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Following last summer’s restoration of Swedish auteur Jan Troell’s directorial debut Here is Your Life (1966), Criterion presents the director’s most notable accomplishment from his most prolific period, the one-two punch of The Emigrants (1971) and The New Land (1972). Though technically released as two distinct features, they are more of a conjoined saga detailing the travails of America’s Scandinavian ancestors. Richly attenuated, they’re adapted from the celebrated series of four novels by Vilhelm Moberg, Upon a Good Land, hailed as cornerstones of Swedish literature. Until now, these, along with most of Troell’s 1970s titles, (who is known best for his 2008 masterpiece, Everlasting Moments) have been largely unavailable, a pity considering the level of achievement and a handful of Academy Award nominations (including a Best Picture nod) between both features. It’s difficult to imagine a more authentic depiction of the early immigration experience, narratives which have...

Jan Troell knocks us for a loop with his masterful epic of a Swedish farming family in the 1840s, making the big move to the promised green acres in frontier Minnesota. Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullmann are heartbreakingly deserving and hopeful; the dreamers and the devout and the intolerant come too. The two-film, six-hour saga is a faithful to history and politically neutral. The Emigrants / The New Land Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 796 & 797 1971-1972 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 191 + 202 min. / Utvandrarna & Nybyggarna / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 9, 2016 / 49.95 Starring Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Eddie Axberg, Sven-Olof Bern, Aina Alfredsson, Allan Edwall, Monica Zetterlund, Pierre Lindstedt, Hans Alfredson, Ulla Smidje, Eva-Lena Zetterlund, Gustaf Faringborg. Cinematography and Editing Jan Troell Original Music Erik Nordgren /Bengt Ernryd, Georg Oddner Production design P.A. Lundgren Written by Bengt Forslund, Jan Troell from novels by Vilhelm Moberg Produced by Bengt Forslund Directed by Jan Troell...