Pretty Packaging: THE CONVERSATION Is Worth Talking About

Here at ScreenAnarchy, and indeed in this column, we have a few choice distributors whose works keep popping up. Criterion, Anime Limited, Severin, Arrow, Second Sight, Curzon and several crazy Germans and French ones manage to regularly raise our eyebrows. But there is also StudioCanal, and while they don't always go crazy with their releases, when they DO, it's good enough to keep an eye on them.

Take their recent 4K-UHD / Blu-ray Limited Edition combo release of Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation, a surveillance thriller from 1974 starring Gene Hackman and featuring supporting roles for Frederick Forrest and a very young Harrison Ford (as a gay adversary, no less). It's got bells and whistles, a ton of on-disc extras, and it is an edition which has obviously been put together by fans of the film.

It has been out for a while but is still available, and it's quite the looker. So here is a gallery of shots. Click on the edge of the pictures to scroll through them, or at the center of each to see a bigger version.

And here it is: a big, thick box.

Inside you get the disc-holder, a booklet, posters and… … a cassette tape?!

All contents unfolded. Those posters are beautiful! And I like the look of the discs (4K-UHD and Blu-ray), looking like tape reels.

Speaking of tapes…

Yes, that is the soundtrack on a cassette tape! Nice touch, StudioCanal!

Speaking of nice touches, this is written in the gap in the box when you remove the tape.

Next is the booklet.

In it there are interviews, essays, words about the making of the film and the impact it had.

The (back)end!
Another great release from StudioCanal. Let's keep an eye on what they pick next...