Criterion Made Mine! The Hedwig and the Angry Inch Edition

John Cameron Mitchell hasn’t been the best about keeping a secret of the forthcoming Criterion edition of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, even announcing just recently that the film was slated for a summer release. Thankfully, and true to John’s word, that announcement came earlier today from the Criterion Collection. MMC! is happy to say we had this back in 2015, right down to the booklet essay by Stephanie Zacharek. The announcement promises “More!” disc features, so MMC! has fingers crossed that the Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig documentary and the Anatomy of a Scene featurette will also find their way to this edition.

June 2019 looks extremely solid with releases of the epic 7-hour War and Peace by Sergei Bondarchuk, Astaire and Rogers’ Swing Time, a Blugrade of the Ingmar Bergman Film Trilogy, and two early efforts by MMC! favourite Bruno Dumont. Thank goodness that earlier today Arrow Academy only announced a multi-region release of Carol Reed’s The Running Man and a Region 2 release of Jacques Tourneur’s Nightfall. Fiscal responsibility, homes!

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Adapted from the critically acclaimed off-Broadway hit, John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch tells the story of an “internationally ignored” rock singer and her search for stardom and love.  Born an East German boy named Hansel, Hedwig marries an American G.I. to get over the Berlin Wall to freedom and suffers a botched sex-change operation in the process that leaves her with just a one-inch mound of flesh.  Finding herself high, dry, and divorced in a Kansas trailer park, Hedwig pushes on to form a rock band and encounters a lover/protegé in Tommy Gnosis, a young Christian army brat who eventually leaves her, stealing her songs to become a huge rock star.  Left to stalk Tommy’s stadium tour with her group, the Angry Inch, Hedwig crisscrosses America intent on exposing Gnosis and claiming her rightful position in the pantheon of rock icons.

Disc Features:

• New, restored 2K digital transfer, supervised by director John Cameron Mitchell and cinematographer Frank G. DeMarco, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary featuring Mitchell and DeMarco
• Deleted scenes with optional commentary
• Whether You Like It or Not: The Story of Hedwig, a feature-length documentary on the musical and the film
• I am Hedwig, new interviews on with Mitchell, Neil Patrick Harris, Andrew Rannells, Michael C. Hall, Darren Criss, and Taye Diggs, the stars of Hedwig‘s Broadway productions
• Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig, Katherine Linton’s documentary on the lives of four students attending the Harvey Milk School for LGBTQ youth and the recording of Wig in a Box, a tribute album raising funds for the institute operating the school
• Anatomy of a Scene, a making of featurette on the adaptation of the musical at the Sundance Institute
• New video appreciation by critic Kim Morgan
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: An essay by critic Stephanie Zacharek