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| Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur,
Pierre Renoir |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Frédérick
Lemaître: It's my destiny to revive the giants of this Earth.
They played their parts, it's my turn now!
Three
men close to the theatrical world in 1820s Paris each develop a passion
for a beautiful free-spirited woman.
 Often
referred to as 'the French Gone with the Wind', this sweeping
epic does have several things in common with Selznick's magnum opus.
For one thing, they're both three-hour-plus historical romances focusing
on an involved love story spanning several years of an illustrious 19th-Century
historical period. Both films have impressive production values, with
immaculate cinematography and set design, and an overwhelming, brilliant
use of finely choreographed crowd scenes. But the comparison between
these two great films can also be somewhat misleading. For Children
of Paradise has a sensibility as typically French as Gone with
the Wind is typically American.
For notwithstanding the film's amazing production values, the focus
in Children of Paradise is first and foremost on the complicated,
adult relationships between the main characters. This includes quite
a bit of protracted dialogue scenes dealing with the nature of love
and romance from various points of view, as well as intriguing metaphorical
comparisons between theater and real life (and, implicitly, on the nature
of film). The film's plot developments are far less linear than Hollywood
narratives, with main characters drifting in and out of the film's main
focus, and several major story elements left unresolved at the end.
But as every single scene is a mini-masterpiece of filmmaking in its
own right, the picture maintains its fascination from start to finish,
and provides repeated viewings with increasing rewards. Most highly
recommended. |
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A
movie-only version is available for Region 2.
The Region 1 release from the Criterion Collection is a double-disc,
feature-laden Special Edition that features a fully restored transfer
and soundtrack. The Criterion version served as a basis for this review.
The
fullscreen image is framed at its original Academy aspect ratio of approx.
1.33:1. The film underwent substantial, much-needed restorarion efforts
by its French distributor Pathé in 1991, and the Criterion Collection
went one step further for this DVD release, digitally correction over
30,000 flaws, scratches and inconsistencies in the badly worn source
material. The results are stunning: even though some jump cuts were
beyond complete repair, this movie clearly hasn't looked this good since
it was first release. There's a very fine level of grain throughout,
but black levels are solid and consistent, and the excellent, subtle
contrast provides a terrific viewing experience.
The mono sound mix has been similarly restored, with noise removal technology
making the dialogues sound crisp, clean and clearly intelligible. Even
the music sounds excellent despite its limited fidelity.
Children
of Paradise was shot as two feature-length parts, initially shown
in theaters separately (with an explanatory caption preceding Part II)
and later distributed as a single 190-minute feature. Part 1, The
Boulevard of Crime, is featured on disc 1 of this two-disc DVD set,
and Part 2, The Man in White on Disc 2. Director Terry Gilliam,
a huge fan of this film, recorded a special video introduction
on disc 1 during which he talks enthusiastically about what makes this
film special for him, and how it came to influence his own work. The
first disc also features an impressive restoration demonstration
that shows the difference made by Pathé's 1991 restoration efforts,
as well as the further work done for this release by the Criterion Collection.
Separate audio commentary tracks have been included accompanying
the two parts of the film. More audio essays than screen-specific commentary
tracks, both provide an abundant wealth of information with surprisingly
little redundancy between the two. The track on disc 1 was recorded
in 1991 for the LaserDisc release by film scholar and historian Brian
Stonehill. His well-prepared semi-lecture moves forward at a brisk-pace,
throwing in the occasional screen-specific remark while offering a finely-structured
discussion of the film's production history and highlights. Film scholar
Charles Affron recorded a similar commentary track for disc 2 especially
for this DVD release, and his finely worded, to-the-point audio essay
further fleshes out the film's background and thematics. Together, these
two audio tracks provide about as much background as anyone could conceivably
like to find out about this great film, deepening one's appreciation
for it while offering a vast deal of information.
The rest of the extras are all on disc 2, including the full text of
screenwriter Jacques Prévert's original treatment, which
is basically an eloquent outline of the film's elaborate plot. The other
notable inclusions on this release are two image galleries: Alexandre
Tauner's original production designs, fascinating to browse through
and beautifully presented, and a nice selection of production stills,
including behind-the-scenes shots of the production crew and cast. Filmographies
are on board for director Marcel Carné and screenwriter Jacques
Prévert, and the theatrical trailer is mostly notable
for giving away the entire movie's key plot points in just a few minutes,
all accompanied by an unbelievably tacky American voice-over narration.
The nicely designed booklet provides a special introduction to
the film and concise cast and crew biographies by eminent film scholar
Peter Cowie, as well as a substantial excerpt from the interview with
Marcel Carné conducted by Brian Stonehill in 2000. All in all,
a terrific DVD presentation of an all-time classic of world cinema. The
nicely designed static menu screens are accompanied by a music cue from
the score that starts off with an oddly halting motif that sounds like
the disc is actually experiencing a hiccup. Navigation on both discs is
as polished and nicely designed as we have come to expect from Criterion
Collection DVD releases.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed:
April 5, 2002
Click
here for IMDB info on Les
Enfants du Paradis.
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