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“My face frightens me. My mask frightens me even more.”

Does appearance create identity or is it the other way around? How do we show our true selves to the world and what happens when that image is taken away? In short, are we still the same person when wearing a mask? On the surface, this seems like an obvious question, but Georges Franju’s 1960 film Eyes Without a Face causes us to dig a little bit deeper. What power does a face have to project identity and can we steal that identity from someone else?

Franju’s film opens in the midst of a crime. Louise (Alida Valli) is a glamorous woman with an elegant pearl choker who drags a dead body into the river. She does this at the behest of Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur), a transplant and graft specialist desperate to find a new face for his...

People love horror movies. As much as they fail to accept it when a discussion about cinema’s horrific impact comes up, one can’t think about movies without the horror genre involved in some way. If cinema is like a stimulus, horror movies must be the greatest catalyst to get a reaction out of a viewer. Are you looking for a good old-fashioned scare-fest while sitting on your couch? HBO Max can be your next big destination for horror movies.

The streaming service has a stacked-up catalog of horror movies from all possible eras. The following list mostly looks at those Horror Movies on HBO Max that, in some way, defined the genre. But even beyond the scope of this list and the flavors explored here, lie many contemporary faces of horror on the streamer. From the slow-burning existential tension of I Saw the TV Glow and The Lighthouse...

Countless horror films rely on the inherent terror of a masked figure, and the trope is nothing new. Gaston Leroux horrified audiences with Le Fantme de lOpra, and the subsequent 1925 silent film edition was enough to make audiences faint. In 1933, the silver screen adaptation of H. G. Wells The Invisible Man glued audiences to their seats. The unsettling qualities of a mask, the thin veil between the archetypal villain and their prey, give it global appeal.

While its easy to argue that Lon Chaneys riveting performance in The Phantom of the Opera may be the catalyst for modern horrors obsession with masks, theres another French inspiration for this classic trope. Thirty-five years after Mary Philbin lifted Chaneys cloth veil, director Georges Franju released Les Yeux Sans Visage or, in English, Eyes Without a Face to an unsuspecting world. Upon release, Franjus ninety-minute horror classic was, in most respects, universally panned.

French documentarian and co-founder of the Cinematheque Francais Georges Franju’s second fiction feature remains one of the most influential horror films of its decade, a nightmarishly poetic dreamscape that elevates a Monogram Pictures-level conceit to the realm of expressive exotica. Surgeon Pierre Brasseur’s Lugosi-like commitment to restoring his disfigured daughter’s face provides some of the more disconcerting images in the genre. Jess Franco, John Woo and Pedro Almodovar are just a few of the filmmakers whose work has reflected elements of Franju’s bizarre achievement. This is the textless French trailer.

The post Eyes Without A Face appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

The late Claude Brasseur as an elderly curmudgeon in The Student And Mr Henri (L'étudiante Et Monsieur Henri) who lets out a room in his large apartment rent-free to a young student, under one condition: she must do everything she can to ruin his son’s impending marriage Photo: Unifrance

Claude Brasseur, the French actor who came from a long family tradition in the profession, has died in Paris at the age of 84.

Brasseur was the son of actor Pierre Brasseur and the actress and scriptwriter Odette Joyeux. His great-grandfather Jules Brasseur was the founder of the Théâtre des Nouveautés in Paris.

Claude Brasseur was the son of an acting family Photo: Unifrance Despite his background, Brasseur did not immediately think of going on the stage, preferring instead the idea of becoming a journalist. Once he had taken to the stage in 1954 and made his first film, Rue De Paris...

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Fear is the universal language. Terror is, as we have sadly seen so often, a global phenomenon. And monsters inhabit every crevice of this small world, from the deepest recesses of the South Pacific to the most remote peaks of the North Pole. So it should hardly be a surprise that horror films are and have been a component of cinema in just about every country that embraced the art form. Along with love, fear is the most profound human emotion, and any art — especially filmmaking — is the way in which we express those feelings to the rest of the world.

While the U.S., Canada and the U.K. (along with other primarily English-language nations like Australia and New Zealand) have produced healthy shares of the world’s catalog of horror movies, there is a vast, deep, diverse library of genre output that...

The year 1960 was a very interesting time for American horror. Giant monster movies were losing their popularity, either because the threat of nuclear war wasn’t as acute as it had been in the ’50s or everyone had become so collectively numb over the years that the metaphor just no longer held their attention the way it once did. People were ready for something on a smaller scale, with movies that showed the horrible things that regular old humans were capable of doing to one another. Of course, the benchmark for this exploration of the damaged human psyche is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psyho, a film that pushed boundaries with glimpses of nudity, implications of incest, and toilets. But if America was looking to push the cinematic envelope, France was looking to tear it to pieces. Such was the case for director George Franju’s surreal, brutal thriller Eyes Without a Face...

Welcome to the world of Jean Grémillon, where adult characters work through adult problems without benefit of melodramatic excess. The impressively directed experiences of Micheline Presle’s lady doctor on a storm-swept island opts for a progressive point of view, not sentimentality.

The Love of a Woman

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Video USA

1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 104 min. / Street Date August 22, 2017 / L’amour d’une femme / Available from Arrow Video 39.95

Starring: Micheline Presle, Massimo Girotti, Gaby Morlay, Paolo Stoppa, Marc Cassot, Marius David, Yvette Etiévant, Roland Lesaffre, Robert Naly, Madeleine Geoffroy.

Cinematography: Louis Page

Film Editor: Louisette Hautecoeur, Marguerite Renoir

Production Design: Robert Clavel

Original Music: Elsa Barraine, Henrie Dutilleux

Written by René Fallet, Jean Grémillon, René Wheeler

Produced by Mario Gabrielli, Pierre Géin

Directed by Jean Grémillon

Film critics that pride themselves on rediscovering older directors haven’t done very well by France’s Jean Grémillon, at least not in this country.

The Love Of A Woman (1953 – L’amour d’une femme) 2-Disc Special Edition DVD + Blu-ray will be available August 22nd from Arrow Academy. Pre-order Here</strong

The Love Of A Woman (L’amour d’une femme) was the final feature of the great French filmmaker Jean Grémillon, concluding a string of classics that included such greats as Remorques, Lumière d’été and Pattes blanches.

Marie, a young doctor, arrives on the island of Ushant to replace its retiring physician. She experiences prejudice from the mostly male population, but also love in the form of engineer André.

Starring Micheline Presle, whose impressive career has encompassed French, Italian and Hollywood cinema, and Massimo Girotti, best-known for his performance in Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione, The Love of a Woman is a sad, beautiful, romantic masterpiece.

Special Edition Contents

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition presentations of the feature, from materials supplied by...

The uncanny Georges Franju strikes again, in an Agatha Christie-like thriller imbued with his special mood, the eerie music of Maurice Jarre and some great actors including Jean-Marie Trintignant, Pierre Brasseur, Dany Saval, Marianne Koch and Pascale Audret. If mood is the key, then Franju has found an ideal setting, a beautifully preserved castle in Brittany.

Spotlight on a Murderer

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Academy USA

1961 / Color / 1:37 full frame (1:66 widescreen?) / 92 min. / Street Date May 30, 2017 / Available from Arrow Video.

Starring: Pierre Brasseur, Pascale Audret, Marianne Koch, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Dany Saval, Jean Babilée,

Georges Rollin, Gérard Buhr, Maryse Martin, Serge Marquand, Philippe Leroy.

Cinematography: Marcel Fredetal

Film Editor: Gilbert Natot

Original Music: Maurice Jarre

Written by Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, Georges Franju, Robert Thomas

Produced by Jules Borkon

Directed by Georges Franju

Until a few years ago most U.S. fans knew of Georges Franju solely through the great...

Georges Franju’ Spotlight On A Murderer (Pleins feux sur l’assassin – 1961) will be available on Blu-ray May 30th from Arrow Academy.

When the terminally ill Count Herve de Kerloquen (Pierre Brasseur, Goto, Isle of Love) vanishes without trace, his heirs are told that they have to wait five years before he can be declared legally dead, forcing them to devise ways of paying for the upkeep of the vast family chateau in the meantime. While they set about transforming the place into an elaborate son et lumiere tourist attraction, they are beset by a series of tragic accidents if that s really what they are…

The little-known third feature by the great French maverick Georges Franju (Eyes Without a Face, Judex) is a delightfully playful romp through Agatha Christie territory, whose script (written by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac of Les Diaboliques and Vertigo fame) is mischievously aware of the...

Sometimes a movie is simply too good for just one special edition… Savant reached out to nab a British Region B import of Georges Franju’s horror masterpiece, to sample its enticing extras. And this also gives me the chance to ramble on with more thoughts about this 1959 show that inspired a score of copycats.

Eyes Without a Face (Bfi — U.K.)

Region B Blu-ray + Pal DVD

Bfi

1959 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 90 min. / The Horror Chamber of

Dr. Faustus, House of Dr. Rasanoff, Occhi senza volto / Street Date August 24, 2015 / presently £10.99

Starring: Pierre Brasseur, Edith Scob, Alida Valli, Francois Guérin,

Béatrice Altariba, Juliette Mayniel

Cinematography: Eugen Schüfftan

Production Designer: Auguste Capelier

Special Effects: Charles-Henri Assola

Film Editor: Gilbert Natot

Original Music: Maurice Jarre

Written by Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, Pierre Gascar, Claude Sautet from a novel by Jean Redon

Produced by Jules Borkon

Directed by Georges Franju

Savant has reviewed Eyes Without a Face twice,...

The Ninth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series started last Friday and continues the next two weekends — The Classic French Film Festival celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the mid-1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema.

All films are screened at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood).

The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, which this year includes films by two New Wave masters: Jacques Rivette’s first feature, “Paris Belongs to Us,” and François Truffaut’s cinephilic love letter, “Day for Night.” The fest also provides one of the few opportunities available in St. Louis to see films projected the old-school, time-honored way, with both Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” and Robert Bresson’s “Au hasard Balthazar” screening from 35mm prints.

The Ninth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented 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 mid-1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema.

The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, which this year includes films by two New Wave masters: Jacques Rivette’s first feature, “Paris Belongs to Us,” and François Truffaut’s cinephilic love letter, “Day for Night.” The fest also provides one of the few opportunities available in St. Louis to see films projected the old-school, time-honored way, with both Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” and Robert Bresson’s “Au hasard Balthazar” screening from 35mm prints. Even more traditional, we also offer a silent film with live music, and audiences are sure to delight in the Poor People of Paris...

This time on the podcast, Ryan is joined by West Anthony to discuss George Franju’s Eyes Without a Face.

At his secluded chateau in the French countryside, a brilliant, obsessive doctor (Pierre Brasseur) attempts a radical plastic surgery to restore the beauty of his daughter’s disfigured countenance—at a horrifying price.

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Episode Links Eyes Without a Face (1960) – The Criterion Collection Eyes Without a Face on iTunes Watch Eyes Without a Face Online at Hulu Eyes Without a Face: The Unreal Reality – From the Current – The Criterion Collection Appearances to the Contrary: Eyes Without a Face – From the Current – The Criterion Collection The Woman Behind the Mask – From the Current – The Criterion Collection Eyes Without a Face – Wikipedia Eyes Without a Face (1960) – IMDb Eyes Without a Face (1962) – Rotten Tomatoes Eyes Without a Face Movie Review...

The Nazis can't even keep the National Socialist propaganda out of a simple science fiction fable. Hans Albers is the Aryan King Midas as a scientist, and gorgeous Brigitte Helm the Englishwoman who thinks he's peachy keen. The climax is pure Sci-Fi heaven, an unstable 'Atomic Fracturing' installation, wa-ay deep down in a mineshaft under the ocean. Gold (1934) Blu-ray Kino Classics 1934 / B&W / 1:33 flat Full Frame / 117 min. / Street Date June 14, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Hans Albers, Friedrich Kayßler, Brigitte Helm, Michael Bohnen, Ernst Karchow, Lien Deyers, Eberhard Leithoff, Rudolf Platte. Cinematography Otto Baecker, Werner Bohne, Günther Rittau Art Direction Otto Hunte Film Editor Wolfgang Becker Original Music Hans-Otto Borgmann Written by Rolf E. Vanloo Produced by Alfred Zeisler Directed by Karl Hartl

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Hardy Encyclopedia of Science Fiction still teases Sci-fi fans that want to see everything listed in its pages. Thankfully, videodisc companies catering to collectors make possible the sale of titles that might never show up on some (authorized) streaming service. Video disc has brought us the original Der Schweigende Stern and Alraune from Germany, and I hope to someday see good copies of Kurt Siodmak and Karl Hartl's F.P. 1 Does Not Answer and the Harry Piel Sci-fi trilogy An Invisible Man Roams the City, The World Unmasked (an X-ray television camera) and Master of the World (a robot with a death ray). I've read about Karl Hartl's 1934 Gold for at least fifty years, since John Baxter's Science Fiction in the Cinema told us (not quite correctly) that its final reel had been borrowed for the conclusion of Ivan Tors' 1953 Sci-fi picture The Magnetic Monster. As it turns out, Kino is releasing both movies in the same week. Sometimes referred to as the Nazi Metropolis, Hartl's Gold is a follow-up to the director's very successful F.P.1. Does Not Answer, a spy thriller about a fantastic airport in the mid-Atlantic called Floating Platform One. Both pictures were filmed in simultaneous foreign versions to maximize the box office take. The German original of F.P. 1 starred matinee idol Hans Albers (The Blue Angel) Sybille Schmitz (Vampyr) and Peter Lorre, while a concurrent French version used Charles Boyer, Danièle Parola and Pierre Brasseur. A third English version starred Conrad Veidt, Jill Esmond and Donald Calthrop. The French version starred Brigitte Helm in the same role, but star Hans Albers reportedly rebelled at making two movies for the price of one. According to reports, the exceedingly expensive Gold was in production for fifteen months. We can see the cost immediately in the enormous main set for the 'atomic fracturing' machine built to transmute lead into gold. Otto Hunte and Günther Rittau designed and filmed special effects for Metropolis and the impressive set is very much in the same style. Off the top of my head I can't think of any technical apparatus quite so elaborate (and solid-looking) built for a film until the 1960s and Ken Adam's outlandish settings for UA's James Bond films. Writer Rolf E. Vanloo had worked on the silent classic Asphalt and is the sole writer credited on the popular Marlene Dietrich vehicle I Kiss Your Hand, Madame. His screenplay for Gold is tight and credible, even if its theme is even more simplistic than -- and somewhat similar to -- that of Thea von Harbou for Metropolis. Scientist Werner Holk (Hans Albers) aids the visionary Professor Achenbach (Friedrich Kayßler) in testing what looks like an electric atom smasher. The experiment: to turn lead into gold. The 'Atomic Fracturer' explodes, killing the old genius, whose work is discredited. Holk barely survives, thanks to a blood transfusion from his faithful girlfriend Margit Moller (Lien Deyers). When agents for the fabulously wealthy Englishman John Wills (Michael Bohnen) contact Holk, he realizes that the experiment was sabotaged. Werner allows himself to be taken to a fabulous yacht and from there to a Scottish castle, where, hundreds of feet under the ocean, Wills has constructed his own, far larger atom smasher with plans stolen from Achenbach. Split between his need for revenge and a desire to prove the dead Achenbach's theories, Holk goes through with the experiment. Wills' daughter Florence (Brigitte Helm), a gorgeous playgirl, is attracted to the German visitor, Holk finds that the workers' foreman, Schwarz (Rudolf Platte) is of a like mind on economic issues. But Wills' engineer Harris (Eberhard Leithoff) is jealous of Holk's talent, and cannot be trusted. Gold begins by repeating the 'big money hostile takeover of science' theme from Fritz Lang's Frau im mond: a pioneering German scientific exploit is siezed by an unscrupulous international business entity. The unspoken message is that the weakened Germany is being cheated in the world economy because it lacks the resources to exploit its superior technology. The avaricious John Wills makes big financial decisions all day long. There's no gray area in this conflict, as Wells murders, steals and spies on people to get what he wants. We've seen his ruthless agents wreck Achenbach's original, modest experiment. This 'England plays dirty' theme mirrors Germany's bitterness toward England for at least the better part of a century of colonial, naval and financial competition. Versailles and WW1 aren't mentioned, but that had to be on the minds of the audience as well: Germany innovates and works hard, but is consistently handed a raw deal. The scenes with the sleek, fascinating Brigitte Helm would be better if they went somewhere; her Florence does what she can to entice Herr Holk but withdraws when he declares his love for his faithful girl back home, the one whose life blood now flows in his veins. 'Das Blut' cannot be dishonored, even if Holk is half convinced that Wills is going to have him murdered after the giant machine starts turning out Gold by the ton. Act Two instead becomes a conflict between Big Capitalism and the lowly-but-virtuous Working Man. Down in the underground warren of tunnels (another Metropolis parallel) Wills' Scottish workforce of sandhogs and technicians side with Holk against their boss. After a preliminary test yields a tiny bit of gold, we get the expected montages of worldwide economic panic, standard material in socially oriented sci-fi as diverse as La fin du monde and Red Planet Mars. Wells plans to grow rich by flooding the world with his artificially produced gold, a strategy that will have to be explained to me. Gold is the world's standard of value precisely because it's rare; it can't be printed up like money. Thirty years later, the surprisingly sophisticated scheme of Auric Goldfinger is to increase the value of his stash of gold bullion by rendering America's gold reserves radioactive, and therefore worthless. If scarcity raises the value of the element, making more should do the opposite. (On the other hand, what about artificial diamonds? Is there any correspondence there?) [I'm acutely aware that discussing the subject matter of movies mainly points up how much I don't know, about anything but movies.] The Incredible Holk convinces the mob of workers that he represents their interests better than the greedy John Wills. The idea that rich English capitalists need to be rejected in favor of honest German morality is the only real message here. It's as simple as the 'heart mediating between the hands and the brain' slogan of Metropolis, but with a slightly arrogant nationalism added. The lavishly produced Gold was filmed on a series of truly impressive sets, including Wills' enormous Scottish mansion. But the giant setting for the climax, deep in a mine under the ocean floor, is the stuff of core Sci-fi. Millions of volts of electricity are harnessed to transmute lead into Gold. That's got to be a heck of an electricity bill; factor in the other enormous overhead costs and we wonder if Wills will ever turn a profit. The special effects for this sequence are sensational. The enormous apparatus is suspended on huge oversized porcelain insulators. The giant glass tubes atop the specimen stage are apparently visualized with mattes and foreground miniatures. But the camera pans and trucks all over the hangar-sized set; it all looks real, with bolts of electricity flashing like crazy. It's a dynamic special effect highlight of the 1930s. The actors sell the conflict well. Beefy Hans Albers sometimes looks like George C. Scott. He exudes personal integrity and a calm force of will. Lien Dyers is as wholesome here as she was wantonly sexualized six years earlier in Fritz Lang's Spies. Michael Bohnen is more than convincing as a powerful man trying to corner all business on an international scale. Although mostly in for decoration, Brigitte Helm is a sophisticated dazzler. Those penciled eyebrows remind us that she had become the Marlene Dietrich that didn't go to Hollywood. Although she did have offers, Helm wanted to stay in Germany. The Nazification of the film industry and the appalling political climate motivated her to leave for Switzerland in 1935, abandoning her career. Although the gist of Gold fits in with Josef Goebbels' National Socialist propaganda aims, the movie doesn't attack England directly. Ufa may have held hopes of foreign distribution. The one man in Scotland that Holk knows he can trust is the captain of Wills' yacht, a fellow German. Nine years later, Josef Goebbels' anti-British version of Titanic would make a German the single ethical person in authority on the doomed ocean liner. The fellow is constantly badmouthing the craven captain and the venal English ship owner. When Hans Albers finishes this movie with a ten-cent moral about love being the only real treasure, the show seems plenty dumb. But that amazing special effect set piece is too good to dismiss so easily. Gold is a classic of giddy '30s science fiction. The Kino Classics Blu-ray of Gold (1934) is a good encoding of the Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung's best copy of this once-rare item. The print we see is intact and with has good audio, but the contrast is rough. It shifts and flutters a bit, especially in some scenes in the middle. I did notice that the final special effects sequences looked better than much of the rest of this surviving print. But the parts of the movie repurposed for The Magnetic Monster look better on that 1953 science fiction film than they do here. In his book Film in the Third Reich David Stewart Hull explains that when the occupation forces reviewed the recovered German films, they ordered this one destroyed. They were concerned that the Alchemy / Atomic Fracturing machine might have some connection to Germany's wartime nuclear program. So how could Ivan Tors have bought the footage from Ufa, if the U.S. Army had seized it? I have a feeling - just idle speculation -- that it might have been obtained in a special deal made through government connections. Since the image looks much better on The Magnetic Monster, Ivan Tors might even have cut up Gold's only existing printing element to make his movie. After finally seeing Gold, one more thing impresses me besides the grandiose special effects. It's sort of a 'brain-drain' movie. In the '30s, Germany had a reputation for the best precision engineering in the world. Werner Holk is semi-kidnapped to serve John Wills' greedy science project, which was pirated from Germany in the first place. Also in awe of German scientific prowess is Brigitte Helm's Florence. The playgirl finds Werner Wolk's brilliance and clarity of mission irresistible. He's both smarter and more ethical than her father. Holk just stands there looking like he's posing for a statue, and Florence is carried away. Ms. Helm is terrific, but it would be nice if her character had a more central role to play in the story. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Gold (1934) Blu-ray rates: Movie: Very Good Video: Fair + This may be a rare surviving print. Sound: Good - Minus Supplements: none Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? Yes; Subtitles: English Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 10, 2016 (5137)

Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com

Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...

Danièle Delorme: 'Gigi' 1949 actress and pioneering female film producer. Danièle Delorme: 'Gigi' 1949 actress was pioneering woman producer, politically minded 'femme engagée' Danièle Delorme, who died on Oct. 17, '15, at the age of 89 in Paris, is best remembered as the first actress to incarnate Colette's teenage courtesan-to-be Gigi and for playing Jean Rochefort's about-to-be-cuckolded wife in the international box office hit Pardon Mon Affaire. Yet few are aware that Delorme was featured in nearly 60 films – three of which, including Gigi, directed by France's sole major woman filmmaker of the '40s and '50s – in addition to more than 20 stage plays and a dozen television productions in a show business career spanning seven decades. Even fewer realize that Delorme was also a pioneering woman film producer, working in that capacity for more than half a century. Or that she was what in French is called a femme engagée...

Halloween doesn’t have to be over once the last trick-or-treater has crept back into the shadows of the night. You may still be possessed by the spirit of the holiday and in desperate need of some real scares. In an effort to address that need and help you find a choice that goes beyond the usual iconography of the season, I’ve picked three titles that may not immediately jump to mind when it comes to autumn-tinged chills and terror. They are not self-consciously seasonal choices, like John Carpenter’s Halloween or Michael Dougherty’s 2007 anthology Trick ‘R Treat, both excellent choices for cinematic fear on the pumpkin circuit. Two of them rely more on mood, creeping dread, an insinuating style and, dare I say, even a poetic approach to storytelling than the usual Samhain-appropriate fare. And one has an inexplicably bad reputation in the halls of conventional wisdom,...

Here we are at what is a surprisingly modern list. At the beginning of this, I didn’t expect to see so much cultural impact coming from films so recently made, but that’s the way it goes. The films that define the horror genre aren’t necessarily the scariest or the most expensive or even the best. The films that define the genre point to a movement – movies that changed the game and influenced all the films after it. Movies that transcend the horror genre. Movies that broke the mold and changed the way horror can be created.

10. El laberinto del fauno (2006)

English Language Title: Pan’s Labyrinth

Directed by: Gullermo del Toro

It’s more a dark fantasy film than a horror film, but it would be tough to make a list of 50 of those. Plus, it has enough graphic, nightmarish images to push it over the threshold.

★★★★☆ If you only know Eyes Without a Face (1960) from the Billy Idol rock ballad, then you are in for a treat. Georges Franju's Gallic body horror is a complex atmospheric chiller which balances graphic shocks with subtle characterisation. A woman Louise (Alida Valli) drives through the French countryside at night. In the backseat, a passenger sways unconscious. Parking by a river, the woman drags the passenger down the muddy bank and drops her in the water. The celebrated Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) is called to the morgue to identify a body which might be his missing daughter. He does so and a funeral follows but all is not as it seems as his assistant Louise stands by his side.

French documentarian and co-founder of the Cinematheque Francais Georges Franju’s second fiction feature remains one of the most influential horror films of its decade, a nightmarishly poetic dreamscape that elevates a Monogram Pictures-level conceit to the realm of expressive exotica. Surgeon Pierre Brasseur’s Lugosi-like commitment to restoring his disfigured daughter’s face provides some of the more disconcerting images in the genre. Jess Franco, John Woo and Pedro Almodovar are just a few of the filmmakers whose work has reflected elements of Franju’s bizarre achievement. This is the textless French trailer.

French documentarian and co-founder of the Cinematheque Francais Georges Franju's second fiction feature remains one of the most influential horror films of its decade, a nightmarishly poetic dreamscape that elevates a Monogram Pictures-level conceit to the realm of expressive exotica. Surgeon Pierre Brasseur's Lugosi-like commitment to restoring his disfigured daughter's face provides some of the more disconcerting images in the genre. Jess Franco, John Woo and Pedro Almodovar are just a few of the filmmakers whose work has reflected elements of Franju's bizarre achievement. This is the textless French trailer.

Marc Allégret: From André Gide lover to Simone Simon mentor (photo: Marc Allégret) (See previous post: "Simone Simon Remembered: Sex Kitten and Femme Fatale.") Simone Simon became a film star following the international critical and financial success of the 1934 romantic drama Lac aux Dames, directed by her self-appointed mentor – and alleged lover – Marc Allégret.[1] The son of an evangelical missionary, Marc Allégret (born on December 22, 1900, in Basel, Switzerland) was to have become a lawyer. At age 16, his life took a different path as a result of his romantic involvement – and elopement to London – with his mentor and later "adoptive uncle" André Gide (1947 Nobel Prize winner in Literature), more than 30 years his senior and married to Madeleine Rondeaux for more than two decades. In various forms – including a threesome with painter Théo Van Rysselberghe's daughter Elisabeth – the Allégret-Gide relationship remained steady until the late '20s and their trip to...

Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine' 1938: Jean Renoir's film noir (photo: Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine') (See previous post: "'Cat People' 1942 Actress Simone Simon Remembered.") In the late 1930s, with her Hollywood career stalled while facing competition at 20th Century-Fox from another French import, Annabella (later Tyrone Power's wife), Simone Simon returned to France. Once there, she reestablished herself as an actress to be reckoned with in Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine. An updated version of Émile Zola's 1890 novel, La Bête Humaine is enveloped in a dark, brooding atmosphere not uncommon in pre-World War II French films. Known for their "poetic realism," examples from that era include Renoir's own The Lower Depths (1936), Julien Duvivier's La Belle Équipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937), and particularly Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows (1938) and Daybreak (1939).[11] This thematic and...

Translators introduction: This article by Mireille Latil Le Dantec, the first of two parts, was originally published in issue 40 of Cinématographe, September 1978. The previous issue of the magazine had included a dossier on "La qualité française" and a book of a never-shot script by Jean Grémillon (Le Printemps de la Liberté or The Spring of Freedom) had recently been published. The time was ripe for a re-evaluation of Grémillon's films and a resuscitation of his undervalued career. As this re-evaluation appears to still be happening nearly 40 years later—Grémillon's films have only recently seen DVD releases and a 35mm retrospective begins this week at Museum of the Moving Image in Queens—this article and its follow-up gives us an important view of a French perspective on Grémillon's work by a very perceptive critic doing the initial heavy-lifting in bringing the proper attention to the filmmaker's work.

Filmmaker maudit?...

Top 100 horror movies of all time: Chicago Film Critics' choices (photo: Sigourney Weaver and Alien creature show us that life is less horrific if you don't hold grudges) See previous post: A look at the Chicago Film Critics Association's Scariest Movies Ever Made. Below is the list of the Chicago Film Critics's Top 100 Horror Movies of All Time, including their directors and key cast members. Note: this list was first published in October 2006. (See also: Fay Wray, Lee Patrick, and Mary Philbin among the "Top Ten Scream Queens.") 1. Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock; with Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam. 2. The Exorcist (1973) William Friedkin; with Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller, Max von Sydow (and the voice of Mercedes McCambridge). 3. Halloween (1978) John Carpenter; with Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Tony Moran. 4. Alien (1979) Ridley Scott; with Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt. 5. Night of the Living Dead (1968) George A. Romero; with Marilyn Eastman,...

Here we are at what is a surprisingly modern list. At the beginning of this, I didn’t expect to see so much cultural impact coming from films so recently made, but that’s the way it goes. The films that define the horror genre aren’t necessarily the scariest or the most expensive or even the best. The films that define the genre point to a movement – movies that changed the game and influenced all the films after it. Movies that transcend the horror genre. Movies that broke the mold and changed the way horror can be created.

10. El laberinto del fauno (2006)

English Language Title: Pan’s Labyrinth

Directed by: Gullermo del Toro

It’s more a dark fantasy film than a horror film, but it would be tough to make a list of 50 of those. Plus, it has enough graphic, nightmarish images to push it over the threshold.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Criterion has released a true oddity: a French horror film from 1960 by director Georges Franju titled Eyes Without a Face. The B&W film was notable in its day for being a rare excursion into a genre that most New Wave French filmmakers had studiously avoided. The intriguing plot centers on Dr. Genessier (Pierre Brasseur), a notable plastic surgeon who is pioneering breakthrough methods of reconstructing the faces of people who have suffered grievous injuries and disfigurements. On the surface, Genessier follows the norms of traditional medical research: publishing papers and giving lectures relating to his findings. However, the painstaking process of getting formal acceptance and  approval of new medical theories is not for him. He has an urgent need to pursue his theories outside of accepted medical practices. His daughter Christiana (Edit Scob) was severely injured in a car crash that he was responsible for. Wracked by guilt,...

3. Eyes Without a Face

Written by Georges Franju, Jean Redon, Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, and Claude Sautet

Directed by Georges Franju

France and Italy, 1960

The idea of what a quintessential French horror film might be, especially in the middle of the last century, would be a conflicting concept, the French being culturally revered as the custodians of the high-brow, the poetically human, and the avant-garde (we even import the word in its French form); horror is a genre maintained to provoke the base and primal, better left to B-movie thrills. Enter Georges Franju, a co-founder of the Cinémathèque Française, to helm Eyes Without a Face, a work to arrive with scorn from both French and Anglophone audiences as it had not been crafted to either of their palettes, but rather an amalgamation of tastes and something completely new.

When Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) identifies the body of his daughter Christiane...

Moviefone's Top DVD of the Week:

"Pacific Rim"

What's It About? Guillermo del Toro's sci-fi adventure follows the rise of the Kaiju sea creatures, which threaten the future of mankind. In order to fight off the monstrous Kaiju, Jaeger robots are developed, which are controlled by two pilots who share a mental bond. In the face of an apocalypse, former pilot Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) and trainee Mako (Rinko Kikuchi) are paired up to drive a Jaeger to save the planet.

Why We're In: Del Toro's sci-fi epic is great for every minute of its CGI spectacle ass-kicking. "Pacific Rim" was not only one of the most fun adventures of the summer, but it also featured solid performances from its two leads, along with Idris Elba. If you're looking for an action-packed film that will keep your eyes and ears entertained from start to finish, "Pacific Rim" is sure to please.

I hadn't heard of Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face until last year, following a screening of Holy Motors in Cannes when someone noted how Edith Scob was wearing a similar white mask (see here) to the one she wore throughout all but a few minutes of Eyes, where she plays the scarred daughter of a high profile Paris surgeon (Pierre Brasseur). Come to learn, the film's influence is more widespread than that, including films such as Pedro Almodovar's Skin I Live In, the mask for Michael Myers in John Carpenter's Halloween and even Tim Burton's Batman as Jerry Hall wears a mask to cover her face playing The Joker's secret lover, Alicia Hunt. Little did Alicia know, her plunge out the window was decided almost 30 years earlier. Described as a horror, the adjectives "lyrical" and poetic are also associated with this film and both are incredibly appropriate.

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Oct. 15, 2013

Price: Blu-ray $39.95

Studio: Criterion

The eyes have it: Edith Scob stars in Eyes Without a Face.

The 1960 horror film Eyes Without a Face was directed by the highly regarded French filmmaker Georges Franju (Judex).

The movie tells the story of a brilliant, obsessive doctor (Pierre Brasseur, Children of Paradise), who, at his secluded chateau in the French countryside, attempts a radical plastic surgery to restore the beauty of his daughter’s (Edith Scob, Summer Hours) disfigured face. The horrifying price of his mission comes in the form of the faces of other young women, whom he kidnaps so he can use their own features to replace those of his daughter’s.

Eyes Without a Face is rare in horror cinema for its odd mixture of the ghastly and the lyrical, and it has been a major influence on the genre in the decades since its release.

Last night I finally finished watching Marcel Carne's 1945 film Children of Paradise. At just over three hours long it took me a couple sittings, though last night I watched the bulk of it (a little over two hours) and it's one hell of a piece of cinema. Roger Ebert describes the production saying it "was shot in Paris and Nice during the Nazi occupation and released in 1945. Its sets sometimes had to be moved between the two cities. Its designer and composer, Jews sought by the Nazis, worked from hiding. Carne was forced to hire pro-Nazi collaborators as extras; they did not suspect they were working next to resistance fighters. The Nazis banned all films over about 90 minutes in length, so Carne simply made two films, confident he could show them together after the war was over." The film largely focuses on an actor -- Frederick Lema?tre played by...

Les Enfants du Paradis (Children Of Paradise)

Directed by Marcel Carné

Starring Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, and Pierre Brasseur

France, 190 min – 1945.

Les Enfants du Paradis is a film about that class of people that hangs on the outskirts of 1820s and 30s French society, exuberantly enjoying theatre productions in the ‘Boulevard du Crime.’ It is very much a piece that celebrates the bohemian artist (of an earlier generation than the famed bohemians depicted in Moulin Rouge) and the tragedies of love. This love centers around the beautiful woman-about-town and artist, Garance (Arletty), and the four men who fall in love with her: Jean-Baptiste Debureau (Jean-Louis Barrault), a famous pantomime actor, Frédérick Lemaître (Pierre Brasseur), an aspiring, classical actor, Pierre-François Lacenaire (Marcel Herrand), a criminal, and finally, Count Édouard de Montray (Louis Salou), a rich aristocrat. Each man falls in love with Garance, but she only gives her heart to one of them.

Chicago – Marcel Carne is one of the most important filmmakers in European history and two of his most timeless efforts, “Children of Paradise” and “Les Visiteurs du Soir,” are two of the most recent films inducted into the most important collection of Blu-rays in the history of the form — The Criterion Collection. “Children” had been a Criterion release before (it’s spine #141) but “Visiteurs” (#626) is new to the collection. Both are gloriously restored version of French classics.

“Children” is the superior of the two, a film that has often been voted the best French film of the last century. It’s often compared to “Gone with the Wind” in its epic scope (it’s 190 minutes long) or at least that’s how it was sold in some markets — “The French Gone with the Wind!” The film is actually much more ambitious thematically than the American epic as wonderfully detailed in...

(Marcel Carné, 1945, Second Sight, PG)

This vibrant three-hour epic was made during the German occupation by director Marcel Carné, poet Jacques Prévert and designer Alexandre Trauner, the chief creators of the so-called poetic realism that dominated French cinema in the late 1930s. The film then enjoyed a triumphant reception at its premiere in March 1945, just two months before Ve Day, when it helped assert the indomitable spirit of French culture and restore national pride.

The Nazi regime forbade direct reference to the war or any currently controversial matter, so the setting is the Parisian theatre of the 1830s, which is given a Balzacian social scope and dramatic vigour. Pierre Brasseur and Jean-Louis Barrault play rival actors, one a Shakespearean star, the other a brilliant mime, both of them in love with the cool, graceful Arletty's much-sought-after courtesan, who's also admired by a charismatic criminal and an aristocrat.

The movie...

A father, worried sick that his wife may be dead, walks his son and daughter across a rain-slicked square, while a long line of black-clad children from an orphanage snakes past them in the other direction. The bars of a castle-shaped birdcage, which has been the backdrop for a bitter quarrel between an aristocrat and his middle-aged mistress, gives way to a shot of a mountaintop hotel crisscrossed by countless panes of glass. A man and woman on the verge of an affair walk through an empty seaside house that evokes both their waning marriages and the life they will never have together.

Those are three moments from the three movies in Eclipse's set, Jean Grémillon During the Occupation: Le ciel est à vous, Lumière d'été and Remorques. This DVD release marks an extraordinary stroke of luck for those who, like me, had barely heard of this director. How often does anyone encounter,...

StudioCanal embarks on the second round of its self-styled StudioCanal Collection which, it says here, brings together “the very best of cinema”. Of course, since this is the second round, one might be forgiven for being a tad cynical about the ‘very best’ claim. It’s like the old ads for “The Best Album in the World Ever … Volume 2”, a triumph of marketing over logic. What we have, instead, are films that are not the obvious usual suspects, but rarer and, in some cases, more interesting films.

Take, for example, Marcel Carne’s Le Quai Des Brumes – or Port of Shadows, if you prefer. Many pundits consider his later film, Les Enfants du Paradis to be his definitive statement on the Second World War since it is seditious and uncompromising and shot entirely under the noses of the Nazis. But that was the end of the War … Quai des Brumes...

Eyes Without a Face

Directed by Georges Franju

Written by Boileau-Narcejac, Jean Redon, Claude Sautet and Pierre Gascar

France, 1960

At an Edinburgh Film Festival screening of Eyes Without a Face, seven audience members, according to L’Express, fainted and “dropped like flies”.

In response, director Georges Franju opined, in a particularly tactless exercise in foreign affairs, “now I know why Scotsmen wear skirts”.

To be fair to the Scottish, Eyes Without a Face is rather sordid, hideous, grotesque and morbid, but, to be fair to Franju, the film is also rather amazing. Unwelcomed and shunned in 1960 (to say the least), Eyes Without a Face has since been elevated to legendary status and is still as unsettling as it was when it was first released.

In a narrative sense, the film was seen as a pioneer of the mad doctor story, with Pierre Brasseur playing Dr. Génessier, a brilliant surgeon who...

Introduction

In Laissez-passer [Safe Conduct], the film that the French director Bertrand Tavernier made in 2002, we see the French film industry of the Occupation years as a ruined and almost shut-down institution that is highly dependent on the factor of chance. In his story, Tavernier exculpates one of the key figures of the occupation cinema, Henri-Georges Clouzot, from the accusation of collaborating with the Nazis. He pictures Clouzot as a man whose Jewish wife has been held hostage by the Nazis and, and against all odds, he finishes Le corbeau about the vicious and nasty people of a small town in France, where someone is sending poison pen letters to its "honourable" citizens. Le corbeau became a very popular box-office hit during the Occupation, and, at the same time, the underground press attacked it for showing France as a land of the degenerate and perverted people, a view that, according to accusers,...

Port of Shadows

Directed by Marcel Carné

Written by Jacques Prévert

France, 1938

There’s a reason why it’s called ‘film noir’. Stylish, haunting, and lyrically cynical, the genre, however, has always been regarded as a staple in the American cinematic tradition. So why the French name?

Because before the likes of Hitchcock, Huston or Hawks popularized the movement in the 40’s and 50’s, there was a Frenchman named Marcel Carné, whom, along with writer by Jacques Prévert, adapted a novel by Pierre Dumarchais to create Port of Shadows (French: Le Quai des brumes).

Bursting with a style, atmosphere, thematic discontent, and a ‘poetic realism’ that were hitherto unknown, Port of Shadows was an undeniable game changer that revolutionized French filmmaking.

Dark, bleak, and more sinister than anything they’ve ever seen before, the French had, in Port of Shadows, a new genre on their hands. And they called it...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Sept. 18, 2012

Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95

Studio: Criterion

Jean-Louis Barrault stars in Marcel Carne's Children of Paradise.

Poetic realism reached sublime heights with Marcel Carné’s 1945 romantic drama Children of Paradise, which is widely considered one of the greatest French films of all time.

A classic depiction of 19th century Paris’s theatrical demimonde, Les enfants du paradis follows a mysterious woman (Arletty, The Pearls of the Crown’s) loved by four different men (all based on historical figures): an actor, a criminal, a count, and, most poignantly, a street mime (Jean-Louis Barrault, La ronde).

Directed with sensitivity and dramatic élan (during World War II, no less!) director Carné (Port of Shadows) and screenwriter Jacques Prévert (Le jour se lève) bring to life a world teeming with hucksters and aristocrats, thieves and courtesans, pimps and seers, and, of course, love and sorrow.

Released previously by Criterion in...

Jean Gabin stars in this French classic about an army deserter who falls for a gangster's moll

This classic rerelease by Marcel Carné is part of a season dedicated to the French acting legend Jean Gabin (1904-1976); it is dark, mysterious and shrouded in sensuous fog that Gabin's character says is part of the emotional weather he carries around with him. He is an army deserter who fetches up in the port town of Le Havre; escaping abroad is vital, but in a grim bar (with a picture of Dickens on the wall) he finds himself falling in love with the 17-year-old Nelly, played by the gasp-inducingly sexy Michèle Morgan, a gangster's moll in the malign grip of snivelling bad-guy Lucien (Pierre Brasseur) and her sinister, libidinous guardian, played by Michel Simon. The dialogue by Jacques Prévert boasts glorious lines comparable to those in Les Enfants Du Paradis. Nelly says:...

Christopher Plummer, Best Supporing Actor Oscar winner [Photo: Richard Harbaugh / ©A.M.P.A.S.] Christopher Plummer Oscar 2012 Q&A Pt.1: Not Oldest Oscar Winner Q. You always do a good job. In your long and illustrious career, who stands out as your favorite actor besides yourself? Who did you look up to? A. No, not myself. Tons of actors for different reasons. In the French cinema we had when I grew up, I saw a lot of French film because I lived in Quebec. From France, great actors [such as] Pierre Brasseur, Lewis Gilbert [probably a misunderstanding on the part of the transcriber: Plummer was likely referring to Louis Jouvet], and people who are just extraordinary — stage actors, particularly although they did do film. And the great classical actors that inspired me when I was quite young [inaudible], and then later the whole new school of Marlon Brando. I lived through all of those various changes, and they all made their mark upon me, thanks. Q. I'm so excited. I see you're wearing your Order of Canada pin.

This long, romantic recreation of life – high, low and theatrical – in 1830s Paris, newly restored, has an outstanding cast headed by Pierre Brasseur and Jean-Louis Barrault as rival actors, one a Shakespearean star, the other a brilliant mime, and Arletty a much sought-after courtesan. It was made in two parts because films produced during the German occupation had to last under 90 minutes, and the film set out to celebrate the indomitable French spirit and assert cultural pride at a point when the humiliating defeat of 1940 was being replaced by a new if dubious self-respect created by the resistance.

The film was shot at the Victorine Studio in Nice on opulent sets designed by the great Alexandre Trauner, who as a Jew was in hiding in the nearby hills from which he emerged at night to inspect his work after slipping past German troops and pro-German militia. By contrast, the glamorous...

Black Pond (15)

(Tom Kingsley, Will Sharpe, 2011, UK) Chris Langham, Colin Hurley, Amanda Hadingue, Will Sharpe, Simon Amstell. 82 mins

First-time films are traditionally youthful coming-of-age stories, but this delightful little oddity revolves around a miserable middle-aged couple and the deaths of first their three-legged dog, then a very strange stranger they invite to dinner. Everything about it is pretty eccentric, in fact, with surreal animated interludes, an absurd cameo from Amstell and plenty of off-balance domestic comedy, not to mention the risky return of Langham. But in its own idiosyncratic way, it all fits together perfectly.

Wuthering Heights (15)

(Andrea Arnold, 2011, UK) Kaya Scodelario, James Howson, Shannon Beer. 129 mins

Discarding the usual niceties of costume drama, Arnold rolls Brontë's saga in the muck for this provocative, sensuous interpretation. Sublime to start with, it never quite recovers from a second-half change of cast.

The Rum Diary (15)

(Bruce Robinson, 2011, Us) Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart,...

The restoration of the French theatreland classic only improves a glorious narrative carousel, as gripping as any soap opera

This restoration of Marcel Carné's 1945 classic reignites a glorious flame: a rich Balzacian drama that bulges with life, with incident, with romantic idealism, while the screenplay by Jacques Prévert has a superb and surreally turned bon mot every few minutes. The scene is the early 19th-century Boulevard du Crime in Paris, thronged with popular theatres and showfolk. French star Arletty plays Garance, a woman who entrances four different men: suave stage actor Frédérick (Pierre Brasseur), chilly aristocrat Count Edouard (Louis Salou), mime artist Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault) and Lacenaire, a criminal adventurer played by Marcel Herrand. The fascination with Garance keeps the narrative carousel turning, and it's as addictive as the most gripping soap opera. The writing is utterly involving; with lines like tiny, imagist poems. A rich and delicious movie treat.

AFI Fest 2011 Guest Artistic Director Pedro Almodóvar has selected the following classic thrillers to be presented at the festival: Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face, Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Cercle rouge, Edmund Goulding's Nightmare Alley, and Robert Siodmak's The Killers. Why this particular quartet? "Because in some way, albeit tangentially, they have a relationship with my present." Eyes Without a Face, in which a doctor uses the skin of young women to help restore the face of his disfigured daughter, certainly has some elements in common with Almodóvar's latest, The Skin I Live In. Pierre Brasseur and Alida Valli shine in this creepily poetic classic. The crime thriller Le Cercle rouge stars Alain Delon, Yves Montand, Gian Maria Volonté, and veteran Bourvil. Starring Tyrone Power as a carnival shyster, Nightmare Alley is less an outright thriller than a dark melodrama; it was also a box-office disappointment at...

Pedro Almodóvar's film about a ruthless plastic surgeon is a moving exploration of the nature of human identity

Shortly to celebrate his 62nd birthday, Pedro Almodóvar is at his daring, provocative and allusive best with the scintillating The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito). A combination of dark thriller, gothic horror story and poetic myth, it visits most of the preoccupations of his work over the past 30-odd years from maternal devotion through sexual identity to obsessional activity.

It's based on a 120-page French novel, Mygale, by the late Thierry Jonquet (published in Britain as Tarantula), in which an eminent French plastic surgeon has a practice at a public hospital in Paris, a private clinic in Boulogne, a secret operating theatre in the basement of his suburban mansion, a beautiful, submissive partner called Eve whom he keeps under lock and key, and a teenage daughter in an asylum.

Admired actor with an instinctive presence and austere looks

One of the greatest performances in the history of film was given by Claude Laydu, in the title role of Robert Bresson's Journal d'un Curé de Campagne (Diary of a Country Priest, 1951). As a young, sickly priest unable to resolve the problems of his small parish, and assailed by self-doubt, Laydu, who has died aged 84, brought his own spirituality, instinctive presence and intense ascetic looks to the role. His portrayal prompted Jean Tulard to write in his Dictionary of Film that "no other actor deserves to go to heaven as much as Laydu".

This is even more remarkable given that Bresson declared that "Art is transformation. Acting can only get in the way", and that he called his actors "models" whom he trained to remove all traces of theatricality and to speak in a monotonic manner. Bresson chose the 23-year-old from among many candidates,...