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This 1938 adaptation of a rather schematic and melodramatic novel by Émile Zola wasn't a personal project for the writer-director, Jean Renoir, but he made it his own, and it retains the power to shock over 60 years after its original release. This was a star vehicle for working-class hero Jean Gabin that Renoir molded into something pungent and powerful, a story of a curse of brutality that has been handed down in a family from one generation to the next. (The codependent psychology, if not the mood of doomed determinism, may seem more timely than ever.) The working environment of the protagonist, th
Amazon.com essential video
This 1938 adaptation of a rather schematic and melodramatic novel by Émile Zola wasn't a personal project for the writer-director, Jean Renoir, but he made it his own, and it retains the power to shock over 60 years after its original release. This was a star vehicle for working-class hero Jean Gabin that Renoir molded into something pungent and powerful, a story of a curse of brutality that has been handed down in a family from one generation to the next. (The codependent psychology, if not the mood of doomed determinism, may seem more timely than ever.) The working environment of the protagonist, the railroad mechanic Lantier (Gabin), is depicted with great precision; we can just about smell the coal smoke. And the sequences in which Lantier succumbs helplessly to his inherited inclinations are as terrifying as any of the famous murder passages in Hitchcock. For a man with such a high reputation for gentleness and tolerance, the cinema's great humanist was very good at violence: it's worth recalling that almost all of his major and many of his minor films pivot upon vividly imagined brutal crimes. Nothing human was alien to him, not even the pathology of this loathsome "human beast." --David Chute
Based on the classic Emile Zola novel, Jean Renoir's La bete humaine was one of the legendary director's greatest popular successes, tapping into the fatalism of a nation in despair. Jean Gabin's emblematic portrayal of doomed train engineer Jacques Lantier granted him a permanent place in the hearts of his countrymen. Part poetic realism, part film noir, the film is a hard-boiled and suspenseful journey into the tormented psyche of a workingman. SPECIAL FEATURES: New, restored high-definition digital transfer of the original uncut version. Introduction to the film by Jean Renoir. New interview with director Peter Bogdanovich. Archival interviews with Renoir discussing his adaptation of Emile Zola's novels, his process with actors, and directing actress Simone Simon. Gallery of on-set photographs and theatrical posters. Theatrical trailer. New and improved English subtitle translation. A booklet featuring writings by film critic Geoffrey O'Brien, historian Ginette Vincendeau, and production designer Eugene Lourie.
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Manufacturer: Criterion
Release date: 14 February 2006
Number of discs: 1
EAN: 0037429173824 UPC: 037429173824
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