A Time to Love and a Time to Die

(aka 'Will o' the Wisp' or 'Le temps d'aimer et le temps de mourrir')

Directed by Douglas Sirk
USA 1958

A masterpiece of mise-en-scene by Douglas Sirk, transforming an Erich Maria Remarque melodrama into a haunting story of the search for beauty in a dead world. John Gavin and Lilo Pulver are lovers who meet among the ruins of a bombed-out German town during World War II. Despite their efforts to make contact, happiness hovers just beyond their reach in Sirk's metaphysically charged CinemaScope images. A stunning triumph of form, of the sort possible only in Hollywood.

Excerpt from Dave Kehr's capsule at the Chicago Reader located HERE

Under the opening credits of Sirk's penultimate masterpiece, set during World War II and filmed on location in Germany, the camera rests on the branches of a tree, its blossom forced early by the heat of a nearby bomb blast. It is the perfect symbol for the love between John Gavin's German soldier on leave and a barely remembered childhood friend, Lilo Pulver: a love forced by the everyday facts of war. This superb adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's novel rests on a painful symmetry between the scenes at the Russian front and the central section in the half-ruined home town, and on a typically tough-minded acknowledgment of the irony that the doomed romance exists not in spite of the war, but because of it.

Excerpt from TimeOut Film Guide located HERE

Posters

Theatrical Release: July 1958 - Berlin International Film Festival

Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews

DVD Review: Gaumont Columbia Tri-Star (2-disc) (FR) - Region 2 - PAL

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Gaumont Columbia Tri-Star (FR) - Region 2 - PAL
Runtime	2:06:24 (4% PAL speedup)
Video	2.35:1 Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 6.71 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate:
Audio	English (Dolby Digital 2.0), DUB French (Dolby Digital 2.0)
Subtitles	French, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Gaumont Columbia Tri-Star Aspect Ratio: Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1 Edition Details: • Featurette: Des Armes et de la Vettes (11:57) (French - with French subtitles during English dialogue • A Conversation with Douglas Sirk by Jon Halliday (French - no subtitles) - 14:49 • Featurette: Assiss Dans le Noir in English with removable French subtitles (18:38) • Documentary excerpt: portrait of Douglas Sirk in German with burned-in French subtitles (48:48) • Trailer (2:38) DVD Release Date: November 7th, 2007 Keep Case Chapters: 20

Comments:

Magnificent film and somehow this DVD slid right under my radar. Picture quality of Gaumont's dual-layered, anamorphic (in original 2.35:1 ratio) and progressive DVD is very strong. Detail is at a strikingly high standard and my only niggling complaints would be some slight chroma discoloration in monochromatic black sequences and in some early scenes colors appear a bit washed. But both negatives are extremely limited. Also it may be vertically compressed a shade. Overall though black levels are very pitch and colors appear accurate and stable. Contrast is pristine. For an SD DVD I'd give the image a 4.5/5. I see no manipulation and hardly any noise. Audio is very clear and there were no noted pop or dropout instances. There are optional French subtitles.

NOTE: Via the menus you might expect this to have forced French subtitles when the original English audio is chosen. But I can assure you that via my computer and both Malata players that I tested it on - this is not the case. You can see the film in its original format (English audio - no subtitles).

There is a second disc (dual-layered as well) of supplements with 4 features - but only one English friendly where Wesley Strick talks glowingly about Sirk for about 20 minutes. There is also a trailer on the first disc. I'd love to have understood the 50 minute documentary with the Douglas Sirk interview but my pigeon French has all but left me. The package is certainly worthy only on the basis of the film which must rank as one of Sirk's best - truly a masterpiece.