SOMETHING WILD (1961 CRITERION)

A complex exploration of the physical and emotional effects of trauma, Something Wild stars Carroll Baker, in a layered performance, as a college student who attempts suicide after a brutal sexual assault but is stopped by a mechanic played by Ralph Meeker—whose kindness, however, soon takes an unsettling turn. Startlingly modern in its frankness and psychological realism, the film represents one of the purest on-screen expressions of the sensibility of the intimate community of artists around New York's Actors Studio, which transformed American cinema in the mid-twentieth century. With astonishing location and claustrophobic interior photography by Eugene Schüfftan, an opening-title sequence by the inimitable Saul Bass, and a rhythmic score by Aaron Copland, this film by Jack Garfein is a masterwork of independent cinema.

Special Features:

• New, restored 2K digital transfer, supervised by director Jack Garfein, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New conversation between Garfein and critic Kim Morgan
• New interview with actor Carroll Baker
• New interview with scholar Foster Hirsch on the Actors Studio's cinematic legacy
• Master Class with Jack Garfein, a 2015 recording of one of the director's world-famous lectures on acting technique
• PLUS: An essay by critic Sheila O'Malley