Claude Chabrol

[mizo]

Snapped up (by me). Thanks for the tip!

[Calvin]

Carlotta are releasing a box set this December with new 4K restorations of L'enfer, La Cérémonie, Rien ne va plus, Merci pour le chocolat, and La fleur du mal. English subtitles listed!

[domino harvey]

Of course we only need one of those because they picked titles with existent English-friendly blus save one!

[modernmalaise]

Carlotta are releasing a box set this December with new 4K restorations of L'enfer, La Cérémonie, Rien ne va plus, Merci pour le chocolat, and La fleur du mal. English subtitles listed!

Is anyone able to confirm if this set has English subs? I don't see any mention of it on Carlotta's site or in tenia's review, and it's not on the Amazon listing anymore.

[tenia]

It doesn't have English subs, indeed.
Never trust Amazon regarding the details of the soundtracks and subtitles included. However, Carlotta almost always get their backcover uploaded a bit early on their Amazon products pages, so you can directly check it for this kind of things. That's the case for the Chabrol set and as you can see, the backcover only mentions French SDH subs.

On a more general note, there might be a couple of Carlotta BDs with English subs, but they clearly are exceptions.

[MichaelB]

French SDH is good enough for me, so I’m definitely tempted.

[mhofmann]

It's a beautiful set -- only the Eclair grading for three of the films is a bit overdone.

[modernmalaise]

Thanks tenia for the tip, that should prevent false hope in the future. While I can work with French SDH, that's not the case for friends and family.

I guess my main concern was the color. Looking at the screencaps for La cérémonie, the excessive yellow was a bit of a shock despite the clear improvement in quality. I did think the older HD masters looked fine enough, but that sentiment is fading. I'm definitely torn although it sounds like a must have--still, thanks everyone!

[Black Hat]

Why is Chabrol woefully represented on home video? My understanding is his films were quite popular in the states.

[therewillbeblus]

He's had a fair amount of good stuff make it out on blu-ray here, just frustratingly not most of his best work

[martin]

The German blu-ray of Le scandale (Champagner Mörder) from Koch Media has the English version as the main feature and the longer French cut as a bonus. The French version is also 1080p - not upscaled - but of lesser picture quality compared to the English cut (certainly unrestored with some speckles and dust). Ufortunately the French version does not have any subs at all.

Le scandale has also been relesed on blu-ray in France but the French disc only contains the French version - also unsubbed. I assume the PQ of the French cut is roughly the same on the German and the French blu-rays. There's a somewhat favourable review of the French blu-ray here, while some comments on amazon.fr are rather harsh re. picture quality.

[reaky]

Failed to cheer myself up by watching the bleak, brilliant Que la Bête Meure on the Arrow DVD box. The PQ throughout the set is lamentable, but if this collection was upgraded to blu-ray with good transfers and a raft of extras, it’d sweep every award going in its year (and probably sell very well).

[kekid]

It is incomprehensible why these Chabrols from the sixties have not appeared on Blu Rays. Lots of his lesser films have been restored. Lots of lesser directors have appeared. Either there is some unfortunate rights issue, or the qualities of the source material are not adequate, or the people making these decisions have an unexplained dislike for his art. Who knows?

[domino harvey]

Chabrol’s English-language commercial for Winstons cigarettes

[domino harvey]

A treasure trove of additional Chabrol TV works have been upped on back channels, albeit without subs for now, but still insane to realize I've seen over 70 Chabrol works and there's still somehow more out there

[domino harvey]

According to this lengthy interview with Chabrol, presumably produced for a German DVD release of Under Capricorn, Chabrol directed one shot of Hitchcock’s Topaz that remains in the film, though he doesn’t specify what it is other than that it isn’t very good (which doesn’t help in this film!)

[starmanof51]

It is incomprehensible why these Chabrols from the sixties have not appeared on Blu Rays. Lots of his lesser films have been restored. Lots of lesser directors have appeared. Either there is some unfortunate rights issue, or the qualities of the source material are not adequate, or the people making these decisions have an unexplained dislike for his art. Who knows?

I think a fair amount of the prime stuff never had anything but pretty bad DVDs, never mind blu

[colinr0380]

According to this lengthy interview with Chabrol, presumably produced for a German DVD release of Under Capricorn, Chabrol directed one shot of Hitchcock’s Topaz that remains in the film, though he doesn’t specify what it is other than that it isn’t very good (which doesn’t help in this film!)

I'd love it if it turned out to be that lobby as seen from across the street sequence, which would fit in with the voyeuristic Chabrol style! (Though of course there is just as much evidence of it being Hitchcockian and similar to Rear Window, so we're no further in tracking it down!)

[domino harvey]

"2+2=4", Chabrol's feature-length entry in Simone Signoret's 70s French TV series Madame le juge, has been subtitled on back channels

[nowhereisaplace]

I haven’t seen this posted here yet, but for anyone that can read French there is a fairly new bio out by Antoine de Baecque, who wrote a magnificent 2 volume history of Cahiers du Cinema, and bios of Truffaut, Godard and Rohmer. For those of you familiar with any of the books I mentioned, expect the same level of detail here; I feel de Baecque is best man for the job here and only hope he now writes a biography of Rivette to fill out the key movers from that initial “Scherer gang”.

I haven’t finished this yet (I read French much too slowly), but so far it’s been excellent. Hopefully it will be translated in English, but wanted to give a heads up nevertheless!

I won’t post a link because I never know what is cool with that, but it is easily found on Amazon et al.

[Stefan]

I haven’t seen this posted here yet, but for anyone that can read French there is a fairly new bio out by Antoine de Baecque, who wrote a magnificent 2 volume history of Cahiers du Cinema, and bios of Truffaut, Godard and Rohmer. For those of you familiar with any of the books I mentioned, expect the same level of detail here; I feel de Baecque is best man for the job here and only hope he now writes a biography of Rivette to fill out the key movers from that initial “Scherer gang”.

I haven’t finished this yet (I read French much too slowly), but so far it’s been excellent. Hopefully it will be translated in English, but wanted to give a heads up nevertheless!

I won’t post a link because I never know what is cool with that, but it is easily found on Amazon et al.

I can only second that appraisal (and the wish regarding a Rivette bio). De Baecque did another splendid job with this book about Chabrol. It is one of those which you can flip open at any given page will be marvelled about its detailled reports. A pure joy to read (despite the ignominious cover).

[domino harvey]

After seeing Chabrol cameo in the Paul Gégauff-scripted Monica Vitti goes Mod revenge film (not as fun as that sounds) La Femme ecarlate, I got curious and discovered that, in addition to his numerous cameo appearances, he actually top-lined a 1988 French film as an actor, Alouette, je te plumerai. I think we all need a movie STARRING Claude Chabrol in our lives. If you are on back channels, please consider adding to the pot for subs

[Stefan]

Alouette, je te plumerai can be found on this box-set: https://store.potemkine.fr/dvd/33332900 ... rre-zucca/ The director Pierre Zucca had been the set-photographer of some films by Chabrol (and by Rivette, Truffaut, Garrell etc.) in the late 1960's onwards; there is also a spendid book of film photo works, highly recommended: https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/B000TTNU ... 206&sr=8-1

[domino harvey]

Completely missed this release and don’t recall it ever being mentioned, but MHz released Chabrol’s Fantomas remake/update on region free DVD with English subs. It’s OOP but a seller on Amazon Prime has it new for only $14.99

Here’s my write up from the Chabrol list

Dr M (1990) and Fantômas (1980)-- Chabrol's pastiche films of Mabuse and, well, Fantômas, respectively-- are interesting, but Fantômas is the more successful of the two. Chabrol only directed the first and fourth feature-length installments, but the casting of Helmut Berger as the titular thief and Jacques Dufilho (Carrying over the casting of a comic French actor in the Juve role from the 60s adaptations) is consistent, and there’s something of an overarching story (and Bunuel's entries are about as good as Chabrol's, really). The first three installments give us much of the same serial points as the original Feuillade films with some fun differences. But the fourth presents us with a different last act, and I must say of the lot I by far favored this last tale of a kidnapped king, mistaken royal identity, and a priceless Hungarian jewel, though I liked the long sequence in the first installment in which Chabrol slavers over a complete tutorial in how to set up a guillotine— a process that honestly never occurred to me to be something I wanted to know, but was glad to learn! Dr M starts promisingly with some anti-Lang anti-sound bridging during a series of mass suicides, but the film is ultimately rather ugly and drab and cursed with a damned lead performance by some German guy who looks like Lorenzo Lamas in Renegade. Alan Bates threatens to save the film with his noble attempts to be as over the top as possible, especially late in the film when he dons a truly unforgettable disguise, but the film still doesn’t quite work.

[domino harvey]

Turns out Alouette, je te plumerai was even more aligned with my interests than I thought, because it also stars Mireille from French in Action as the nurse who invites the convalescing Chabrol into her and Fabrice Luchini’s home so as to inherit his nonexistent millions in a set up borrowed from Bande a part (helpfully excerpted in the film itself). But ultimately this is amounts to no more than a small, cute, instantly forgettable lark