Jean-Pierre Melville in 4K? That’s an inviting idea. All of Melville crime pictures are memorable, and this is one of his best-remembered, a traditional caper drama with a wordless heist scene that lasts almost half an hour. The color production stars three big French actors and one Italian. Alain Delon and Gian Maria Volonté are the career thieves, joined by the conflicted Yves Montand as an alcoholic ex-cop. Comedian Bourvil is enlisted in a surprise role as the completely serious and less-than-ethical police inspector on their trail. We have to admire producer-writer-director Melville’s skill — he achieves a high-budget sheen with a minimum of production resources.
Le cercle rouge
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 218
1970 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 140 min. / The Red Circle / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 15, 2022 / 49.95
Starring: Alain Delon, Bourvil, Gian Maria Volonté, Yves Montand, Francois Périer, Ana Douking, Paul Crauchet, Paul Amiot, Pierre Collet,...
Le cercle rouge
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 218
1970 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 140 min. / The Red Circle / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 15, 2022 / 49.95
Starring: Alain Delon, Bourvil, Gian Maria Volonté, Yves Montand, Francois Périer, Ana Douking, Paul Crauchet, Paul Amiot, Pierre Collet,...
- 3/26/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Is Joseph Losey’s elusive, maudit masterpiece really a masterpiece? Stanley Baker’s foolish lout of a writer ruins his life pursuing the wanton Jeanne Moreau, and it’s hard to tell if she’s punishing him or he’s punishing himself. Losey’s directing skills are in top form on location in Venice and Rome for this absorbing art film. Pi’s overdue and very welcome disc sorts out the multiple release versions for the first time, and in so doing finally makes the show critically accessible. Co-starring (swoon) Virna Lisi and James Villiers.
Eve
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1962 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 126 109, 108 min. / Eva, The Devil’s Woman / Street Date October 19, 2020 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99
Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Stanley Baker, Virna Lisi, James Villiers, Riccardo Garrone, Lisa Gastoni, Checco Rissone, Enzo Fiermonte, Nona Medici, Roberto Paoletti, Alexis Revidis, Evi Rigano.
Cinematography: Gianni Di Venanzo, Henri Decaë
Film...
Eve
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1962 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 126 109, 108 min. / Eva, The Devil’s Woman / Street Date October 19, 2020 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99
Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Stanley Baker, Virna Lisi, James Villiers, Riccardo Garrone, Lisa Gastoni, Checco Rissone, Enzo Fiermonte, Nona Medici, Roberto Paoletti, Alexis Revidis, Evi Rigano.
Cinematography: Gianni Di Venanzo, Henri Decaë
Film...
- 9/26/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Louis Malle’s French thriller is cooler than cool — his first dramatic film is a slick suspense item with wicked twists of fate and images to die for: 1) Jeanne Moreau at the height of her beauty 2) walking through beautifully lit Parisian back streets 3) accompanied by a fantastic Miles Davis soundtrack. Murder in Paris doesn’t get any better.
Elevator to the Gallows
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 335
1957 / B&W / 1:66 anamorphic 16:9 / 88 min. / Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, Frantic / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 6, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin, Jean Wall, Iván Petrovich, Elga Andersen, Lino Ventura, Charles Denner.
Cinematography: Henri Decaë
Film Editor: Léonide Azar
Original Music: Miles Davis
Written by Louis Malle, Roger Nimier, Noël Calef from his novel
Produced by Jean Thuillier
Directed by Louis Malle
French director Louis Malle’s first fiction film is an assured and artistically adventurous suspense item. Unlike...
Elevator to the Gallows
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 335
1957 / B&W / 1:66 anamorphic 16:9 / 88 min. / Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, Frantic / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 6, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin, Jean Wall, Iván Petrovich, Elga Andersen, Lino Ventura, Charles Denner.
Cinematography: Henri Decaë
Film Editor: Léonide Azar
Original Music: Miles Davis
Written by Louis Malle, Roger Nimier, Noël Calef from his novel
Produced by Jean Thuillier
Directed by Louis Malle
French director Louis Malle’s first fiction film is an assured and artistically adventurous suspense item. Unlike...
- 3/3/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Martin Scorsese is no stranger to The Criterion Collection, but that doesn’t make the announcement that his period drama “The Age of Innocence” will be officially joining the club in March 2018 any less exciting. Scorsese’s 1993 adaptation of Edith Wharton’s seminal novel will join other Scorsese films like “The Last Temptation of Christ” in the Collection.
Read More:‘Silence of the Lambs,’ ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ and More Join Criterion Collection in February 2018
“Innocence” is one of six new movies coming to Criterion in March 2018. Other new additions include Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent masterpiece “The Passion of Joan of Arc” and Volker Schlöndorff’s largely-unseen “Baal.” You can head over to The Criterion Collection website to pre-order the titles now. Check out all the new additions below. Synopses provided by Criterion.
“Elevator to the Gallows”
For his feature debut, twenty-four-year-old Louis Malle brought together a mesmerizing performance by Jeanne Moreau,...
Read More:‘Silence of the Lambs,’ ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ and More Join Criterion Collection in February 2018
“Innocence” is one of six new movies coming to Criterion in March 2018. Other new additions include Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent masterpiece “The Passion of Joan of Arc” and Volker Schlöndorff’s largely-unseen “Baal.” You can head over to The Criterion Collection website to pre-order the titles now. Check out all the new additions below. Synopses provided by Criterion.
“Elevator to the Gallows”
For his feature debut, twenty-four-year-old Louis Malle brought together a mesmerizing performance by Jeanne Moreau,...
- 12/15/2017
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
The Criterion Collection will be paying its respects to the late Jonathan Demme and George A. Romero in February 2018 by finally making “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Night of the Living Dead” members of its prestigious library. The two horror classics are joining famous titles from Kon Ichikawa, Satyajit Ray, and Tony Richardson as February additions to the Criterion Collection.
Read More:The Criterion Collection Announces January 2018 Titles, Including ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘I, Daniel Blake’
Criterion will release a new 4K digital restoration of “The Silence of the Lambs,” which has been approved by the movie’s cinematographer Tak Fujimoto. Included on the DVD and Blu-ray sets are 35 minutes of deleted scenes and audio commentary from 1994 featuring Demme, Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, screenwriter Ted Tally, and former FBI agent John Douglas. “Night of the Living Dead” will also be released in 4K, with never-before-seen 16mm dailies included as a bonus feature.
Read More:The Criterion Collection Announces January 2018 Titles, Including ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘I, Daniel Blake’
Criterion will release a new 4K digital restoration of “The Silence of the Lambs,” which has been approved by the movie’s cinematographer Tak Fujimoto. Included on the DVD and Blu-ray sets are 35 minutes of deleted scenes and audio commentary from 1994 featuring Demme, Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, screenwriter Ted Tally, and former FBI agent John Douglas. “Night of the Living Dead” will also be released in 4K, with never-before-seen 16mm dailies included as a bonus feature.
- 11/15/2017
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Jean-Pierre Melville’s tale of an emotionless killer is distilled to a narrative minimum. Alain Delon stars as Jef Costello, an imperturbable, ultra- slick hit man who follows a strict personal code. When a contract goes bad, he’s caught between irreconcilable compulsions. Following this Zen-like assassin through the mean streets of Paris never seems to get old.
Le samouraï
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 306
1967 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 105 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date November 14, 2017 / 39.95
Starring Alain Delon, Francois Périer, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier, Jacques Leroy.
Cinematography Henri Decaë
Production Designer Francois de Lamothe
Film Editor Monique Bonnot, Yo Maurette
Original Music Francois de Roubaix
Written by Jean-Pierre Melville, Georges Pellegrin from a novel by Joan McLeod
Produced by Raymond Borderie, Eugène Lépicier
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Le samouraï has survived the Quentin Tarantino years Looking better than ever, and with its reputation intact, which is not a minor...
Le samouraï
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 306
1967 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 105 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date November 14, 2017 / 39.95
Starring Alain Delon, Francois Périer, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier, Jacques Leroy.
Cinematography Henri Decaë
Production Designer Francois de Lamothe
Film Editor Monique Bonnot, Yo Maurette
Original Music Francois de Roubaix
Written by Jean-Pierre Melville, Georges Pellegrin from a novel by Joan McLeod
Produced by Raymond Borderie, Eugène Lépicier
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Le samouraï has survived the Quentin Tarantino years Looking better than ever, and with its reputation intact, which is not a minor...
- 11/11/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The future of the streaming giant might not be streaming.
When streaming companies like Netlfix and Amazon got into the business of making original feature films, the industry was poised for a major change. Because these weren’t B-movies the companies were making, they weren’t the kind of low-brow fodder that gets released directly for home viewing every week, they were full-on, talent-backed, major motion pictures. Netflix had an amazing critical run (and some would say an Oscar snub or two) with Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation, and Amazon last year produced a slew of significant films from significant directors, including Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon, and most notably, Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea, which did manage to snag a handful of Oscar noms and even walked away with a pair of wins, one for Lonergan for Best Original Screenplay, and...
When streaming companies like Netlfix and Amazon got into the business of making original feature films, the industry was poised for a major change. Because these weren’t B-movies the companies were making, they weren’t the kind of low-brow fodder that gets released directly for home viewing every week, they were full-on, talent-backed, major motion pictures. Netflix had an amazing critical run (and some would say an Oscar snub or two) with Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation, and Amazon last year produced a slew of significant films from significant directors, including Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon, and most notably, Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea, which did manage to snag a handful of Oscar noms and even walked away with a pair of wins, one for Lonergan for Best Original Screenplay, and...
- 4/25/2017
- by H. Perry Horton
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
The Sicilian Clan
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1969 / Color B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 122 min. (French, without exit music); 118 min (American) / Le clan des Siciliens / Street Date February 7, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Lino Ventura, Irina Demick, Amedeo Nazzari, Danielle Volle, Philippe Baronnet, Karen Blanguernon, Elisa Cegani, Yves Lefebvre, Leopoldo Trieste, Sydney Chaplin.
Cinematography: Henri Decaë
Production design: Jacques Saulnier
Original Music: Ennio Morricone
Written by: Henri Verneuil, José Giovanni, Pierre Pelegri from a novel by Auguste Le Breton
Produced by: Jacques-e. Strauss
Directed by Henri Verneuil
American crime fanatics wary of European imports now have access to a fully Region-a disc of a big-star, big budget French-Italian-American gangster film from 1969, Henri Verneuil’s exciting The Sicilian Clan. It was filmed in two separate versions, a multi-lingual European original and a less exciting, English language cut for America. A huge hit overseas, The Sicilian Clan didn’t...
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1969 / Color B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 122 min. (French, without exit music); 118 min (American) / Le clan des Siciliens / Street Date February 7, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Lino Ventura, Irina Demick, Amedeo Nazzari, Danielle Volle, Philippe Baronnet, Karen Blanguernon, Elisa Cegani, Yves Lefebvre, Leopoldo Trieste, Sydney Chaplin.
Cinematography: Henri Decaë
Production design: Jacques Saulnier
Original Music: Ennio Morricone
Written by: Henri Verneuil, José Giovanni, Pierre Pelegri from a novel by Auguste Le Breton
Produced by: Jacques-e. Strauss
Directed by Henri Verneuil
American crime fanatics wary of European imports now have access to a fully Region-a disc of a big-star, big budget French-Italian-American gangster film from 1969, Henri Verneuil’s exciting The Sicilian Clan. It was filmed in two separate versions, a multi-lingual European original and a less exciting, English language cut for America. A huge hit overseas, The Sicilian Clan didn’t...
- 1/24/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The sound of an electric pencil sharpener masks the crack of a shot that initiates what might have been the perfect murder in Louis Malle’s debut film, Elevator to the Gallows (1958), now touring theaters in a gorgeous 4K digital restoration courtesy of Rialto Pictures. Malle’s movie, distinct from the more naturalistic comedies and dramas that characterized his primary directorial focus, and certainly also from his later documentary work, is a fatalistic French film noir that exists tremulously in the space between a more classical, American-derived style and the first, faint signals of the French New Wave, which it seems to foreshadow with longing and a swoon of sustained anticipation.
The movie indicates the unusual silvery and shadowy visual pleasures of its brilliant cinematographer Henri Decae (Bob Le Flambeur, The 400 Blows, Purple Noon, Le Circle Rouge) right from the start: a masked close-up of the eyes of Florence...
The movie indicates the unusual silvery and shadowy visual pleasures of its brilliant cinematographer Henri Decae (Bob Le Flambeur, The 400 Blows, Purple Noon, Le Circle Rouge) right from the start: a masked close-up of the eyes of Florence...
- 8/14/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
The Eighth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-produced by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series — celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the early 1990s, offering a comprehensive overview of French cinema.
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, and we’re especially pleased to present Jacques Rivette’s long-unavailable epic Out 1: Spectre Additional restoration highlights include Jean-Luc Godard’s A Married Woman and Max Ophüls’ too-little-seen From Mayerling To Sarajevo. Both Ophüls’ film and Louis Malle’s Elevator To The Gallows – with a jazz score by St. Louis-area native Miles Davis — screen from 35mm prints. All films will screen at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (47- E. Lockwood)
Music fans will further delight in the Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra’s accompaniment and original score for Carl Th. Dreyer’s...
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, and we’re especially pleased to present Jacques Rivette’s long-unavailable epic Out 1: Spectre Additional restoration highlights include Jean-Luc Godard’s A Married Woman and Max Ophüls’ too-little-seen From Mayerling To Sarajevo. Both Ophüls’ film and Louis Malle’s Elevator To The Gallows – with a jazz score by St. Louis-area native Miles Davis — screen from 35mm prints. All films will screen at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (47- E. Lockwood)
Music fans will further delight in the Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra’s accompaniment and original score for Carl Th. Dreyer’s...
- 2/16/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Le silence de la mer
Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
France, 1949
Nearly every mention of Jean-Pierre Melville’s cinema inevitably alludes to his crime films, and for good reason. Of his 13 features, nine fall under this general heading, and for the most part, they are his best and most admired. Amongst the rest of his filmography, slightly varying and further distinguishing his career, are his occasional forays into the war film—or, more precisely, the wartime film, for typical battleground scenarios are negligible. This is the case with Léon Morin, Priest (1961), with The Army of Shadows (1969), his extraordinary ode to the French resistance, of which he was a member, and this is the case with his debut, Le silence de la mer. (His 1950 feature, Les Enfants Terribles, defies generic categorization.)
“The war years were the best years of my life.” Such comments from Melville often got a rise out of those around him,...
Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
France, 1949
Nearly every mention of Jean-Pierre Melville’s cinema inevitably alludes to his crime films, and for good reason. Of his 13 features, nine fall under this general heading, and for the most part, they are his best and most admired. Amongst the rest of his filmography, slightly varying and further distinguishing his career, are his occasional forays into the war film—or, more precisely, the wartime film, for typical battleground scenarios are negligible. This is the case with Léon Morin, Priest (1961), with The Army of Shadows (1969), his extraordinary ode to the French resistance, of which he was a member, and this is the case with his debut, Le silence de la mer. (His 1950 feature, Les Enfants Terribles, defies generic categorization.)
“The war years were the best years of my life.” Such comments from Melville often got a rise out of those around him,...
- 5/13/2015
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Available for the first time in the Us on Blu-ray and DVD is Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterful directorial debut, 1949’s Le Silence de la Mer (The Silence of the Sea). Based on a famous underground novel published secretly in 1942 by author Jean Bruller, written under the pseudonym Vercours, the exceptional debut precedes the brooding themes that would grace Melville’s later noir and gangster films, as well as the continuation of period pieces concerning Nazi occupied France. Understated and elegant, it’s an incredibly haunting first title from the self-made auteur, an actual member of the French resistance (he adopted his surname for his love of author Herman Melville and it remained his pseudonym after the war).
Opening with a statement that the film has ‘no pretensions’ as concerns the relationship with France and Germany (whose people were complicit with the Nazi’s rise to power), we hear the omniscient narration of an elder Frenchman,...
Opening with a statement that the film has ‘no pretensions’ as concerns the relationship with France and Germany (whose people were complicit with the Nazi’s rise to power), we hear the omniscient narration of an elder Frenchman,...
- 4/28/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1963, Serge Bourguignon’s Sundays and Cybèle has finally been issued in an official North American digital video edition by Criterion. For decades Sundays and Cybèle was only available to Ntsc markets through imported discs of dodgy provenance and a few murky, widely scattered VHS copies. While half a century is certainly a significant delay, the high quality of the film and this superb pressing will make most cinephiles agree it was worth the wait.
Sundays and Cybèle is the story of Pierre (Hardy Krüger), a 30-ish former fighter pilot who now aimlessly wanders the quiet streets of Ville-d’Avray on the outskirts of Paris. Pierre suffers from a severe case of what would now be called Ptsd, squarely blaming himself for a tragic accident that occurred during the heat of battle in Vietnam. Reeling from amnesia and nightmarish visions, Pierre...
Sundays and Cybèle is the story of Pierre (Hardy Krüger), a 30-ish former fighter pilot who now aimlessly wanders the quiet streets of Ville-d’Avray on the outskirts of Paris. Pierre suffers from a severe case of what would now be called Ptsd, squarely blaming himself for a tragic accident that occurred during the heat of battle in Vietnam. Reeling from amnesia and nightmarish visions, Pierre...
- 9/30/2014
- by David Anderson
- IONCINEMA.com
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Sept. 30, 2014
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Hardy Kruger and Nicole Courcel in Sundays and Cybele.
In French director Serge Bourgignon’s provocative 1962 drama Sundays and Cybèle, a psychologically damaged war veteran (Hardy Kruger) and a neglected child (Nicole Courcel) begin a startlingly intimate friendship—one that ultimately ignites the suspicion and anger of his friends and neighbors in suburban Paris.
Bourguignon’s film makes thoughtful, humane drama out of potentially incendiary subject matter, and with the help of the sensitive cinematography of Henri Decaë (The 400 Blows) and a delicate score by Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia), Sundays and Cybèle becomes a stirring contemplation of an alliance between two troubled souls.
Presented in French with English subtitles, Criterion’s Blu-ray and DVD editions of the film include the following:
• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interviews with director Serge Bourguignon...
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Hardy Kruger and Nicole Courcel in Sundays and Cybele.
In French director Serge Bourgignon’s provocative 1962 drama Sundays and Cybèle, a psychologically damaged war veteran (Hardy Kruger) and a neglected child (Nicole Courcel) begin a startlingly intimate friendship—one that ultimately ignites the suspicion and anger of his friends and neighbors in suburban Paris.
Bourguignon’s film makes thoughtful, humane drama out of potentially incendiary subject matter, and with the help of the sensitive cinematography of Henri Decaë (The 400 Blows) and a delicate score by Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia), Sundays and Cybèle becomes a stirring contemplation of an alliance between two troubled souls.
Presented in French with English subtitles, Criterion’s Blu-ray and DVD editions of the film include the following:
• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interviews with director Serge Bourguignon...
- 6/25/2014
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Louis Malle's classic contains many of the innovations that would become associated with the New Wave and demonstrates a kinship with Claude Chabrol
Is there any movie that's more perfectly French, more perfectly Parisian, and more perfectly 1950s than Louis Malle's debut Lift To The Scaffold? Melville's Bob Le Flambeur, perhaps, or Cocteau's Orphée, but there is also in Malle's movie a strong indication of the new directions French cinema would soon take. Although Malle was never officially a part of La Nouvelle Vague, Lift To The Scaffold contains many of the innovations that would later become more closely associated with the Cahiers du Cinéma generation.
This movie made Jeanne Moreau, whose iconic beauty was newly revealed here after Malle got her to ditch the makeup she'd hitherto relied on. She went on to become one of the banner faces of the New Wave, most famously for Truffaut in Jules Et Jim,...
Is there any movie that's more perfectly French, more perfectly Parisian, and more perfectly 1950s than Louis Malle's debut Lift To The Scaffold? Melville's Bob Le Flambeur, perhaps, or Cocteau's Orphée, but there is also in Malle's movie a strong indication of the new directions French cinema would soon take. Although Malle was never officially a part of La Nouvelle Vague, Lift To The Scaffold contains many of the innovations that would later become more closely associated with the Cahiers du Cinéma generation.
This movie made Jeanne Moreau, whose iconic beauty was newly revealed here after Malle got her to ditch the makeup she'd hitherto relied on. She went on to become one of the banner faces of the New Wave, most famously for Truffaut in Jules Et Jim,...
- 2/3/2014
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★☆☆ Long before Matt Damon and Jude Law drenched their golden locks in the sun of southern Italy in the late Anthony Minghella's superb The Talented Mr Ripley (1999), René Clément - who can be placed at the forefront of the French New Wave - tackled Patricia Highsmith's famous novel with the elegant Plein Soleil (1960). From the off, we're provided with little prologue and thrown into the heady delights of Rome, where best buddies Tom Ripley (the blue-eyed Alain Delon, for whom this was his breakthrough film before going on to work with Antonioni) and Phillip Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet) gallivant around the city picking up floozies.
Before long, their friendship sours and Tom, spurned by Phillip's affections, grows envious of his friend's wealth. This culminates in a plot by Tom to kill and assume the identity of his affluent former amie. Whilst Clément was the first to adapt Highsmith's inaugural...
Before long, their friendship sours and Tom, spurned by Phillip's affections, grows envious of his friend's wealth. This culminates in a plot by Tom to kill and assume the identity of his affluent former amie. Whilst Clément was the first to adapt Highsmith's inaugural...
- 9/10/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
In his final column for the Observer, our film critic welcomes the re-release of two influential classics from the late 1950s
What goes around comes around. Or "This is where we came in!", the words we'd whisper back in the days of continuous movie performances, before heading for the exit when we reached the point at which we'd entered the cinema. Appropriately in the week I write my final film column, two classic movies, Bonjour Tristesse (1958) and Plein Soleil (aka Purple Noon, 1959), are re-released from that period at the end of the 1950s when I was embarking on a career as a professional writer. Both appear in beautiful new prints that do full justice to the Mediterranean sun which dictates their mood of dangerous eroticism, and both are closely associated with what was popularly known as the French Nouvelle Vague. In the first of them an English-speaking cast play French...
What goes around comes around. Or "This is where we came in!", the words we'd whisper back in the days of continuous movie performances, before heading for the exit when we reached the point at which we'd entered the cinema. Appropriately in the week I write my final film column, two classic movies, Bonjour Tristesse (1958) and Plein Soleil (aka Purple Noon, 1959), are re-released from that period at the end of the 1950s when I was embarking on a career as a professional writer. Both appear in beautiful new prints that do full justice to the Mediterranean sun which dictates their mood of dangerous eroticism, and both are closely associated with what was popularly known as the French Nouvelle Vague. In the first of them an English-speaking cast play French...
- 8/31/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Blu-ray Release Date: June 11, 2013
Price: Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Twilight Time
Elizabeth Taylor and Warren Beatty become uneasy lovers in The Only Game in Town.
Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra) and Warren Beatty (Ishtar) star in filmmaker George Stevens’ final movie, the 1970 drama-romance film The Only Game in Town.
Taylor stars as an aging and exhausted showgirl fed up with waiting for her married lover (Charles Braswell) to divorce his wife, while Beatty portrays a piano-playing gambling addict who keeps compulsively losing the stake he needs to high-tail it to New York. Together, they parlay an instant attraction into a mutual effort to get their lives together—no strings attached.
Written by Frank D. Gilroy, who adapted his own Las Vegas-set stage play, The Only Game in Town was gorgeously shot by French New Wave stalwart Henri Decaë (known for his work with Jean-Pierre Melville and Claude Chabrol) and scored by the great Maurice Jarre...
Price: Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Twilight Time
Elizabeth Taylor and Warren Beatty become uneasy lovers in The Only Game in Town.
Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra) and Warren Beatty (Ishtar) star in filmmaker George Stevens’ final movie, the 1970 drama-romance film The Only Game in Town.
Taylor stars as an aging and exhausted showgirl fed up with waiting for her married lover (Charles Braswell) to divorce his wife, while Beatty portrays a piano-playing gambling addict who keeps compulsively losing the stake he needs to high-tail it to New York. Together, they parlay an instant attraction into a mutual effort to get their lives together—no strings attached.
Written by Frank D. Gilroy, who adapted his own Las Vegas-set stage play, The Only Game in Town was gorgeously shot by French New Wave stalwart Henri Decaë (known for his work with Jean-Pierre Melville and Claude Chabrol) and scored by the great Maurice Jarre...
- 5/28/2013
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
(Claude Chabrol, 1958/59, Eureka!, 12)
Coined in 1957 by the French journalist François Giroud to describe a rebellious generation of young French people polled by L'Express, the term "nouvelle vague" was rapidly applied to an amorphous group of innovative film‑makers, the most vociferously self-publicising of whom were the critics working for Cahiers du Cinéma, who embraced "la politique des auteurs".
The first of them to direct a feature film was Claude Chabrol, co-author in 1957 of the first book on the Cahiers hero Alfred Hitchcock. Chabrol used his wife's windfall inheritance to make what has been called the first new wave movie, Le beau Serge, followed immediately by a companion piece, Les cousins. Both were shot in a naturalistic manner by key nouvelle vague cameraman Henri Decaë, and star Jean-Claude Brialy and Gérard Blain.
In Le beau Serge, Brialy plays a Parisian who goes back to his home village to save the life...
Coined in 1957 by the French journalist François Giroud to describe a rebellious generation of young French people polled by L'Express, the term "nouvelle vague" was rapidly applied to an amorphous group of innovative film‑makers, the most vociferously self-publicising of whom were the critics working for Cahiers du Cinéma, who embraced "la politique des auteurs".
The first of them to direct a feature film was Claude Chabrol, co-author in 1957 of the first book on the Cahiers hero Alfred Hitchcock. Chabrol used his wife's windfall inheritance to make what has been called the first new wave movie, Le beau Serge, followed immediately by a companion piece, Les cousins. Both were shot in a naturalistic manner by key nouvelle vague cameraman Henri Decaë, and star Jean-Claude Brialy and Gérard Blain.
In Le beau Serge, Brialy plays a Parisian who goes back to his home village to save the life...
- 4/13/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Remade forty years later as The Talented Mr. Ripley, René Clément’s Purple Noon from 1960 was the first attempt to bring amorphic rogue Tom Ripley, the subject of a series of popular crime novels by Patricia Highsmith, to the screen. Ripley was a precursor of today’s identity thieves, but instead of huddled in front of lonely computer, Ripley went to popular jet set locales and hobnobbed with the idle rich, getting to know every detail about the lives of his potential victims. Once Ripley had assumed their identities, no measure was too extreme to protect his secret or prevent his unmasking.
Now available in a spectacular Criterion blu-ray, Purple Noon features the then relatively unknown but equally spectacular Alain Delon as the crafty con artist. The film is set largely on the Italian coast, but frankly, the sensual, deep azure of the Mediterranean Sea has a hard time competing with Delon’s beauty.
Now available in a spectacular Criterion blu-ray, Purple Noon features the then relatively unknown but equally spectacular Alain Delon as the crafty con artist. The film is set largely on the Italian coast, but frankly, the sensual, deep azure of the Mediterranean Sea has a hard time competing with Delon’s beauty.
- 12/11/2012
- by David Anderson
- IONCINEMA.com
Elevator to the Gallows
Directed by Louis Malle
Written by Louis Malle and Roger Nimier
France, 1958
As English poet John Lyly once wrote, “The rules of fair play do not apply in love and war”. When it comes to the most primal of human instincts, love and survival, people tend to take an ‘any means possible’ approach to their wish fulfillment, even to a nefarious extent.
Rather than condemning this approach, we tend to embrace it, as an exception to a rule that we would otherwise accept in any other circumstance. We rationalize our moral indiscretions as simply a means to an end – an end that seduces our innermost desires for love and survival.
This expression has become a mainstay in human culture for time immemorial, but leave it to the French to disagree with an Englishman.
The legendary Jean Renoir once masterfully portrayed our habitual hypocrisy in regards to...
Directed by Louis Malle
Written by Louis Malle and Roger Nimier
France, 1958
As English poet John Lyly once wrote, “The rules of fair play do not apply in love and war”. When it comes to the most primal of human instincts, love and survival, people tend to take an ‘any means possible’ approach to their wish fulfillment, even to a nefarious extent.
Rather than condemning this approach, we tend to embrace it, as an exception to a rule that we would otherwise accept in any other circumstance. We rationalize our moral indiscretions as simply a means to an end – an end that seduces our innermost desires for love and survival.
This expression has become a mainstay in human culture for time immemorial, but leave it to the French to disagree with an Englishman.
The legendary Jean Renoir once masterfully portrayed our habitual hypocrisy in regards to...
- 8/1/2012
- by Justin Li
- SoundOnSight
Elevator to the Gallows
Directed by Louis Malle
Written by Louis Malle and Roger Nimier
France, 1958
As English poet John Lyly once wrote, “The rules of fair play do not apply in love and war”. When it comes to the most primal of human instincts, love and survival, people tend to take an ‘any means possible’ approach to their wish fulfillment, even to a nefarious extent.
Rather than condemning this approach, we tend to embrace it, as an exception to a rule that we would otherwise accept in any other circumstance. We rationalize our moral indiscretions as simply a means to an end – an end that seduces our innermost desires for love and survival.
This expression has become a mainstay in human culture for time immemorial, but leave it to the French to disagree with an Englishman.
The legendary Jean Renoir once masterfully portrayed our habitual hypocrisy in regards to...
Directed by Louis Malle
Written by Louis Malle and Roger Nimier
France, 1958
As English poet John Lyly once wrote, “The rules of fair play do not apply in love and war”. When it comes to the most primal of human instincts, love and survival, people tend to take an ‘any means possible’ approach to their wish fulfillment, even to a nefarious extent.
Rather than condemning this approach, we tend to embrace it, as an exception to a rule that we would otherwise accept in any other circumstance. We rationalize our moral indiscretions as simply a means to an end – an end that seduces our innermost desires for love and survival.
This expression has become a mainstay in human culture for time immemorial, but leave it to the French to disagree with an Englishman.
The legendary Jean Renoir once masterfully portrayed our habitual hypocrisy in regards to...
- 7/28/2012
- by Justin Li
- SoundOnSight
While New Yorkers have plenty of opportunity to see classic films on the big screen, you'll be hard pressed to find a lineup as front to back awesome as the Film Society Of Lincoln Center's "15 For 15: Celebrating Rialto Pictures."
The series honors the reknowned arthouse distribution shingle founded in 1997 that has brought some of the best known (and previously unknown) classics of cinema to American audiences. And the selection here by programmers Scott Foundas, Eric Di Bernardo and Adrienne Halpern represents the breadth and scope of the films Rialto has put their stamp on, ranging from the French New Wave ("Breathless") to film noir ("Rififi") to comedy ("Billy Liar") and more. There is something here for everybody and with the series kicking off tonight, we've got a special prize for some lucky readers.
Courtesy of Film Society Of Lincoln Center, we've got a copy of the excellent Rialto DVD...
The series honors the reknowned arthouse distribution shingle founded in 1997 that has brought some of the best known (and previously unknown) classics of cinema to American audiences. And the selection here by programmers Scott Foundas, Eric Di Bernardo and Adrienne Halpern represents the breadth and scope of the films Rialto has put their stamp on, ranging from the French New Wave ("Breathless") to film noir ("Rififi") to comedy ("Billy Liar") and more. There is something here for everybody and with the series kicking off tonight, we've got a special prize for some lucky readers.
Courtesy of Film Society Of Lincoln Center, we've got a copy of the excellent Rialto DVD...
- 3/19/2012
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
(Jean-Pierre Melville, 1949; Eureka!, U)
A hero of the French New Wave for his independence from the mainstream French film industry, Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-73) is most celebrated for his cool gangster movies. But drawing on his experience with the resistance in France and the Free French army in London, he made three outstanding films about the occupation – Léon Morin, Priest (1961), Army of Shadows (1969), and his accomplished, low-budget debut, Le Silence de la mer, based on a novella by Vercors (nom de guerre of Jean Bruller), published in 1942 by the clandestine underground press, Les Editions de Minuit.
Silence centres on a cultivated Francophile German officer (Howard Vernon) billeted on an elderly Frenchman and his daughter in a village outside Paris, who defiantly remain mute in his presence. Meanwhile, the officer delivers idealistic monologues about a marriage between Germany and France that will bring about a new Europe, though he gradually realises how absurd such a belief is.
A hero of the French New Wave for his independence from the mainstream French film industry, Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-73) is most celebrated for his cool gangster movies. But drawing on his experience with the resistance in France and the Free French army in London, he made three outstanding films about the occupation – Léon Morin, Priest (1961), Army of Shadows (1969), and his accomplished, low-budget debut, Le Silence de la mer, based on a novella by Vercors (nom de guerre of Jean Bruller), published in 1942 by the clandestine underground press, Les Editions de Minuit.
Silence centres on a cultivated Francophile German officer (Howard Vernon) billeted on an elderly Frenchman and his daughter in a village outside Paris, who defiantly remain mute in his presence. Meanwhile, the officer delivers idealistic monologues about a marriage between Germany and France that will bring about a new Europe, though he gradually realises how absurd such a belief is.
- 2/5/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
As part of the war movie genre, the heroic exploits of the Resistance have been a popular form of cinematic entertainment since the end of World War Two. The bane of the invading German forces, the Resistance always represented the ordinary man picking up arms against the dreaded Hun to defend their country. Whether it was booby-trapping panzers or smuggling escaped POWs and Jewish refugees to safety, many films emphasized their heroism to great effect. Exploits of the Greek, Norwegian and French Resistance have been put to good use in The Guns of Navarone (1961), 633 Squadron (1964) and The Night of the Generals (1967).
As great as these films were, the exploits of the Resistance has been pretty much romanticized and even parodied (for those who remember ‘Allo ‘Allo!). The reality was very different. They were ruthless killers who took no prisoners and treated those who had in any way collaborated with the enemy with cold-blooded hostility.
As great as these films were, the exploits of the Resistance has been pretty much romanticized and even parodied (for those who remember ‘Allo ‘Allo!). The reality was very different. They were ruthless killers who took no prisoners and treated those who had in any way collaborated with the enemy with cold-blooded hostility.
- 12/13/2011
- Shadowlocked
This is not the kind of film I expect from Jean-Pierre Melville based on the films of his I've seen. Taking place in Nazi-occupied France, who would've ever thought Melville would present a "life during wartime" drama and seemingly focus so little on the war? Instead, he focuses on a woman (Emmanuelle Riva) and her relationship with a local priest played by Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless). The film serves as a lesson in tension, building as Melville explores the growing sexual attraction this woman has for a man she cannot have. Embedded in the narrative the audience is also left to question the priest's motivations. Is he just messing with her? Does he know the effect he has on her and her friends? Religion obviously plays a role and the war isn't as forgotten as you may initially believe, but to look at the film on a surface level you'd hardly...
- 8/31/2011
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Director Louis Malle is typically remembered by the average American for his English language films. Specifically, Atlantic City (1980), starring Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon, earned Malle an Oscar nomination for best director and My Dinner with Andre (1981) recently served as the intertextual inspiration for an episode "Community" (2009-). Yet, his first feature film, the French noir Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, 1958), is a beautiful juxtaposition of American and French culture: a film noir starring the beautiful Jeanne Moreau and haunted by an improvised Miles Davis score. I've spent the past two summers at Pajiba providing retrospectives of film noir. In 2009, I counted down five of my favorite noirs of the classical period. Last summer, I re-visited noir from the perspective in its most self-reflexive stage, neo-noir. This summer, beginning with this review, I'll be looking at the international side of film noir.
Noir is often thought of as a profoundly American cultural product,...
Noir is often thought of as a profoundly American cultural product,...
- 5/25/2011
- by Drew Morton
The new wave 40 years early. The soft side of Jean-Pierre Melville. Nicole Kidman makes the unmakeable. Somewhere out there is an alternative history of film – David Thomson unearths 10 lost works of genius
Erotikon (1920)
Forget 1920, this is an absolutely modern comedy about romance and sex, directed in Sweden by Mauritz Stiller. We should remember that when MGM brought Greta Garbo from Sweden in the mid-20s, she was almost baggage in the deal that hired Stiller, one of the sharpest and most sophisticated of silent directors, but a man who would be crushed by Hollywood. Stiller needs to be recovered (like his contemporary, Victor Sjöström), and Erotikon has an instinct for attraction and infidelity that simply couldn't be permitted in American films of the same period. It's also marvellous to see that, nearly 100 years ago, Swedish cinema was in love with its country's cool light and with actresses as warm but ambiguous as Tora Teje,...
Erotikon (1920)
Forget 1920, this is an absolutely modern comedy about romance and sex, directed in Sweden by Mauritz Stiller. We should remember that when MGM brought Greta Garbo from Sweden in the mid-20s, she was almost baggage in the deal that hired Stiller, one of the sharpest and most sophisticated of silent directors, but a man who would be crushed by Hollywood. Stiller needs to be recovered (like his contemporary, Victor Sjöström), and Erotikon has an instinct for attraction and infidelity that simply couldn't be permitted in American films of the same period. It's also marvellous to see that, nearly 100 years ago, Swedish cinema was in love with its country's cool light and with actresses as warm but ambiguous as Tora Teje,...
- 8/19/2010
- by David Thomson
- The Guardian - Film News
First off, to those of you expecting a review of Chinatown (1974) as promised in the hint that was contained in the Blue Velvet (1986) piece, I apologize. Chinatown will be the next film covered in the retrospective. I simply got sidetracked in the wake of Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010) by the auteur completest in me, demanding that I actually sit down and watch Following (1998). While it didn't reach the heights of Memento (2000) or Insomnia (2002), the latter of which is perhaps Nolan's most overlooked and underestimated film due to its remake status, I very much enjoyed his rough and ragged debut (which is allegedly up for both the Criterion treatment and a theatrical re-release thanks to his most recent success---in the meantime you can catch it on Netflix Watch Instantly).
The film is bare, cut and dry almost to the point of The Limey (1999), beginning with a young struggling writer (Jeremy Theobald...
The film is bare, cut and dry almost to the point of The Limey (1999), beginning with a young struggling writer (Jeremy Theobald...
- 7/22/2010
- by Drew Morton
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