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French prisoners of war try to escape while confronting class divides and shared humanity.

Description

A mysterious writer of poison-pen letters, known only as Le Corbeau (the Raven), plagues a provincial French town, exposing the collective suspicion and rancor seething beneath the community’s calm surface. Made during the Nazi occupation of France, this film by Henri-Georges Clouzot was attacked by the right-wing Vichy regime, the left-wing Resistance press, and the Catholic Church, and was banned after the country’s liberation. But some—including Jean Cocteau and Jean-Paul Sartre—recognized the powerful subtext to Clouzot’s anti-informant, anti-Gestapo fable and worked to rehabilitate his directorial reputation after the war. Le Corbeau brilliantly captures the spirit of paranoid pettiness and self-loathing that turns an occupied French town into a twentieth-century Salem. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 4K restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack Interview with filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier Excerpts from The Story of French Cinema by Those Who Made It: Grand Illusions 1939–1942, a 1975 documentary featuring director Henri-Georges Clouzot Trailer PLUS: An essay by film scholar Alan Williams

Description

In the 1930s, Marcel Pagnol, a leading light of the Paris theater, set out for new horizons as a filmmaker in his native Provence. His early masterpieces Marius, Fanny, and César mix theatrical stagecraft with realistic location photography to create an epic love story from the fabric of everyday life. Gruff, sentimental César (music-hall star Raimu) owns a waterfront bar in the old port of Marseille, where his son, Marius (Pierre Fresnay), wipes down tables and dreams of a life at sea. The prosperous, middle-aged sailmaker Panisse (Fernand Charpin), wanting to wed Marius s sweetheart, Fanny (Orane Demazis), sets up a generation-spanning romantic triangle, the story of which unfolds in a series of fateful twists in the films of The Marseille Trilogy, which first earned Pagnol his place in cinema history. If Pagnol is not the greatest auteur of the sound film, critic André Bazin wrote, he is in any case something akin to its genius. THREE-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES -New 4K digital restorations of all three films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks -New introduction by filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier -New interview with Nicolas Pagnol, writer-director Marcel Pagnol s grandson -Segments of Marcel Pagnol: Morceaux de choisis, a 1973 documentary series on Pagnol s life and work -Short documentary on the Marseille harbor by Pagnol -Archival interviews with actors Orane Demazis, Pierre Fresnay, and Robert Vattier -Pagnol s Poetic Realism, a new video essay by scholar Brett Bowles -French television clip about the restoration of the trilogy -Theatrical rerelease trailer -New English subtitle translations -PLUS: An essay by film critic Michael Atkinson and excerpts from Pagnol s memoirs

Description

In the 1930s, Marcel Pagnol, a leading light of the Paris theater, set out for new horizons as a filmmaker in his native Provence. His early masterpieces Marius, Fanny, and César mix theatrical stagecraft with realistic location photography to create an epic love story from the fabric of everyday life. Gruff, sentimental César (music-hall star Raimu) owns a waterfront bar in the old port of Marseille, where his son, Marius (Pierre Fresnay), wipes down tables and dreams of a life at sea. The prosperous, middle-aged sailmaker Panisse (Fernand Charpin), wanting to wed Marius s sweetheart, Fanny (Orane Demazis), sets up a generation-spanning romantic triangle, the story of which unfolds in a series of fateful twists in the films of The Marseille Trilogy, which first earned Pagnol his place in cinema history. If Pagnol is not the greatest auteur of the sound film, critic André Bazin wrote, he is in any case something akin to its genius. THREE-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES -New 4K digital restorations of all three films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks -New introduction by filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier -New interview with Nicolas Pagnol, writer-director Marcel Pagnol s grandson -Segments of Marcel Pagnol: Morceaux de choisis, a 1973 documentary series on Pagnol s life and work -Short documentary on the Marseille harbor by Pagnol -Archival interviews with actors Orane Demazis, Pierre Fresnay, and Robert Vattier -Pagnol s Poetic Realism, a new video essay by scholar Brett Bowles -French television clip about the restoration of the trilogy -Theatrical rerelease trailer -New English subtitle translations -PLUS: An essay by film critic Michael Atkinson and excerpts from Pagnol s memoirs

Description

In the 1930s, Marcel Pagnol, a leading light of the Paris theater, set out for new horizons as a filmmaker in his native Provence. His early masterpieces Marius, Fanny, and César mix theatrical stagecraft with realistic location photography to create an epic love story from the fabric of everyday life. Gruff, sentimental César (music-hall star Raimu) owns a waterfront bar in the old port of Marseille, where his son, Marius (Pierre Fresnay), wipes down tables and dreams of a life at sea. The prosperous, middle-aged sailmaker Panisse (Fernand Charpin), wanting to wed Marius s sweetheart, Fanny (Orane Demazis), sets up a generation-spanning romantic triangle, the story of which unfolds in a series of fateful twists in the films of The Marseille Trilogy, which first earned Pagnol his place in cinema history. If Pagnol is not the greatest auteur of the sound film, critic André Bazin wrote, he is in any case something akin to its genius. THREE-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES -New 4K digital restorations of all three films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks -New introduction by filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier -New interview with Nicolas Pagnol, writer-director Marcel Pagnol s grandson -Segments of Marcel Pagnol: Morceaux de choisis, a 1973 documentary series on Pagnol s life and work -Short documentary on the Marseille harbor by Pagnol -Archival interviews with actors Orane Demazis, Pierre Fresnay, and Robert Vattier -Pagnol s Poetic Realism, a new video essay by scholar Brett Bowles -French television clip about the restoration of the trilogy -Theatrical rerelease trailer -New English subtitle translations -PLUS: An essay by film critic Michael Atkinson and excerpts from Pagnol s memoirs