Le Beau Serge - The Criterion Collection (Blu-ray)

Theatrical Release Date: France, 1958
Director: Claude Chabrol
Writer: Claude Chabrol
Cast: Gérard Blain, Jean-Claude Brialy, Michèle Méritz, Bernadette Lafont, Claude Cerval, Jeanne Pérez, Edmond Beauchamp, André Dino, Michel Creuze, Claude Chabrol, Philippe de Broca

Release Date: September 20th, 2011
Approximate Running Time: 99 Minutes 26 Seconds
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio / 1080 Progressive / MPEG-4 AVCC
Rating: NR
Sound: LPCM Mono French
Subtitles: English
Region Coding: Region A
Retail Price: $39.95

"Le beau Serge, follows a successful yet sickly young man (Jean‑Claude Brialy) who returns home to the small village where he grew up. There, he finds himself at odds with his former close friend (Gérard Blain)—now unhappily married and a wretched alcoholic—and the provincial life he represents." - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 5/5

Here’s the information provided about the transfer, "This new digital transfer was created in 2K resolution on an ARRISCAN film scanner from the original camera negative. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using Revival, Flame, and Smoke, while Digital Vision's DVNR system was used for small dirt, grain, and noise reduction"

Le beau Serge comes on a 50 GB dual layer Blu-ray.

Disc Size: 43.4 GB

Feature: 27.3 GB

The source looks excellent; flesh tones look correct, image clarity, contrast, black levels, and compression are solid, and grain remains intact.

Audio: 5/5

This release comes with one audio option, a LPCM mono mix in French with removable English subtitles. The audio sounds excellent; dialog is clear, everything sounds balanced, and, range-wise, ambient sounds are well represented.

Extras:

Extras for this release include a theatrical trailer (2 minutes 54 seconds, Dolby Digital mono French with removable English subtitles), a segment from a 1969 episode of the French television series L’invité du dimanche in which Claude Chabrol revisits Sardent, the town he grew up in and Le beau Serge’s location (10 minutes, Dolby Digital mono French with removable English subtitles), a documentary titled Claude Chabrol: Mon premier film, featuring interviews with Claude Chabrol and actor Jean-Claude Brialy (51 minutes 36 seconds, Dolby Digital mono French with removable English subtitles), an audio commentary with Guy Austin, author of Claude Chabrol, and a 16-page booklet with cast & crew information, an essay titled Homecoomings written by Terrence Rafferty, and information about the transfer.

Summary:

Known for primarily working in the thriller genre, Claude Chabrol would earn the nickname “French Hitchcock.” The French New Wave cinema movement began with his debut film, Le beau Serge, a melodrama. While Le beau Serge is not classified as a thriller, it does anticipate many of the cinematic techniques that would later become characteristic of Claude Chabrol's work.

After a long absence, François returns to his hometown expecting to see familiar faces, only to discover how much everyone there has changed, especially his childhood friend Serge.

Le beau Serge is a story of two once-close characters who have drastically changed in their time apart. Though François is recovering from a recent illness, he focuses all his attention on helping his friend Serge. Now married, Serge feels trapped in a job he hates and copes with his struggles by drowning his sorrows in alcohol. While Serge is glad about François's return, he also feels a sense of inadequacy in his friend's presence.

All around, the performances are excellent, especially Gérard Blain (The Eye of the Needle) and Jean-Claude Brialy (A Woman Is a Woman) in the roles of Serge and François. Their onscreen chemistry elevates their performances, and Claude Charbol would cast both of them for his next film, Les Cousins. Another performance of note is Bernadette Lafont, who portrays Marie, the younger sister of Serge’s wife, and she begins a romantic entanglement with François shortly after his arrival.

The well-executed narrative does a superb job weaving the various subplots. Besides the moments revolving around Serge and François’ friendship, there are two other subplots. The first of these revolves around François and Marie, while the other sees a combative relationship between François and Yvonne, Serge’s wife. In the latter subplot, François supports Yvonne during her labor while Serge is absent. That said, it is this act that ultimately breaks Serge free from self-destructive behavior.

Though Le beau Serge is a dialogue-driven film where the characters take center stage, that is not to say that there are not numerous visually arresting moments. The most striking moment occurs when Marie’s stepfather confronts François about their affair. In a fit of anger, her stepfather forces him to admit that she is not actually his daughter. Now freed of this burden, Marie’s stepfather goes home and sexually assaults her. Another strength is Émile Delpierre’s score, which does a phenomenal job reinforcing the mood. Ultimately, Le beau Serge is an extraordinary film about the human condition.

The Criterion Collection gives Le beau Serge an excellent release that comes with a solid audio/video presentation and insightful extras. Highly recommended.

 

Written by Michael Den Boer