363 Mouchette

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lazier than a toad
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#51 Post by lazier than a toad » Tue Jan 09, 2007 3:48 pm

Has anybody compared this to the Nouveaux disc?

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Ornette
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#52 Post by Ornette » Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:45 pm

I'm quite sure the Criterion will look way better than the Nouveaux Pictures -- which aren't that impressive in my eyes -- in most areas. Apart from the chroma noise, the thing that bothers me the most is that yellowish tinge that sure doesn't look right to me (also evident in their edition of Au Hasard Balthazar, here in comparsion to the Criterion). Anyway, I guess Gary will have it up any time now.
Last edited by Ornette on Wed Jan 10, 2007 1:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

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HerrSchreck
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#53 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Jan 10, 2007 12:52 am

I'd imagine that the CC MOUCHETTE will be virtually indistinguishable from-- and a preconverted port of-- the MK2, which was the case with their preconverted port of PICKPOCKET.

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Tribe
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#54 Post by Tribe » Wed Jan 10, 2007 1:50 am

Subtitles aren't turned off according to Beaver? Am I reading this correctly?

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marty

#55 Post by marty » Wed Jan 10, 2007 1:59 am

HerrSchreck wrote:I'd imagine that the CC MOUCHETTE will be virtually indistinguishable from-- and a preconverted port of-- the MK2, which was the case with their preconverted port of PICKPOCKET.
Yes, I would imagine that would be the case since MK2, the sales agent, would have sold the rights to Criterion as they did with The Double Life of Veronique.

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kinjitsu
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#56 Post by kinjitsu » Wed Jan 10, 2007 1:39 pm


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solaris72
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#57 Post by solaris72 » Wed Jan 10, 2007 1:51 pm

Tribe wrote:Subtitles aren't turned off according to Beaver? Am I reading this correctly?
That's in reference to the Nouveaux Pictures disc.

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Matt
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#58 Post by Matt » Wed Jan 10, 2007 2:07 pm

kinjitsu wrote:DVD Beaver comparison
I'm glad I held off on importing that disc. It looks akin to watching the film through a pair of brown pantyhose.

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foggy eyes
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#59 Post by foggy eyes » Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:09 am

It doesn't actually look as bad as the screen captures suggest. Fawn pantyhose, perhaps.

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Michael Kerpan
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#60 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:58 am

I have the UK DVD -- and think that judged solely on its own terms, it looks quite lovely overall.

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domino harvey
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#61 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:41 pm

Wow that might be the most screen caps from a single title I've ever seen at the Beaver, I smell a love affair

Blublub
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#62 Post by Blublub » Tue Jan 23, 2007 1:13 am

Ok, what's the story with the final shot? The shot of the lake is obviously looping (back and forth) a few seconds of footage. I found this hugely distracting and a real disappointment given Bresson's other endings.

Say what you will about him, but he seems to be quite the perfectionist. It is very strange that he would allow such a cheesy effect to distract from the most important scene in the film. If it was intentional, then what in God's name was he trying to express?

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HerrSchreck
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#63 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Jan 23, 2007 1:32 am

I can vouch that this ending loop is on the touring print.

peerpee
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#64 Post by peerpee » Tue Jan 23, 2007 8:55 am

I've wondered about the "loop" at the very end for years now, and had hoped that Tony Rayns would touch on it, but as it comes at the very end of the film, and there's a lot of other more important stuff to talk about, there clearly wasn't room to discuss it.

I want to know whether it was Bresson's intention, or something that's happened since 1967. It looks very digital to me... too clean.

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Scharphedin2
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#65 Post by Scharphedin2 » Tue Jan 23, 2007 9:29 am

peerpee wrote:I've wondered about the "loop" at the very end for years now, and had hoped that Tony Rayns would touch on it, but as it comes at the very end of the film, and there's a lot of other more important stuff to talk about, there clearly wasn't room to discuss it.

I want to know whether it was Bresson's intention, or something that's happened since 1967. It looks very digital to me... too clean.
I saw this on a 16 mm print back in 1987, and I distinctly remember this looping at the very end. So, it is definitely not something that has happened to the film in the digital age.

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zedz
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#66 Post by zedz » Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:02 pm

The looping has always been there. I'd always assumed it's intended to show us that Mouchette actually drowns (i.e. she stays under long enough to prove to the audience she's not going to pull a Holly Hunter on us). Running that piece of film back and forth several times is presumably the only way Bresson felt he could have 'held' the shot without actually drowning the actress.

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HerrSchreck
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#67 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:42 am

I'd find that-- if true-- incredible! The old solution of running an off camera air line from a perimeter piece of shoreline under the water to the bottom spot where the actress will land should have sufficed.

I don't think the issue will ever be explained barring the unearthing of some old interview with Bresson or new one with someone from the crew. To me it's just a flop moment in a overly dull and grey piece of pain-of-the-world seriousness so strained as to break blood vessels.

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HerrSchreck
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#68 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Jan 24, 2007 7:08 am

Un Femme Douce is magnificent, absolutely. There is narrative, structure, and compelling distribution of a Bressonian storyline.

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MichaelB
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#69 Post by MichaelB » Wed Jan 24, 2007 7:37 am

I can also confirm that the looping dates from well before the digital era - I can't remember when I first saw the film, but it was definitely the 1980s and I remember being puzzled by the effect back then.

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#70 Post by peerpee » Wed Jan 24, 2007 8:17 am

zedz wrote:The looping has always been there. I'd always assumed it's intended to show us that Mouchette actually drowns (i.e. she stays under long enough to prove to the audience she's not going to pull a Holly Hunter on us). Running that piece of film back and forth several times is presumably the only way Bresson felt he could have 'held' the shot without actually drowning the actress.
But, due to Bresson's editing leading into that shot, we don't see what it is that enters the water. We see Mouchette roll off the screen to the left, then hear the splash, then cut to a splash after (presumably) Mouchette has entered the water --- but in reality, it could very easily be a log or something that they threw in there. Hence, no need to worry about the actress drowning (because I doubt she even went in). So I find this looping quite odd (there are eleven moments where it loops back and forth in the last 20 seconds).

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Steven H
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#71 Post by Steven H » Wed Jan 24, 2007 11:21 am

Since Bresson refused to "fade" at this point in his career, maybe the looping is a substitute?

I've always thought it was very interesting that we never see see her actually enter the water, it's instead only inferred. It's enticing to think that at the last minute she throws a log in instead, but it seems more likely that Bresson didn't want the audience to see something so emotional the actual act. Why let us see something we've seen so many times before, when we know intuitively what's going to happen to this doomed creature? Like the looping, and the invisible suicide, there are so many mysteries to his films, and usually the only solution is to find some writing or interview where he comes clean. I don't mind being left to guess (as long as it was intended, which seems likely, instead of a problem with the print.)

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zedz
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#72 Post by zedz » Wed Jan 24, 2007 5:01 pm

Also, we should bear in mind that the 'looping' may not have been an effect planned in the shooting, but a 'solution' found in the editing. Maybe Bresson found that the shot he'd made of the splash was not long enough to serve his purposes, or perhaps there was some flaw in the shot that made it unusable in its complete form (perhaps a merry, quacking duck floated by halfway through). I also think that there's a strong possibility that the 'trick' was much less visible to original audiences than it is to modern, effects-conscious viewers.

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#73 Post by toiletduck! » Wed Jan 24, 2007 5:20 pm

zedz wrote:some flaw ... perhaps a merry, quacking duck
Just a slip of the tongue, I suppose?

-Toilet Dcuk

JabbaTheSlut
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#74 Post by JabbaTheSlut » Wed Jan 24, 2007 8:30 pm

I have to say that the noticeable looping didn't bother me so much. On the contrary, in a way it created quite a strong, haunting effect. The last scene of Mouchette is really one of the saddest and most beautiful endings I've seen. I hope CC will continue to release more Bressons in the near future.

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HerrSchreck
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#75 Post by HerrSchreck » Fri Jan 26, 2007 3:22 pm

zedz wrote:Also, we should bear in mind that the 'looping' may not have been an effect planned in the shooting, but a 'solution' found in the editing. Maybe Bresson found that the shot he'd made of the splash was not long enough to serve his purposes, or perhaps there was some flaw in the shot that made it unusable in its complete form (perhaps a merry, quacking duck floated by halfway through). I also think that there's a strong possibility that the 'trick' was much less visible to original audiences than it is to modern, effects-conscious viewers.
I find it a very odd moment in Bresson, who rarely allows artifice to intrude upon (or punctuate) an introspective moment. The emotional hallmark of Bresson-- along with others of his stylistic ilk, i e talkie era Dreyer, Melville, Tarkovsky, etc-- is to present a moment in it's fudnamental, uncorrupted purity, and allow it to speak for itself without "all the trimmings". This is the absolute opposite of say, silent Eisenstein, whereby to bring out dynamism or some fundamental idea lurking within the subtext inherent in image/cumulative narrative, the director employs visibly unnatural effects, via editing, camera movement, exaggerated pictorial composition, etc. A self conscious device like looping breaks the "contemplative" state of the viewer, because the film begins therein to call attention to itself As A Film.. we cease contemplating the contents of the world presented to us, and we notice the Ways & Means... once the attention has been diverted, the cumulative effect of these meditative spells become broken.

The reason I quoted zedz' statement above is the last line: I actually think this period of 50s-thru-early seventies even more saturated with special effects driven films, than the present day. We're talking a 20 year stretch of sci-fi, atomic monster movie, monster movie remake HELL (or heaven, depending on your point of view). You've got a run and glut of spaceship films, atomic monster films (THEM-types), space monster films, simple BLACK LAGOON type monster films, Japanese GOJIRA/RODAN/MOTHRA cheapoid monsters, plus all the Vincent Price, Hammer, etc etc, mixed in to constitute a saturation of special effects driven films (not to mention television series) which was not seen prior to the era of MOUCHETTE, nor after. It was actually pretty cool imo.

I think looping is going to be noticeable to any audience in any era because it is, quite simply, very very self consciious. There's almost no way to present it as a "seamless" moment in a melodramatic narrative utilizing "invisible" storytelling means of construction. And although Bresson is clearly unlike any Hollywood filmmakers, his films are usually devoid of such "loud" cinematic tools more typically (though, in the case of looping, infrequently) found in the avant garde canon... as in ANEMIC CINEMA with the girl on the swing and in the old woman ascending the stairs.

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