Mike Figgis’ ‘Liebestraum’ Finally Available as Its Director Originally Intended, 35 Years Later

In the late 1980s, director Mike Figgis was on a roll. His debut feature, “Stormy Monday” (1988), was an exercise in high style with Melanie Griffith and Tommy Lee Jones, establishing Figgis as a promising voice in neo-noir. Two years later, that reputation was solidified with Figgis’ first Hollywood studio assignment, the hypnotic and provocative cop thriller “Internal Affairs” — but Figgis wasn’t ready to leave film noir behind him just yet.

Figgis followed “Internal Affairs” with his third noir, 1991’s “Liebestraum,” a haunting tale as chilly and formidable as the cast-iron building at its center. Figgis’ screenplay pulls several story strands together in a labyrinthine manner, following an architecture professor (Kevin Anderson) who leaves his upstate New York home to visit his ailing mother (Kim Novak in her final screen role to date) in the Midwest, where he also reunites with a college friend (Bill Pullman) who is demolishing an old department store in town that has been closed since a pair of murders there decades earlier.

The architect ultimately bonds with — and quickly becomes attracted to — his friend’s wife (Pamela Gidley), and as the two of them pursue their passions together, secrets from the architect’s past and family bubble to the surface. The result is Figgis’s take on a Hitchcockian psychological thriller, a brooding and atmospheric farewell to noir just before he would shift gears for “Mr. Jones” and the Academy Award-winning “Leaving Las Vegas.”

The sensuality in “Liebestraum” places it in the erotic thriller tradition of the 1980s and 1990s, which was riding high when Figgis directed the movie in 1991 and about to have its biggest hit with “Basic Instinct.” “Liebstraum” is more austere than that movie and most others in the genre, and its relative restraint and precision are probably part of why it failed to attract an audience during its initial theatrical run.

The sex was still graphic enough to get Figgis in trouble with the MPAA, who demanded cuts to the film for an R-rating. When “Liebestraum” was first released on VHS, there were two versions: the R-rated theatrical cut and Figgis’ unrated director’s cut. The director’s cut was also released in its proper widescreen aspect ratio on Laserdisc. The DVD release that followed, however, included only the R-rated edition — the excised material was available as a deleted scene but not integrated into the narrative.

Thus, one of Figgis’ most meticulously composed films has barely ever been seen in its proper, uncut, widescreen format, unless you were one of the lucky few to pick up a Laserdisc over 30 years ago. That changes this month with the film’s worldwide HD debut in the form of a new Blu-ray edition from boutique label Cinématographe, which contains Figgis’ uncensored cut in a new transfer struck from the original negative.

The disc also includes abundant new supplementary features, including two excellent commentary tracks: one with Figgis moderated by Cinématographe’s Justin LaLiberty, the other featuring film noir historians Alain Silver and Christopher Coppola. There are also new video interviews with Figgis, editor Martin Hunter, and production designer Waldemar Kalinowski, as well as a visual essay by scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. There are also deleted scenes and a trailer, and an accompanying booklet is stuffed with informative essays and interviews (including an analysis by the always astute film noir expert Travis Woods).

Watch the trailer for Cinématographe’s new edition of “Liebestraum” in the video above.

“Liebestraum” is now available on Blu-ray from Cinématographe.