This week’s new releases on BFI Player+ (13th May 2017)
David Farnor | On 13, May 2017
Heard of BFI Player? Well, there’s also BFI Player+, a subscription service that offers an all-you-can-eat selection of hand-picked classics.
Every Friday, Mark Kermode highlights one of the collection’s titles with a video introduction. This week, it’s Billy Liar. Tom Courtenay stars in John Schlesinger’s 1963 classic film from the British New Wave, which follows a clerk whose overactive fantasies compensate for a dull provincial life. Kermode praises the adaptation of Keith Waterhouse’s escapist comedy for its playful and poignant fantasies and Tom Courtenay’s mendacious charm.
What else is new? Here are the latest titles on BFI Player+ this week, including Rossellini’s War Trilogy:
Rome, Open City
Roberto Rossellini’s landmark of Italian neorealism is often cited as one of the greatest films ever made. It begins the director’s War Trilogy.
Paisan
Rossellini’s trilogy continues with this ambitious and enormously moving follow-up to his breakthrough Rome, Open City.
Germany, Year Zero
The concluding part of Rossellini’s War Trilogy, set amid the war-torn ruins of Berlin.
L’Age d’Or
Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali’s surrealist classic is a film that scandalised 1930 society and banned for decades. It’s lost none of its disruptive power – the fact that you can still remember the short’s shocking images only confirms it.
Un Chien Andalou
The 1929 short by Luis Buñuel is a surreal masterpiece, with its subversive, iconic images influencing cinema for decades as well as coming to define the surrealist movement.
A Farewell to Arms
Walking force of charisma Gary Cooper stars in Frank Borzage’s classic, Oscar-winning adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s tragic Great War romance.
A Canterbury Tale
Nothing says British cinema like Powell and Pressburger. The duo’s most unusual movie, A Canterbury Tale sees them lean on Chaucer’s work to inspire a story of pilgrims during World War II.
A BFI Player+ subscription costs £4.99 a month with a 30-day free trial. For more information, visit http://player.bfi.org.uk.