef, the film was not about a man caught between two women but about a man caught between two worlds, those of East and West Berlin. Knef is the woman who was Mason-s wife but believing him killed in the war marries British soldier Geoffrey Toone, Bloom’s older brother who is visiting her brother in the torn city.

Though not as well known as Reed’s The Third Man, it is equally atmospheric featuring superb performances from its three stars.

This week’s new releases include The Farewell and After the Wedding.

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