Le plaisir

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Ribs
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm

Le plaisir

#1 Post by Ribs » Mon Jul 17, 2017 10:21 am

Image

The French writer Guy de Maupassant has inspired many great filmmakers. Among those to adapt his short stories and novels were Jean-Luc Godard, Kenji Mizoguchi, Walerian Borowczyk, Harry Kümel, Luis Buñuel and Christian-Jacque. But it was arguably Max Ophuls, with his 1952 feature, Le Plaisir, who proved to be the most adept.

Le Plaisir takes three of de Maupassant s stories as its source: in Le Masque, a masked dandy conceals a secret; in La Maison Tellier, the girls of a small-town brothel are taken on an outing to attend the communion of the madam s niece; and in La Modèle, a painter falls in love with his model, but the course of love isn t as smooth as either expected.

To tell these tales, Ophuls assembled a remarkable cast of French talent, including Jean Gabin (Pépé le Moko, La Grande illusion), Pierre Brasseur (Eyes Without a Face, Spotlight on a Murderer), Danielle Darrieux (Madame de..., Les Demoiselles de Rochefort), Claude Dauphin (Casque d Or, Barbarella), Simone Simon (Cat People, La Ronde) and many more besides.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation, from materials supplied by Gaumont
Original French mono audio (uncompressed LPCM on the Blu-ray)
Optional English subtitles
A Journey Through Le Plaisir, a 54-minute documentary by Philippe Roger featuring interviews with cast and crew, and a visit of the film s locations fifty years on
Diary of a Film Shoot, an interview with Ophuls assistant director, Jean Valerie
An interview with Marcel Ophuls, the filmmaker son of Max
Le Plaisir Restored, Ronald Boullet and Andre Labbouz discuss the restoration process
Theatrical trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jennifer Dionisio
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Alexander Jacoby and Philippe Roger

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rapta
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Re: Le plaisir

#2 Post by rapta » Mon Jul 17, 2017 10:51 am

Up for this. Just picked up BFI's Madame de... so the timing couldn't be better!

Calvin
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Re: Le plaisir

#3 Post by Calvin » Mon Jul 17, 2017 11:23 am

Excellent! Fingers crossed they also picked up Sans lendemain from Gaumont, which they recently restored.

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What A Disgrace
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Re: Le plaisir

#4 Post by What A Disgrace » Mon Jul 17, 2017 12:01 pm

Does anybody know anything about Screenbound's release of La Ronde? So frustrating to know nothing about that release.

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tenia
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Re: Le plaisir

#5 Post by tenia » Mon Jul 17, 2017 12:20 pm

What A Disgrace wrote:Does anybody know anything about Screenbound's release of La Ronde? So frustrating to know nothing about that release.
I've seen a few screencaps and it didn't seem particularly good. It seemed like a dated master, coarse like what some older Universal masters can look.
I also recall having read bad feedback about the soundtrack.

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TMDaines
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Re: Le plaisir

#6 Post by TMDaines » Mon Jul 17, 2017 12:21 pm

It has some missing frames too as I couldn't sync up the old Criterion commentary, but is an otherwise serviceable release for £6.

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jsteffe
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Re: Le plaisir

#7 Post by jsteffe » Mon Jul 17, 2017 1:34 pm

Arrow's Blu-ray of Le Plaisir should look very good, as does Gaumont's previously released Blu-ray.

This is what I wrote elsewhere about Screenbound's Blu-ray of La Ronde:
I'm not a fan of Screenbound's Blu-ray of Max Ophuls' La Ronde. It is an advance over the DVD editions in terms of resolution, but I don't think they transferred the best available elements--or there were some technical problems with the transfer process. There is persistent frame (or perforation?) noise on the soundtrack. Also I want to emphasize, as feihong pointed out, that the subtitles are pretty bad, even downright unprofessional. They really are too small to read comfortably, and the line breaks are sometimes careless. It's better to wait for a higher quality version either from Criterion or from France.

Mind you, it doesn't look bad. But it's a lost opportunity.
Actually, I would revise my opinion downward because of the noise on the soundtrack.

Calvin
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Re: Le plaisir

#8 Post by Calvin » Mon Jul 17, 2017 5:10 pm

david hare wrote:For la Ronde the BD uses the short cut (94 minutes) print and is IMO quite reasonable video quality albeit lousy audio (agreed Jim) but the film requires some attentive restoration and should ideally have its missing footage (14 minutes of it) restored. Could someone enlighten us on who actually has rights for La Ronde now? I suspect it isn't Gaumont. Certainy Marcel has no "control" over the long print, as he has (dubiously IMO) over Lola Montes so he is no impediment to a reissue in the long cut.
Seems to be a company called Impex-Films, as the CNC funded a restoration back in February

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L.A.
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Re: Le plaisir

#9 Post by L.A. » Mon Oct 23, 2017 1:35 pm


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hearthesilence
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Re: Le plaisir

#10 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:41 pm

Ugh. Looks heavy on the de-graining.

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swo17
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Re: Le plaisir

#11 Post by swo17 » Mon Oct 23, 2017 3:02 pm

david hare wrote:I think the Gaumont is fine until the Maison Tellier eisode starting with the big lunch sequence after the girl's First Communion. THe source looks like thrid gen dupe and is appalling quality. I can't believe Gaumont didn't have somes other better element for the sdquence to at least patch the thing up.
Is it at least preferable to the Criterion DVD?

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tenia
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Re: Le plaisir

#12 Post by tenia » Tue Oct 24, 2017 1:43 am

Remember that Madame de WAS redone. That's why in the end, the Gaumont french release is better (and the BFI even more).
As for Eclair's grading, I've been denouncing this for years now, but elevated black levels is a conscious (stupid) choice from them is what I've been told.
This is again the case with La passion de Jeanne d'Arc.

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MichaelB
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Re: Le plaisir

#13 Post by MichaelB » Tue Oct 24, 2017 6:15 am

tenia wrote:This is again the case with La passion de Jeanne d'Arc.
Although at least in that case we have an alternative in the form of Eureka’s James White-supervised restoration of the original Danish version.

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tenia
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Re: Le plaisir

#14 Post by tenia » Tue Oct 24, 2017 7:55 am

MichaelB wrote:
tenia wrote:This is again the case with La passion de Jeanne d'Arc.
Although at least in that case we have an alternative in the form of Eureka’s James White-supervised restoration of the original Danish version.
Having now been able to compare both directly, the new Gaumont restoration is way better in all other respects, so I doubt the slightly elevated black levels (RGB values on a screencap are 11) are enough for the balance to shift towards the Eureka restoration. I was especially bothered by the constant flicker on it, and the Gaumont totally stabilised it.
And comparatively, despite the elevated black levels, the Gaumont still look much more pleasingly contrasted.

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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Re: Le plaisir

#15 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:38 am

Seeing your caps I agree. The Daisy does it.

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Re: Le plaisir

#16 Post by Werewolf by Night » Tue Oct 24, 2017 1:18 pm

Back to Le plaisir, seeing those caps reminds me of what a miserable release the Criterion was. I held on to the Second Sight DVD and I don’t think I’ll bother to upgrade with either Blu-ray.

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tenia
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Re: Le plaisir

#17 Post by tenia » Wed Oct 25, 2017 1:34 am

He didn't and gave the Gaumont disc 4.0 out of 5 on PQ.

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