The Coen Brothers’ Oscar winning thriller has joined the Criterion Collection, on 4K UHD no less. Those epic desert vistas look very brown in 4K, and bright in the scorching daylight.
Night scenes show the bleak darkness of the same region, sometimes only headlights shining on a portion of the frame. When Moss (Josh Brolin) pulls the shades in the motel room the darkness gets pretty deep too. The whole night confrontation with Chigur (Javier Bardem) and escape sequence is stunning.
There’s an immersive soundtrack, too. With no score, faint sounds like the clanking in Chigur’s jail escape really stand out. Gunfights call upon all the surrounds.
Criterion recorded two new bonus features with the filmmakers. The Coens go from reading Cormac McCarthy’s book through the production. They’re not usually this talkative, but they’re talking about filmmaking here, for 40 minutes.
Their interview includes a Mortimer Young deleted scene and Brolin’s screen test shot by Robert Rodriguez while making Grindhouse.
Roger Deakins explains lighting tricks in his audio interview, and weighs in on the decision not to score most of the movie.
Criterion kept the original DVD and Blu-ray bonus features too, including Brolin’s mockumentary home video.