Early Release for ‘Jazz’

Ken Burns’ ambitious new 18-hour documentary “Jazz” is set to air on PBS in 10 parts between Monday and Jan. 31. But if you can’t wait to see this final installment in his trilogy about American life, which began with “The Civil War” and continued with “Baseball,” it was released on video ($150) and DVD ($200) this week by PBS Home Video and Warner Home Video.

Narrated by Keith David, “Jazz” includes 75 interviews, 500 pieces of music, 2,400 stills and 2,000 archival film clips, many never before seen. Both the VHS and DVD sets include extra footage that won’t be featured on the television version. The DVD also contains a featurette, “The Making of Jazz,” and comprehensive background information on the songs heard in the documentary that can be accessed during the film by hitting the title button every time a song title appears on screen.

Mike Saksa, vice president of marketing for Warner Home Video, says one reason for bringing “Jazz” out before it was broadcast was “to benefit from the post-holiday store traffic as quickly as possible.”

Saksa maintains that the video and DVD release won’t hurt viewer tune-in. “The series acts almost like a sampling program for the video,” he says. “So when you have a series that will air an entire month, it’s very difficult for a person to make that appointment to watch the show in its entirety. But when they sample the show and they like the show, they are more inclined to go out and buy the product.”

Burns’ previous documentaries have sold more than 5.5 million copies on video.

Dan Hamby, vice president for PBS Home Video, says the company generally tries to release the home video versions of PBS shows the week of the broadcast. “When we looked at where this series was going to fall in our broadcast schedule, we decided if we bumped it up a few more days we could assure ourselves placement at retail,” he says.

Burns, says Hamby, was involved in the production of the VHS and DVD sets. “We made a point to try to identify full-length performances that Ken and his production team were really quite fond of but had to shorten for broadcast consideration. So we went and secured the rights to those full-length performances. He and his team were working with us right in lock-step. It was great to have that access to him.”

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“Hollow Man” (Columbia TriStar, $25), Paul Verhoeven’s violent, often absurd reworking of “The Invisible Man,” probably didn’t make many 10-best lists. But the DVD is actually quite fun.

Besides the usual wide-screen version of the film, talent files and trailers, the digital edition includes the HBO “Making Of” special, “Anatomy of a Thriller,” three deleted scenes--including the complete version of a sequence in which star Kevin Bacon’s invisible man rapes a woman--with commentary by Verhoeven, picture-in-picture comparisons that give viewers a chance to see certain scenes without special effects along with the completed version, and 15 featurettes. These short documentaries include a look at Verhoeven’s behavior on the set (outgoing and rather manic) and how the invisible-man special effects were done.

There is also entertaining commentary from Verhoeven, Bacon and screenwriter Andrew Marlowe, plus an isolated music score with commentary from composer Jerry Goldsmith.

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“Under Suspicion” (Columbia TriStar, $25) reunites two of the great stars of the 1992 Oscar-winning “Unforgiven”: Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman. These two acting powerhouses also executive-produced this retelling of the acclaimed French thriller, “Garde a Vue.” But despite interesting performances from Freeman and Hackman, this murder mystery is ultimately unsatisfactory.

The digital edition offers both the wide-screen and full-screen versions, the trailer, talent files and an adequate making-of featurette, including interviews with Hackman, Freeman and director Stephen Hopkins.

On the audio commentary track, Hopkins and Freeman discuss the genesis of the production--Hackman saw the original French version and attempted for more than a decade to get it made--as well as interesting tidbits, such as the fact that the mansion where Hackman’s character lives is actually a museum called Casablanca.

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With the release of the movie “Shadow of the Vampire,” Image Entertainment has brought out a special edition of “Nosferatu” ($25), F.W. Murnau’s classic 1922 Dracula horror film, which serves as the basis for “Shadow.”

This digital version includes a nice remastered transfer of the film that has been rescored by the Silent Orchestra. Viewers can also opt to watch with a more traditional organ score. German silent-film connoisseur Lokke Heiss provides the educational though somewhat dry commentary. Heiss also offers a fun tour of the locations from “Nosferatu” and what those sites look like today.

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Criterion’s double-disc DVD of Luis Bunuel’s 1972 Oscar-winning delight, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” ($39), is absolutely first-rate. The first disc includes a lovely, restored, remastered transfer of this surreal black comedy about the upper class, as well as an enjoyable documentary from 1970 on the late filmmaker, which features him demonstrating his prowess at making martinis. The second disc includes a terrific new and comprehensive 105-minute documentary based on Bunuel’s biography, “My Last Sigh,” that includes rare photographs, interviews and film clips.