The Claude Chabrol Collection [DVD]

Claude Chabrol is a very interesting and entertaining director. I am glad that I bought this collection of his films. I have not seen all of them yet, so Ican't say anything about their quality.

Claude Chabrol was one of the most admirable icons of that reminded effusion of irreverent attitude and profound transformation of the narrative structure that meant the New Wave.In spite of the fact Chabrol starred the movement with "The cousins" , his aesthetical concerns emigrated toward the demolishing process of decadence nestled in a good portion of the Industrial society.Inheritor f the great tradition of the Noir genre, he became via Hitchcock the epitome of the suspense and the tragedy but enrooted into the Greek tradition. His fascination with the demons of the contemporary man led to legate us masterworks such as The unfaithful woman (1969), The butcher (1970), This man must die (to my mind his major achievement ever (1970), Innocents with dirty hands, his notable films based on the famous Lavardin Inspector and Le enfer.His inimitable style was forging itself through the years. Once he abandoned the Hitchcockian influence to get into the core of the ambivalent universe of the human beings, its affective miseries and hopelessly existence.His recent death on last September 12th leaves a void impossible to fill. This is an excellent opportunity for the new generations of performing arts to revise and revisit his vast cinematography.Farewell to a Giant of the Cinema. Au revoir!!

I bought this collection after I watched his flick called "Alice or last escapade" which is outstanding in any aspects, especially imagination and I figured I take chances--well, I was mistaken. Eight movies and all of them boring, mainstream and very limited in any aspect. His invented reality do not touch outside world which is not possible, no real problems discussed and on top of insult the rating of NC 17 has no basis. For some reason I remember contrasting movie "Marge" where everything in opposition to his ideas.

Pour ceux et celles qui aiment le cinéma Français à son meilleur: le coffret Claude Chabrol collection est indispensable.Si vous voulez revoir Stéphane Audran dans des rôles qui lui collent bien à la peau, sentir l`atmosphère feutré et laisser la musique quelques fois dérangeante de ces films d`époque, vous devez voir ces oeuvres qui datent des années 60-70. Un pur délice.La qualité de l`image est ahurissante, le son est impeccable....Il faut par contre aimer le cinéma au rythme lent, aux longs plans de caméra....Vive le cinéma Français....

These DVDs were transfered and distributed by a low-rent production house in LA and seem like a total rush job. The subtitles are poorly translated and the video is sloppy. Maybe one day, these masterworks will fall into more professional and capable hands. Til then, rent don't buy.

Almost all the films in this box-set date from Claude Chabrol's great period (late 1960s/early 1970s), when he seemed to come up with one terrific movie after another. Included here are "La Femme Infidele", "Le Boucher", "Que La Bete Meure", "Juste Avant La Nuit" and "Les Noces Rouges", which seem to me masterpieces; and also "Les Biches" and "Nada", which are at least brilliant and unsettling entertainments. The one other film in the box-set is the only one which can't be classed as a thriller, and which dates from much later in Chabrol's career - his early-1990s version of "Madame Bovary", with Isabelle Huppert. This was not greatly liked by critics when new, but it seems to me to have aged well; it's a thoroughly satisfying and unfussy version of a literary classic, rather more successful than the Hollywood version of 1949 directed by Vincente Minnelli. There isn't a dud in the whole octet, and five of them are superb. It's a pity about the very American subtitles provided for "Nada" (there were different ones for the film's British release in 1974), which are also very small and hard to read until you get used to them, but Chabrol can't be held accountable for this minor blemish. It's also a pity, one may as well add, that two more splendid - and astonishingly perverse! - Chabrol films from the great period, "Le Scandale" (aka "The Champagne Murders") and "Ten Days' Wonder" (aka "La Decade Prodigueuse"), haven't as yet made it onto DVD in Britain. How about it, somebody?

Attention chefs-d'oeuvre !!! Ce coffret 8 DVD (films en français avec sous-titres anglais) renferme ce que Chabrol a fait sans doute de mieux dans toute sa carrière."Le Boucher" (1970), "La Femme infidèle" (1969) et "Que la bête meure" (1969) sont peut-être (avec tout de même "La Cérémonie", en 1995) les trois meilleurs films de Chabrol, toutes époques confondues.Ils sont complétés ici par trois autres très grands crus qui atteignent quasiment, en terme de qualité, le niveau des trois premiers cités : "Les Biches" (1968), "Juste avant la nuit" (1971) et "Les Noces rouges" (1973).On trouve également une curiosité : "Nada" (1974), film assez rare (et en tout cas jamais édité en DVD en France, c'est donc une aubaine de le trouver ici).Enfin, on pourra s'étonner de la présence incongrue, ici, de "Madame Bovary" (1991), film pas désagréable (mais auquel il manque quelque chose pour en faire une vraie réussite) : il n'y a rien qui le rattache vraiment aux 7 autres films présents dans le coffret (ni par son thème, ni par son époque, ni par son style). Il fait donc un peu figure, ici, de "vilain petit canard".Mais bon : ne boudons pas notre plaisir face à cette collection de perles, d'autant que le coffret est proposé à un prix vraiment modique. A noter qu'il existe, chez le même éditeur anglais (Arrow Films), et pour la même somme, un second coffret ("Claude Chabrol Collection : volume 2"), qui contient 6 DVD, dont 4 films introuvables en France en DVD... Moins de chefs-d'oeuvre, mais plus de curiosités rares : inutile, donc, de préciser que ce second volume est également indispensable !Précision technique : il est possible de désactiver tous les sous-titres, à l'exception de ceux du film "Les Biches", qui sont directement incrustés sur le film. Les autres sous-titres sont désactivables soit par le biais de la touche "sous-titres" de votre télécommande, soit directement à partir du DVD, qui propose parfois la fonction "on/off subtitles".

Oui, ce coffret rare regroupe de véritables pépites du cinéma français. Le coffret, comme annoncé, est en très bon état et à un prix raisonnable : je suis donc très satisfaite de mon achat.

It's astonishing that Chabrol is not more widely admired. Just to look at the dates of seven of the eight films in this highly impressive collection is enough to put many of film-makers' efforts into context. Chabrol, from 1969 to the early 'Seventies, was not only prolific but managed a sequence of shockingly powerful films, sometimes two or three in rapid succession. His work is, however, the very opposite of the frivolous, the throwaway. Chabrol's concern is acute and profound: the piteous sacrifices we make to avoid being virtuous. There is a strong French tradition of cynicism, under-pinned by pity (Laclos, Zola, to cite but two writers) who write muscular works of relentless fatalism. Chabrol updates this and shows, however, that almost nothing has changed. Chabrol's films, in this collection, are based on novels. Consequently, what we get are concentrated lines that can sometimes make the scenarii feel liked filmed theatre. But, if this is so, the lines all converge and the plots concentrate multiple human frailties in a single tight knot. There are so many grey, provincial towns in France, their windows shuttered and dust filling every crevice: Chabrol shows what may well be going on in the hearts of the people hiding behind these drab facades. The faces of Chabrol's actors, their deeds, their failures and their passions, bring the tragedies of those hearts to life, fleetingly, precisely. I cannot think of another filmmaker who so powerfully realized his vision. Stunning.

Leider hält die Bildqualität nicht annähernd mit der Qualität der Regie und der Schauspieler mit.Anscheinend sind die DVDs von etwas mangelbehaftetem Ausgangsmaterial vor dem Kopieren mit Bildverbesserungssoftware bearbeitet worden.Es fehlt die Brillianz und Klarheit guter DVDs,speziell " Süsses Gift"erinnert stark an VHS Material.Bei den anderen DVDs fällt z.T. zu starke Kantenaufsteilung ( heller Rand neben dunklen Motiven )sowie etwas zu starke Glättung auf ( der alten Dame in " Die Blume des Bösen " wird da so manche Falte aus dem Gesicht gebügelt !).An meinem neuen 16:9 LCD TV und Abspielgerät kann`s nicht liegen, da andere KaufDVDs in einer bestechenden Qualität wiedergegeben werden.