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Les Cousins [Blu-ray]
(, 1959)
Criterion - Region 'A' - Blu-ray LEFT vs. Masters of Cinema - Region 'B' - Blu-ray RIGHT
Review by Gary Tooze
Production: Theatrical: Gaumont Video: Criterion Collection - Spine # 581 / Masters of Cinema Spine # 59
Disc: Region: 'A'-locked / Region 'B'-locked (as verified by the Momitsu region FREE Blu-ray player)Runtime: 1:49:46.997 / 1:49:19.958 Disc Size: 34,509,436,196 bytes / 48,910,826,265 bytes Feature Size: 32,380,606,464 bytes / 31,543,185,408 bytes Video Bitrate: 34.99 Mbps / 34.99 Mbps Chapters: 20 / 8Case: Transparent Blu-ray case Release date: September 20th, 2011 / April 8th, 2013
Video (both): Aspect ratio: 1.33:1 matted to 1.78 Resolution: 1080p / 23.976 fps Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
Audio: LPCM Audio French 1152 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 1152 kbps / 24-bit Commentary: Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps LPCM Audio French 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit
Subtitles (both): English (SDH), none
Extras:
• Audio commentary featuring film scholar Adrian Martin
• Original theatrical trailer (4:06)
Bitrate: Criterion - Region 'A' - Blu-ray TOP vs. Masters of Cinema - Region 'B' - Blu-ray BOTTOM
Description: In Les cousins, Claude Chabrol crafts a sly moral fable about a provincial boy who comes to live with his sophisticated bohemian cousin in Paris. Through these seeming opposites, Chabrol conjures a darkly comic character study that questions notions of good and evil, love and jealousy, and success in the modern world. A mirror image of Le Beau Serge, Chabrol’s debut, Les cousins recasts that film’s stars, Jean-Claude Brialy and Gérard Blain, in startlingly reversed roles. This dagger-sharp drama won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and was an important early entry in the French New Wave. ***
Made barely a year after Claude
Chabrol’s debut
Le Beau Serge
Les Cousins featured the earlier film’s same starring
pair of Jean-Claude Brialy and Gérard Blain, here reversing
the good-guy/bad-guy roles of the previous picture. The
result is a simmering, venomous study in human temperament
that not only won the Golden Bear at the 1959 Berlin Film
Festival, but also drew audiences in droves, and effectively
launched Chabrol’s incredible fifty-year-long career.
The Film: The town mouse and his country cousin. Or, the story of two students, one who was very, very good, and one who was very, very bad; but the bad one passed his exams, got the girl (when he wanted her), and survived to live profitably ever after. A fine, richly detailed tableau of student life in Paris, and Chabrol's first statement (in his second film) of his sardonic view of life as a matter of the survival of the fittest. The centrepiece, as so often in the early days of the nouvelle vague, is an orgiastic party climaxed, as the guest sleeps it off next morning, by a sublimely cruel and characteristic 'joke' by the bad cousin (Brialy) when he performs an eerie Wagnerian charade with candelabra and Gestapo cap to wake a Jewish student into nightmare. Excerpt from TimeOut Film Guide located HERECharles (Gerard Blain) comes to live with his cousin Paul (Jean-Claude Brialy), falls in love with a fellow student (Juliette Mayniel), but sees her become Paul's mistress in Claude Chabrol's 1958 study of the ill effects of urban sophistication on an uncorrupted country youth. This is Chabrol's second film, and its subtle development of character points toward the dense structures of his later films with their reluctance either to condemn or extol without reservation. Excerpt from The Chicago Reader located HERE
Image : NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc. Les Cousins appears surprisingly strong on Blu-ray from Criterion. The 1080P image has excellent textured grain visible and is very pleasing with Criterion's, hallmark, deft contrast. This is dual-layered with a high bitrate. Visually, this is impeccably clean from an obvious strong source (Gaumont, I believe) and actually was released in Australia in an English-friendly DVD edition. The, over 50-year old, piece of important cinema shows some healthy detail and the only blackmark being some minor noise in the darkest of scenes. Otherwise this is typically adept transfer providing a near-flawless film-like presentation. I can't see enough of a difference to match all the Criterion captures. The new Masters of Cinema 1080P has the exact same bitrate. It may be marginally brighter, but looks almost exactly the same to me. Excellent.
CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION
Criterion - Region 'A' - Blu-ray TOP vs. Masters of Cinema - Region 'B' - Blu-ray BOTTOM
Criterion - Region 'A' - Blu-ray TOP vs. Masters of Cinema - Region 'B' - Blu-ray BOTTOM
Criterion - Region 'A' - Blu-ray TOP vs. Masters of Cinema - Region 'B' - Blu-ray BOTTOM
More Blu-ray Captures
Audio :Criterion are again faithful with a mono track rendered in a linear PCM in original French at 1152 kbps . There is the perception of some depth but the film is essentially dialogue-driven without much to spark anything dynamic in the soundstage via uncompressed. There are optional English subtitles and my Momitsu has identified it as being a region 'A'-locked like all Criterions to date.Like the image quality - I can discern very little, if any significant, differences. Both offer a clean, lossless linear PCM mono track. The subtitle translation is slightly different (font, size etc.) - see sample above - and the Masters of Cinema disc is region 'B'-locked.
Extras : Included is an audio commentary featuring film scholar Adrian Martin who meanders a bit before settling into a more specific discussion covering Rohmer, Truffaut, Godard - Chabrol's new wave colleagues including tidbits about Les Cousins. Martin discusses the ups and downs of Chabrol's career - references to Hitchcock and Strangers on a Train and some of the similarities - even Fritz Lang is broached. It's, predictably, good and I enjoyed and learned a lot from it. Aside from that is a HD theatrical trailer and a liner notes booklet featuring an essay by film critic Terrence Rafferty and excerpts from actor Jean-Claude Brialy’s memoir, about costar Gérard Blain.
Eric Cotenas has covered the MoC extras: “Chabrol Launches the Wave:
Part II” continues the narrative from the first part on
LE BEAU SERGE. Chabrol could
find no distributor for the film (which was financed by his wife’s
inheritance), but a subsidy would cover the costs if it was reinvested
in a new production; so Chabrol began production on LES COUSINS
right away. A bulk of the forty-six minute featurette is taken up by the
discussion of screenwriting collaborator Paul Gegauff (who the
documentary likens through the use of clips to Brialy’s character in the
feature). Many of the same interviewees from the first featurette are on
hand here and tell stories of Gegauff’s provocative nature (the scene of
Brialy wearing the SS hat at the party in the film was inspired by
Gegauff dressing up as an SS officer at a notorious party called “Le Bal
du Scandale” in which it seems the guests were supposed to be
provocative). Chabrol’s father reportedly described Gegauff as Chabrol’s
evil twin while his first wife (interviewed here) describes him as a
harmful influence. Chabrol himself (in recent archival footage) says
that Gegauff didn’t brainwash him so much as “polish” his brain.
Discussion moves on to LES COUSINS, which some of the speakers
feel represented quite a leap in style from
LE BEAU SERGE. The “New
Wave” aspect of the featurette is framed in the way the shooting
differed from not only
LE BEAU SERGE but other New Wave
films (Chabrol found it was cheaper to shoot in studio – even a tiny one
– than try to find and rent an apartment that met the requirements of
the story) as well as the film’s critical reception. Also discussed in
contrast to the perception of New Wave “technique” is Chabrol’s
Lang-influenced camera style (with some good use of clips to illustrate
this in the film). Chabrol (in footage in which the editor resorts
constantly to jump cuts either to form supporting statements or just to
speed up the pace) discusses not liking LES COUSINS and
LES BICHES because he felt that
they were too fashionable; however, he quips that he grew to like them
more when they went from being fashionable films to “historic films”.
Presumably Gaumont has more Chabrol films planned for release since the
two documentaries hold back certain details (Gegauff’s death and
Chabrol’s later marriage to Stephane Audran). - Eric Cotenas
Criterion - Region 'A' - Blu-ray LEFT vs. Masters of Cinema - Region 'B' - Blu-ray RIGHT
BOTTOM LINE: So the only difference is in the extras - Criterion offer the Martin commentary and Masters of Cinema included ove4r an hour of video supplements (Chabrol Launches The Wave: Part 2 (46:42) and the L’Homme qui vendit la Tour Eiffel [The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower], Chabrol’s 1964 short film). Another stellar package and only a strong desire for the commentary should sway you from the edition closest to your geographic region code! Gary Tooze August 25th, 2011 Gary Tooze (and Eric Cotenas) March 26th, 2013
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About the Reviewer: Hello, fellow Beavers! I have been interested in film since I viewed a Chaplin festival on PBS when I was around 9 years old. I credit DVD with expanding my horizons to fill an almost ravenous desire to seek out new film experiences. I currently own approximately 9500 DVDs and have reviewed over 3500 myself. I appreciate my discussion Listserv for furthering my film education and inspiring me to continue running DVDBeaver. Plus a healthy thanks to those who donate and use our Amazon links.
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