At once a rousing paean to artistic creation, a delicate evocation of divine grace, and the ultimate film about food, the Oscar-winning Babette’s Feast is a deeply beloved treasure of cinema. Directed by Gabriel Axel and adapted from a story by Isak Dinesen, it is the lovingly layered tale of a French housekeeper with a mysterious past who brings quiet revolution in the form of one exquisite meal to a circle of starkly pious villagers in late nineteenth-century Denmark. Babette’s Feast combines earthiness and reverence in an indescribably moving depiction of sensual pleasure that goes to your head like fine champagne.
SPECIAL FEATURES
New 2K digital film restoration, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
New interviews with director Gabriel Axel and actor Stéphane Audran
Karen Blixen—Storyteller, a 1995 documentary about the author of the film’s source story, who wrote under the pen name Isak Dinesen
New visual essay by filmmaker Michael Almereyda
New interview with sociologist Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson about the significance of cuisine in French culture
Trailer
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: An essay by film scholar Mark Le Fanu and, for the Blu-ray edition, Dinesen’s 1950 story
