Blu-ray, DVD Release: The Hero (1966)

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Feb. 20, 2018
Price: DVD $20.74, Blu-ray $27.99
Studio: Criterion


In the psychologically rich 1966 character study The Hero, written and directed by Satyajit Ray (The Apu Trilogy), Bengali film star Uttam Kumar draws on his real-world celebrity to play Arindam Mukherjee, a matinee idol on the brink of his first flop.

Uttam Kumar and Sharmila Tagore in Satyajit Ray’s The Hero.

When Mukherjee boards an overnight train to Delhi to accept an award, a journalist (Sharmila Tagore, Apur Sansar) approaches him seeking an exclusive interview, which initiates a conversation that sends the actor reeling down a path of self-examination.

Integrating rueful flashbacks and surreal dream sequences with the quietly revelatory stories of the train’s other passengers, The Hero is a graceful meditative drama on art, fame, and regret from one of world cinema’s most keenly perceptive filmmakers.

Presented in Bengali with English subtitles, Criterion’s editions of the foreign film include the following:

* New, restored 2K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
* Interview from 2008 with actor Sharmila Tagore
* New program featuring film scholar Meheli Sen
* New English subtitle translation
* An essay by author Pico Iyer and a 1980 tribute to Kumar by Ray

 

Buy or Rent The Hero (1966)

About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.