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Posted: **Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:55 am**

(Michael Powell, 1969)
Release date: 19 November 2018
Limited Blu-ray Edition (UK Blu-ray premiere)

Pre-order here

Based on Norman Lindsay's controversial autobiographical 1935 novel, Age of Consent is the story of an artist (James Mason), grown tired of producing art for wealthy Americans, who moves to the wilds of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef where he meets Cora (Helen Mirren), a teenage girl who inspires him and becomes his muse – as well as the object of his desire.

The penultimate film from the great Michael Powell (Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, Peeping Tom), Age of Consent explores the obsessive nature of an artist approaching the twilight of his career. Misjudged and mis-handled on its initial release (when the distributor removed key scenes and re-scored the film), Age of Consent is now regarded as one of Powell’s key works.

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Two presentations of the film: The Film Foundation's 2005 restoration of the original 106-minute Director's Cut; and the 96-minute 1969 Theatrical Version
• The John Player Lecture with Michael Powell: The Beauty of the Image (1971): archival audio recording of the celebrated filmmaker in conversation with Kevin Gough-Yates at London’s National Film Theatre
• The Guardian Interview with Michael Powell (1986): archival audio recording of the filmmaker in conversation with Sheila Whitaker at the National Film Theatre
• Audio commentary with film historian Kent Jones (2009)
• Ian Christie on Michael Powell and ‘Age of Consent’ (2018): the respected academic and author of Arrows of Desire: Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger discusses Powell’s life and work
• Making 'Age of Consent' (2009, 17 mins): Kevin Powell, composer Peter Sculthorpe and editor Anthony Buckley recall the turbulent production and release history of the film
• Martin Scorsese on ‘Age of Consent’ (2009, 6 mins): the acclaimed director discusses the impact and legacy of Powell’s film
• Helen Mirren: A Conversation with Cora (2009, 13 mins): the award-winning actor reflects on one of her earliest and most memorable film roles
• Down Under with Ron and Valerie Taylor (2009, 10 mins): a conversation with the celebrated underwater photographers
• Original theatrical trailer
• Image gallery: promotional photography and publicity material
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Limited edition exclusive booklet with a new essay by Samm Deighan, an overview of contemporary critical responses and historic articles on the film
• UK premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited Edition of 3,000 copies
• All extras subject to change

#PHILTD112
BBFC cert: 12
REGION FREE
EAN: 5037899071687

Posted: **Thu Sep 06, 2018 7:05 am**

It would be nice if Powell's The Boy Who Turned Yellow manifested on this disc, the way Guillermin's Adventures in the Hopfields turned up on his Indicator entry. Particularly as it is the last film directed by Powell, and this is his penultimate feature.

Otherwise, really happy about this release.

Posted: **Thu Sep 06, 2018 9:22 am**

What A Disgrace wrote:It would be nice if Powell's The Boy Who Turned Yellow manifested on this disc, the way Guillermin's Adventures in the Hopfields turned up on his Indicator entry. Particularly as it is the last film directed by Powell, and this is his penultimate feature.

Otherwise, really happy about this release.

I couldn’t agree more, I really hope they manage to fit it on before release.

Posted: **Thu Sep 06, 2018 10:13 am**

You guys know that's on one of the BFI's Children's Film Foundation collections, right?

Posted: **Thu Sep 06, 2018 10:36 am**

For some reason I thought that the Guillermin was too, but having looked it up now I think I was mistaken. But, nevertheless, the BFI's HD transfer of The Boy Who Turned Yellow is quite lovely and I have a feeling it would benefit from the format upgrade that I'm quite sure it will never receive otherwise other than as an extra.

Posted: **Thu Sep 06, 2018 10:37 am**

Yes, I'd rather have the films in HD. I'd absolutely get the newest volume of the series if it were a Blu-ray, but no such luck.

Posted: **Thu Sep 06, 2018 12:21 pm**

Wasn’t even aware of this Powell film. Sounds an essential buy, especially coming from a Film Foundation restoration.

Posted: **Thu Sep 06, 2018 12:28 pm**

It's worth noting, as I don't think the specs spell this out in much detail, that the two cuts don't merely differ in terms of running time but they also have completely different scores.

Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe was originally hired, but, in echoes of the Bernard Herrmann/John Addison brouhaha over Hitchock's Torn Curtain three years earlier, his score was rejected in favour of a more commercially appealing one by prolific British film composer Stanley Myers.

But because Sculthorpe's score had at least got to the performance and recording stage, when the Film Foundation restored the film a decade or so ago they were also able to reinstate the score that Michael Powell originally intended to include. In fact, ironically, it's now the Myers score that's the obscure rarity, but since that's the score that you'd have heard for the first four decades of the film's existence, it seemed appropriate to include it as well.

Posted: **Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:51 pm**

In which case I stand slightly corrected - we're clearly talking about the Australian version versus the international version. Anyway, both are included.

Posted: **Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:12 pm**

The specs have now been updated to confirm that The Boy Who Turned Yellow will be included.

Posted: **Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:18 pm**

Incredible value in this release! Will it stay one disc?

Posted: **Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:31 pm**

Yes. The Boy Who Turned Yellow is only 54 mins, and even Age of Consent only needs about two hours' worth of video to service seamlessly-branched versions of both cuts. (The differences are primarily to do with the soundtrack, since each version has a wholly different score.) And of course the other extras can be compressed much more as they're mainly talking-heads pieces against static backgrounds - although we were pleasantly surprised that the extras that Sony created for their old DVD turned out to be in HD. And the most substantial extras - the Kent Jones commentary, a whopping 190 minutes of archival interviews with Powell and Pressburger - are audio.

So it's certainly a packed disc, but not to the extent of compromising anything - both the main features look pretty terrific.

Posted: **Mon Oct 22, 2018 4:01 pm**

I had an intern a couple of decades back who was a huge fan of They're a Weird Mob. You can probably guess what part of the world she hailed from.

Posted: **Mon Oct 22, 2018 4:36 pm**

Will the booklet have any content relating to The Boy Who Turned Yellow? I understand that it's an extra, but it's an interesting production in and of itself.

Posted: **Mon Oct 22, 2018 4:44 pm**

There’s a three-page (I think) essay by the BFI’s Vic Pratt.

Posted: **Tue Oct 23, 2018 4:28 am**

david hare wrote: ↑
Mon Oct 22, 2018 4:00 pm
I am possibly the only person on the planet who would argue a case for Mob but there you go.

Not quite. I like Mob a good deal.

Posted: **Wed Oct 24, 2018 1:28 am**

Another one for Mob here, though I haven't seen it for coming up to ten years, when I reviewed it on DVD.

Posted: **Wed Oct 24, 2018 2:43 am**

I’m kind of surprised that, rather than The Boy Who Turned Yellow, They’re a Weird Mob wasn’t included as the supplemental film here, given its chronological adjacency to The Age of Consent and its shared Australian setting.

As I haven’t seen either, I’m glad to get the bonus of seeing at least one of them here.

Posted: **Wed Oct 24, 2018 3:30 am**

DeprongMori wrote:I’m kind of surprised that, rather than The Boy Who Turned Yellow, They’re a Weird Mob wasn’t included as the supplemental film here, given its chronological adjacency to The Age of Consent and its shared Australian setting.

This would have been impractical for multiple reasons, the fact that it’s more than twice as long as The Boy Who Turned Yellow merely being one of them.

Posted: **Wed Oct 24, 2018 4:19 am**

David I thought you would have rooted for the Queen's Guards as well.

Posted: **Wed Oct 24, 2018 5:02 am**

The Boy Who Turned Yellow had a lot of things going in its favour to be included - readily available HD restoration, rights with the BFI, length, and, other than Return to the Edge of the World, it is also the only film that comes after Age of Consent in Powell's filmography.

Bluebeard's Castle was restored in 4K a few years ago by the BFI and the Film Foundation. I assume that there's still a rights issue with the Bartok Estate that's holding up a wider release.

Given that they own a few (though ITV own the more interesting sounding ones), I'm surprised that the BFI has never released an Early Powell set. I'm not sure if anyone here has seen or can vouch for them - they seem to have been mostly quota quickies - but it does seem like a perfect BFI release.

Posted: **Wed Oct 24, 2018 5:03 am**

I believe this has been mooted, but there are significant problems with existing (often only surviving) materials.

But it’s a racing certainty that if anyone does something like that, it’ll be the BFI.

As for the Bartók, my dream package would be a double bill of the Powell combined with Ken Russell’s hour-long portrait of the composer (made at almost exactly the same time), one of my absolute favourites of his BBC films. Although that’s a rights clearance nightmare (which I assume is why it wasn’t included on the otherwise admirably comprehensive BFI survey of his longer 1960s BBC pieces) - unsurprisingly, Russell never went anywhere near Hungary, preferring to plunder the Contemporary Films catalogue for suitably evocative images (George Hoellering’s classic documentary Hortobágy being a primary source), which were presumably only cleared for one-off broadcast.

(The other major Russell from that period that’s currently MIA is the notorious Dance of the Seven Veils, effectively - and, to be fair, understandably - banned since 1970 by the Richard Strauss estate. But in this case the BFI is well aware that the copyright barrier will be lifted on New Year’s Day 2020 and also that they’re sitting on excellent materials, including Russell’s own personal print, so fingers crossed!)

Posted: **Wed Oct 24, 2018 12:18 pm**

Oh... Rosalinda!! is another Powell-Pressburger title that remains very elusive; some may consider it only a musical curiosity but with such a cast (Walbrook, Redgrave, Quayle, Tchérina, etc.) it must at least be worth a watch. I can't locate any digital video edition, so it may be caught in some sort of limbo because of rights issues following it flopping at the box office.

Posted: **Wed Oct 24, 2018 12:34 pm**

Florinaldo wrote:Oh... Rosalinda!! is another Powell-Pressburger title that remains very elusive; some may consider it only a musical curiosity but with such a cast (Walbrook, Redgrave, Quayle, Tchérina, etc.) it must at least be worth a watch. I can't locate any digital video edition, so it may be caught in some sort of limbo because of rights issues following it flopping at the box office.

There’s no rights issue that I’m aware of, but I don’t imagine it’s one of StudioCanal’s higher priorities. Although I’m sure they’ll get round to it eventually.

Posted: **Wed Oct 24, 2018 12:43 pm**

MichaelB wrote: ↑
Wed Oct 24, 2018 12:34 pm
There’s no rights issue that I’m aware of, but I don’t imagine it’s one of StudioCanal’s higher priorities. Although I’m sure they’ll get round to it eventually.

Yes, since it's most probably not going to be a huge best-seller and will be of most interest to P-P completists because it does not have the same high reputation as several of their other titles, I understand that StudioCanal would not be putting it amongst its top priorities. But one can only hope to be able to see it one day.

Thanks for the information.

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