The Learning Tree (Criterion Collection) (Blu ray) [USA]

C.C. 95

The Snarky Assassin
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Sep 10, 2014
17,906
The Land, OHIO - U.S.A.
Release Date: December 14, 2021
Prices and Links:
Criterion: $31.96
Amazon: $39.95
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Director: Gordon Parks
  • United States
  • 1969
  • 107 minutes
  • Color
  • 2.35:1
  • English
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With this tender and clear-eyed coming-of-age odyssey, the renowned photographer turned filmmaker Gordon Parks not only became the first Black American director to make a Hollywood studio film, he also served as writer, producer, and composer, resulting in a deeply personal artistic achievement. Based on Parks’s own semi-autobiographical novel, The Learning Tree follows the journey of Newt Winger (Kyle Johnson), a teenage descendant of Exodusters growing up in rural Kansas in the 1920s, as he experiences the bittersweet flowering of first love, finds his relationship with a close friend tested, and navigates the injustices embedded within a racist legal and educational system. Exquisitely capturing the bucolic splendor of its heartland setting, this landmark film tempers nostalgia with an incisive understanding of the harsh realities, hard-won lessons, and often wrenching moral choices that shape the road to self-determination of the young Black man at its center.

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SPECIAL FEATURES​

  • New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New documentary on the making of the film, featuring artist and critic Ina Diane Archer, curator Rhea L. Combs, and filmmakers Ernest R. Dickerson and Nelson George
  • New conversation, moderated by film scholar Michael B. Gillespie, between artist Hank Willis Thomas and art historian Deborah Willis about the influence of director Gordon Parks
  • My Father: Gordon Parks (1969), a documentary made on the set of The Learning Tree, narrated by Gordon Parks Jr., and featuring interviews with Gordon Parks Sr. and members of the cast and crew
  • Diary of a Harlem Family and The World of Piri Thomas, two 1968 films on which Parks played creative roles, with a new introduction by Combs
  • Unstoppable (2005), a documentary featuring producer Warrington Hudlin in conversation with Parks and filmmakers Ossie Davis and Melvin Van Peebles
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: “How It Feels to Be Black,” a 1963 Lifemagazine photo-essay by Parks, and an excerpt from the director’s 2005 book A Hungry Heart: A Memoir
ORIGINAL THEATRICAL TRAILER: