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MARTIN SCORSESE’S A LETTER TO ELIA ACQUIRED BY TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT AND PBS’ “AMERICAN MASTERS” SERIES

Posted Tuesday, September 7th, 2010 - 1 Comment »
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Documentary Chronicling the Life and Work of Acclaimed Director Elia Kazan World Premieres at Venice International Film Festival, Premieres in North America at Telluride Film Festival, Official Selection New York Film Festival

PBS National Broadcast Premiere on October 4, 2010

The Elia Kazan Film Collection, featuring the Documentary and 15 of Kazan’s Most Noteworthy and Popular Films In a Collectible DVD Gift Set, Arrives November 9th from Fox Home Entertainment

New York, NY (September 1, 2010) – Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and THIRTEEN’s “American Masters” series today announced that they have acquired A Letter to Elia, Martin Scorsese’s new documentary exploring the life and talent of Oscar©-winning director Elia Kazan.  The film, co-directed by Scorsese and Kent Jones, made its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival.  It is also an official selection of the New York Film Festival where it will screen alongside Kazan’s America, America on September 27th.

Martin Scorsese cites the works of Elia Kazan as being highly influential on his life and career.

Of making the film, Scorsese says, “It took many years. I asked my old friend and collaborator Kent Jones to work with me, and we spent quite a long time looking at the films, talking about them, looking at the life, the fame, the infamy, and finding the tone, the balance that felt right for this picture.  I feel that the finished film speaks to the power of art, in this case the art of Elia Kazan.”

With respect to the Elia Kazan Film Collection, Scorsese added,  “I’m very excited that Fox is making our film available as part of a box set of Kazan’s work – I’m especially pleased by the inclusion of five pictures that have never been released on DVD, Wild River and America, America in particular. Getting the movies seen – that’s what we’re all aiming for.”

A Letter to Elia, produced by Scorsese and Emma Tillinger Koskoff, was co-financed and executive produced by Stone Douglass and Taylor Materne’s Far Hills Pictures.  WME Global assembled financing and brokered the distribution deal to PBS and Fox.

A Letter to Elia will air nationally on PBS as part of the “American Masters” series on October 4, 2010, accompanied by a companion short documentary featuring some of the country’s most noteworthy actors and directors talking about Kazan’s influence on their work and on the American film industry.

On November 9th, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release the Elia Kazan Film Collection, an 18-disc DVD gift set including A Letter to Elia and 15 of Kazan’s most acclaimed and noteworthy films.  The full collection, in addition to the documentary, includes:   A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Boomerang! (1947), Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), Pinky (1949), Panic in the Streets (1950), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Viva Zapata! (1952), Man on a Tightrope (1953), On the Waterfront (1954), East of Eden (1955), Baby Doll (1956), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Wild River (1960), Splendor in the Grass (1961), and America, America (1963).  Of the collection, 5 films have never before been released on DVD:  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Viva Zapata!, Man on a Tightrope, Wild River, and America, America. The Elia Kazan Film Collection will be available for $199.98 U.S. / $349.98 Canada.

To support the Elia Kazan Film Collection and the “American Masters” airdate, the documentary, as well as some of Kazan’s films, will tour the country, playing at a variety of art house theaters, cinematheques and film societies, including The Guild Cinema in Albuquerque, NM; The Plaza Theatre in Atlanta, GA, hosted by Emory University; The Brattle Theater in Cambridge, MA; The Burton Theater in Detroit, MI; The Phoenix Art Museum in Phoenix, AZ; The Northwest Film Center in Portland, OR; and the AFI Silver Theatre and Conference Center in Silver Spring, MD; among others.

More information on the film, the complete list of screening engagements, as well as the opportunity to pre-order the Elia Kazan Film Collection, can be found at www.lettertoelia.com.

About Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC (TCFHE) is a recognized global industry leader and a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, a News Corporation company. Representing 75 years of innovative and award-winning filmmaking from Twentieth Century Fox, TCFHE is the worldwide marketing, sales and distribution company for all Fox film and television programming, acquisitions and original productions on DVD, Blu-ray Disc Digital Copy, Video On Demand and Digital Download. The company also releases all products globally for MGM Home Entertainment. Each year TCFHE introduces hundreds of new and newly enhanced products, which it services to retail outlets from mass merchants and warehouse clubs to specialty stores and e-commerce throughout the world.

About American Masters

American Masters has produced an exceptional library of more than 160 film biographies, bringing unique originality and perspective to exploring the lives and illuminating the creative journeys of our nation’s artistic giants – our most enduring writers, visual and performing artists, musicians, dramatists and filmmakers. Working with some of the finest documentary filmmakers of our time, these portraits reflect the attention, substance and style each subject deserves and, collectively, comprise a celebration of our arts and culture.

About WNET.ORG

New York public media company WNET.ORG is a pioneering provider of television and web content. The parent of THIRTEEN, WLIW21 and Creative News Group, WNET.ORG brings such acclaimed broadcast series and websites as Need To Know, Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, Charlie Rose, Secrets of the Dead, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, Visions, Consuelo Mack WealthTrack, Miffy and Friends, Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps and Cyberchase to national and international audiences. Through its wide range of channels and platforms, WNET.ORG serves the entire New York City metro area with unique local productions, broadcasts and innovative educational and cultural projects. In all that it does, WNET.ORG pursues a single, overarching goal – to create media experiences of lasting significance for New York, America and the world. For more information, visit www.wnet.org.

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Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | 1 Comment »

One Response to “MARTIN SCORSESE’S A LETTER TO ELIA ACQUIRED BY TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT AND PBS’ “AMERICAN MASTERS” SERIES”

  1. Joyce Epstein says:
    September 8, 2010 at 11:08 am

    Please keep me posted…good luck in all aspects of your work, Martin.
    Joyce Epstein

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon