Laserdisc Title: "NAKED"
Edition: The Criterion Collection (Double-Disc Set)
Special Features: -- see footnotes below for special features --
Directed By: Mike Leigh
Starring: David Thewlis, Lesley Sharp, Katrin Cartridge, Greg Crutwell, Peter Wight, Claire Skinner, Deborah, MacLaren, Gina McKee
Production / Year: 1993 Fine Line Features
Running Time: 135 Minutes / Color
Audio Format: Digital Sound, Dolby Surround, Stereo
Video Format: LTBX (1.85:1) NTSC, CLV (Extended Play)
Miscellaneous Features: None
Distributed By: The Voyager Company (First Printing 1994)
Catalog / Spine Number: CC1386L (Spine Number 234)

IMPORTANT: This is a 12-inch Diameter Laserdisc, which is NOT the same as DVD and cannot be played on a DVD player!

Cosmetic Condition:
Disc (s): Excellent - Hardly noticeable to very minor hairline surface swirls, if any
Jacket: Excellent - Normal shelf wear, few creases, slightly worn-out corners or edges but no signs of spines splitting

Synopsis:

In between his breakthrough film (Life Is Sweet) and his world sensation (Secrets and Lies), filmmaker Mike Leigh created his most abrasive and daring film, Naked. This "Angry Young Man" for the 1990s follows an acidic wanderer (Cannes award winner David Thewlis) who observes a corrosive Britain. An intellectual, bitter film filtered with debauchery and black humor, Naked follows the bemusing Johnny as he crosses in and out of doorways, drifting into old acquaintances and new lost souls. It is more of a character film than sheer entertainment and thus it can be hard to watch, but it offers one of the great performances of the 1990s. Thewlis would have been an Oscar shoo-in if he'd worn a tuxedo and repressed his emotions. He didn't, and his brilliant work went unrecognized in mainstream America. One of the essential films of the 1990s, Mike Leigh's brilliant and controversial "Naked" stars David Thewlis as Johnny, a charming, eloquent, and relentlessly vicious drifter in London. Rejecting all those who would care for him, the volcanic Johnny hurls himself into a nocturnal odyssey through the city, colliding with a succession of the desperate and the dispossessed and scorching everyone in his path. With a virtuoso script and raw performances by Thewlis and costars Katrin Cartlidge and Lesley Sharp, Leigh's panorama of England's crumbling underbelly is a showcase of black comedy and doomsday prophecy, and was the winner of the best director and actor prizes at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.

Naked is acclaimed director Mike Leigh's challenging vision of our times. Johnny, played by David Thewlis, is on the run, and his odyssey through nocturnal London reveals an existential landscape of violent sex, homelessness, and desperate men and women barely clinging to reality. Thewlis tour de force performances is an edgy torrent of words, anger and passion that could only have been developed through Leigh's unique style of creating films and investigating the world.

Johnny flees Manchester for London, to avoid a beating from the family of a girl he has raped. There he finds an old girlfriend, and spends some time homeless, spending much of his time ranting at strangers, and meeting characters in plights very much like his own. Without a doubt, Mike Leigh's Naked is one of the most brilliant examples of filmmaking I have ever seen. David Thewlis is nothing short of genius as the aimless Johnny, a combustible combination of brilliance and depression, who's mere presence in anyone's purview contaminates and destroys with the effectiveness of Round-Up. Mesmerizing and fast-paced, there is no shortage of excellence in the smaller plots and characters: Greg Cruttwell is spectacular as the pompous, nouveau-riche Jeremy, and the two female leads, Leslie Sharp and Katrin Cartlidge provide well balanced juxtaposition as two very different femmes damaged. Not for the faint of heart, Naked will test one's own philosophy, and leave you stripped bare.

Special Features:

Exclusive Letterbox Digital Transfer * Commentary by director Mike Leigh and actors David Thewlis and Katrin Cartlidge * Leigh Complete short film, The Short and Curlies with commentaries by Mike Leigh * Extracts from Mike Leigh's films * Complete radio drama by Mike Leigh, Too Much of a Good Thing * Compressed introduction to chaos theory and barcode conspiracies

About the Transfer: The Criterion Collection is proud to present Naked Letterboxed in the aspect ration of 1.75:1. The transfer was made from a pristine 35mm color composite print that used the no-bleach process

THIS IS NOT A DVD!!! THIS IS A 12" LASERDISC AND WILL NOT PLAY IN A DVD PLAYER

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