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(aka "L'Amérique insolite" or "America as Seen by a Frenchman")

 

Directed by François Reichenbach
France 1960

 

At the end of the 1950s, celebrated French documentarian François Reichenbach (F for Fake, Portrait: Orson Welles), whose lens captured the likes of Brigitte Bardot and Johnny Hallyday, spent eighteen months traveling the United States, documenting its diverse regions, their inhabitants and their pastimes. The result, America As Seen by a Frenchman, is a wide-eyed perhaps even naïve journey through a multitude of different Americas, filtered through a French sensibility and serving as a fascinating exploration of a culture that is both immediately familiar and thoroughly alien.

Prison rodeos; Miss America pageants; visits to Disneyland and a school for striptease; a town inhabited solely by twins; rows of newborns in incubators, like products on an assembly line all these weird and wondrous sights, and more, are captured, sans judgment, by Reichenbach's camera, aided by whimsical narration (provided by, among others, Jean Cocteau) and a jaunty musical score by the late, great Michel Legrand (Une femme est une femme).

Titled L'Amérique insolite literally unusual America in its native tongue, America As Seen by a Frenchman lovingly renders the various eccentricities of Americana circa the mid-twentieth century, and proves the old adage that reality really is stranger than fiction.

Posters

Theatrical Release: May 1960 (Cannes Film Festival)

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Review: Arrow Video - Region FREE - Blu-ray

Box Cover

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Distribution Arrow Video - Region FREE - Blu-ray
Runtime 1:30:46.149        
Video

2.35:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray

Disc Size: 36,200,479,544 bytes

Feature: 27,198,385,728 bytes

Video Bitrate: 35.83 Mbps

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate Blu-ray:

Audio

LPCM Audio French 1152 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 1152 kbps / 24-bit
Subtitles English, None
Features Release Information:
Studio: Arrow Video

 

2.35:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray

Disc Size: 36,200,479,544 bytes

Feature: 27,198,385,728 bytes

Video Bitrate: 35.83 Mbps

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

 

Edition Details:

• New video appreciation of the film by author and critic Philip Kemp (23:34)
• Image gallery (1:13)
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Ignatius Fitzpatrick
• FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Caspar Salmon


 Blu-ray Release Date: June 1st, 2020
 Transparent Blu-ray Case

Chapters 12

 

 

Comments:

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Arrow Video Blu-ray (July 2020): Arrow Video have transferred François Reichenbach's 1960 America as Seen by a Frenchman to Blu-ray. It is on a dual-layered disc with a max'ed out bitrate. The quality is representative of the production - it is consistent with true colors. It looked quite appealing on my system - not dynamic by any stretch but clean and faithful to the source in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

On their Blu-ray, Arrow Video use a linear PCM mono track (24-bit) in the original French language (narration) - live songs are generally in English. It is flat with few effects but likely an authentic replication. There is a score by the iconic Michel Legrand (Cleo From 5 to 7, Castle Keep, La Piscine, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Young Girls of Rochefort, A Woman is a Woman, Ice Station Zebra)  sounding a bit deeper with more consistent dialogue. Arrow Video offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Arrow Video Blu-ray offers a new video appreciation of the film by author and critic Philip Kemp for 24-minutes and he talks about François Reichenbach's "Coup De Foudre" fascination with America. Kemp discusses Reichenbach's short Les marines (made three years previously) which explores the training and lives of United States Marines. He covers quite a lot on L'Amérique insolite and its less critical view by the writer/director. There is also an image gallery and the package has a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Ignatius Fitzpatrick. The first pressing has an illustrated collector s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Caspar Salmon.

I was anticipating a back-handed indictment of the USA in America as Seen by a Frenchman but rather it was a kind of 'love letter' by François Reichenbach. He does show the less-celebrated side near the end of the documentary at the delinquent youth service scenes.  But overall, my impressions were that people are the same everywhere - and Americans imbue exploring their freedoms more than most - essentially because they can. I really enjoyed seeing such a variety of locations; Hollywood, New York, Daytona Beach, Houston, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Desmoines etc. Today it would be seen more as a capsule of 50's America - almost Americana - evoking some of the Cinerama series. The Arrow Blu-ray was a very pleasant surprise for me - and I enjoyed learning from Philip Kemp's appreciation. If you are, at all, keen, you may like this more than you anticipate - it is steeped in positive, good clean, nostalgia - which I have a strong weakness for.

Gary Tooze

 

Menus / Extras

 

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Box Cover

CLICK to order from:

  

Distribution Arrow Video - Region FREE - Blu-ray


 


 

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