Independent British distributors Eureka Entertainment have officially announced and detailed their upcoming Dual Format edition of the renowned '60s "anthology film" Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963). The release will be available for purchase online and in shops across the United Kingdom on August 27th.
Special Features:
Gorgeous new HD restoration of the film in its original aspect ratio, in 1080p on the Blu-ray
Newly translated optional English subtitles
Original Italian theatrical trailer
56-page booklet featuring new essays by Tag Gallagher, Arthur Mas, Martial Pisani, and Pasquale Iannone; a new translation by Tag Gallagher of excerpts from an oral history about the film; and rare archival imagery
Conceived by the legendary Italian producer Alfredo Bini, the multi-director portmanteau film Let's Wash Our Brains: Ro.Go.Pa.G. (Laviamoci il cervello: RoGoPaG) brought together four giants of European cinema to contribute comic episodes reflective of the swinging post-"boom" era. The resulting omnibus collectively examines social anxieties around sex, nuclear war, religion, urbanization - and the promise of a modern cinema.
Roberto Rossellini's Illibatezza (Virginity) follows an airline stewardess plagued by an obsessed American tourist whose 8mm camera enables the indulgence of a personal, and solipsistic, vision of the Ideal. Jean-Luc Godard's Il nuovo mondo (The New World) takes place in an Italian-dubbed Paris beset by nuclear fallout, and wittily chronicles the changes that take place in the lives - and medicine cabinet - of a handsome young couple. Pier Paolo Pasolini's scandalous La ricotta (Ricotta, as in the curded cheese) presents the goings-on around a film shoot devoted to the Crucifixion and presided over by none other than Orson Welles (playing a kind of stand-in for Pasolini himself); it is this episode that landed Pasolini with a suspended four-month prison sentence. Lastly, Ugo Gregoretti's Il pollo ruspante (Free-Range Chicken) depicts a middle-class Milanese family flirting with the purchase of real-estate and engaging catastrophically with an antagonistic consumerist infrastructure.
I've had Ro.Go.Pa.G. on preorder for some time, in the same order as a few other titles from Pier Paolo Pasolini. I'm quite looking forward to receiving it, though I do wish there were a few more on-disc supplements. Still, as far as extras go, the thick booklet should be quite interesting.
