Belle De Jour: The 50th Anniversary Edition

❉ Belle De Jour fully restored on DVD and BD on October 2, Buñuel Boxset on BD October 23.

STUDIOCANAL is proud to announce the release of the newly restored 4k version of Luis Buñuel’s highly celebrated exploration of female desire, BELLE DE JOUR. Starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel and Michel Piccoli, this groundbreaking surrealist film was Buñuel’s most successful of his career and won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1967.

Belle De Jour: The 50th Anniversary Edition will be released on DVD, Blu-Ray and Digital download on October 2 complete with brand new extras material and 6 exclusive Art cards. This release follows the premiere of the new restoration at the Cannes Film Festival earlier in May and a nationwide theatrical release of the film by Park Circus from September 8.

Belle De Jour: The 50th Anniversary Edition (1967) New 4k Restoration

Séverine (Catherine Deneuve, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Dancer in the Dark), the very reserved wife of Pierre (Jean Sorel, The Day of the Jackal), is prone to masochistic fantasies which reveal her sexual frustration. Driven by curiosity, she secretly pays a visit to a brothel and, unknown to her husband, soon becomes “Beauty of the Day”, the third girl in Madame Anaïs’ discreet house of ill-repute. Seemingly having found an inner peace through the satisfaction of her clients’ desires, things soon turn sour when Marcel (Pierre Clementi), a loutish regular visitor to the bordello, insists on having Séverine all to himself. Panic-stricken, Séverine quits her dangerous day job but is it too late?

The Restoration

STUDIOCANAL, in partnership with the CNC, the French Cinémathèque, the Franco-American Cultural Fund and the House of YVES SAINT LAURENT took the scan from the original negative and produced the 4K restoration of BELLE DE JOUR. The work has been handled by the French laboratory HIVENTY.

Extras

– Commentary by professor Peter W. Evans

– The Last Script

– A Story of Perversion or Emancipation? – Interview with Dr Sylvain Mimoun

– New Trailer

– New Jean-Claude Carrière interview

– New Masterclass with Diego Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière

Plus: Brand New Blu-Ray Boxset Buñuel – The Essential Collection

To accompany the reissue and to celebrate work of the Spanish surrealist director loved by critics and cineastes alike, Buñuel – The Essential Collection, a boxset of 7 of the director’s most significant films, will be released on October 23. Complete with new extras for each film, the boxset will include: Belle De Jour: The 50th Anniversary Edition, Tristana, Diary Of A Chambermaid, The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie, Phantom Of Liberty, The Milky Way and That Obscure Object Of Desire.

Product Details

 Diary Of A Chambermaid/Le Journal D’une Femme de Chambre (1964)

101mins / B&W / BD / Part of THE BUÑUEL COLLECTION

In this adaptation of Octave Mirbeau’s novel of the same name, Jeanne Moreau (Jules et Jim, Elevator to the Gallows) is Céléstine, a beautiful Parisian chambermaid who, upon arrival at her new job at an estate in rural 1930s France, ingrains herself in a scandal with her philandering employer (Michel Piccoli, Le Doulos). Diary of a Chambermaid is a raw-edged tangle of fetishism and murder—and a scathing look at the burgeoning French fascism of the era.

EXTRAS

– An Angel in the Marshes documentary

– New Jean-Claude Carrière interview

– New Aesthetics of the Irrational: ICA Q&A with Jean-Claude Carrière hosted by Jonathan Romney

 The Milky Way/La Voie Lactee (1969)

98mins / Colour / BD / Part of THE BUÑUEL COLLECTION

The first of what Buñuel later declared a trilogy (along with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Phantom of Liberty) about “the search for truth,” The Milky Way follows the journey of two vagabond travellers (Paul Frankeur, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and Laurent Terzieff, Détective) on a pilgrimage, not necessarily for religious reasons, but more as a means of escape. Along the way, the pair witness a series of bizarre incidents and, at key moments, encounter both Jesus and the Virgin Mary. The plot is non-linear and functions as a highly symbolic travelogue across time and space, set over the last two thousand years, encompassing much of Christian history that, while using satire to critique religion from a sceptical perspective, also attempts to extract verities out of the act of spiritual quest and search for meaning.

EXTRAS

– Buñuel, atheist thanks to God documentary

– Trailer

– New Jean-Claude Carrière interview

– New Critical Analysis by professor Peter W. Evans

 Tristana (1970)

99mins / colour / BD / Part of THE BUÑUEL COLLECTION

Tristana (Catherine Deneuve The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Dancer in the Dark) is an orphan adopted by nobleman don Lope Garrido (Fernando Rey The French Connection). Don Lope falls in love with her and treats her as wife as well as daughter from the age of 19. But, by age 21 Tristana starts finding her voice and demands to study music, art and other subjects with which she wishes to become independent. She meets the young artist Horacio Díaz (Franco Nero Django), falls in love, and eventually leaves Toledo to live with him. When she falls ill and loses a leg, Tristana has to return to don Lope and finds her prospects changed.

EXTRAS

– Rituals documentary doc (20 mins)

– Trailer

– New Interview with Franco Nero

 The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie/Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie (1972)

102mins / Colour / BD / Part of THE BUÑUEL COLLECTION

Winner of the 1972 Oscar for Best Foreign Film, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, written by Jean-Claude Carrière, is widely thought of as Buñuel’s surreal masterpiece. Consisting of several thematically linked scenes taking place in a non-logical world, the film is centred around six middle-class people and their consistently interrupted attempts to have a meal together. The cast includes Fernando Rey (The French Connection), Stéphane Audran (Le Boucher), Delphine Seyrig (Stolen Kisses), and Jean-Pierre Cassel head the extraordinary cast of this most ‘Buñuel’ of Buñel’s canon.

EXTRAS

– A Walk Amongst the Shadows doc

– Critical analysis by professor Peter W.Evans.

– Trailer

– New Jean-Claude Carrière interview

 Phantom Of Liberty/Le Fantôme de la liberté (1974)

104mins / Colour / BD / Part of THE BUÑUEL COLLECTION

Buñuel’s surrealist comedy, The Phantom of Liberty, features an elegant soiree with guests seated at toilet bowls, poker-playing monks using religious medals as chips, and police officers looking for a missing girl who is right under their noses. This perverse, playfully absurd comedy starring Adriana Asti (Caligula), Julien Bertheau (That Obscure Object of Desire) and Jean-Claude Brialy (A Woman is a Woman) uses a non-linear plot structure made up of a series of increasingly outlandish and far-fetched incidents intended to challenge the viewer’s pre-conceived notions about the stability of social mores and reality.

EXTRAS

– New Jean-Claude Carrière interview

– New Critical Analysis by professor Peter W. Evans

– New Buñuel, la transgression des rêves: A new documentary by Pierre-Henri Gibert

– Photo Gallery

 That Obscure Object Of Desire/Cet Obscur Objet du Désir (1977)

102 mins / Colour / BD / Part of THE BUÑUEL COLLECTION

Luis Buñuel’s final film continues the director’s preoccupation with the darker side of desire. Fernando Rey (The French Connection) plays Mathieu, a widower tortured by his desire for the elusive Conchita (Carole Bouquet, For Your Eyes Only). Buñuel uses two different actresses in the lead—Carole Bouquet, a sophisticated French beauty, and Angela Molina (Live Flesh), a Spanish coquette to tell this tale of sexual politics.

EXTRAS

– Interview with Carlos Saura

– The arbitrariness of desire by Jean-Claude Carrière

– Lady Doubles – interview with Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina

– Portrait of an impatient filmmaker, Luis Buñuel – Interview with Pierre Lady & Edmond Richard

– New Jean-Claude Carrière interview

– New Aesthetics of the Irrational: ICA Q&A with Jean-Claude Carrière & Diego Buñuel hosted by Tim Robey

Belle De Jour: The 50th Anniversary Edition will be released by Studio Canal on DVD, Blu-Ray and Digital download on October 2 complete with brand new extras material and 6 exclusive Art cards.  100 mins. Buñuel – The Essential Collection, a boxset of 7 of the director’s most significant films, will be released on October 23 by Studio Canal.


 News source: Tim Mosley Publicity

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