Hiroshima Mon Amour

( 3 )

Overview

Alain Resnais' meditation on love and desperation, framed by the story of two lovers who fall into a brief but emotionally draining affair in Hiroshima, has been given a typically sterling presentation in this DVD edition from The Criterion Collection. Hiroshima Mon Amour has quite simply never looked better on home video, and rarely this good since its initial release; Sacha Vierny and Michio Takahashi's cinematography is beautifully served with a luminous full-frame transfer that's richly detailed and free of ...
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More About This Product

Overview

Alain Resnais' meditation on love and desperation, framed by the story of two lovers who fall into a brief but emotionally draining affair in Hiroshima, has been given a typically sterling presentation in this DVD edition from The Criterion Collection. Hiroshima Mon Amour has quite simply never looked better on home video, and rarely this good since its initial release; Sacha Vierny and Michio Takahashi's cinematography is beautifully served with a luminous full-frame transfer that's richly detailed and free of blemishes. The Dolby Digital Monophonic soundtrack has also been lovingly restored and sounds rich and clean throughout. The dialogue is in French, and easily readable optional subtitles have been included. And Criterion has, as usual, loaded this disc with relevant bonus material. Author Peter Cowie contributes a literate commentary track on Resnais and Hiroshima Mon Amour, while another alternate audio track isolates the haunting score by Georges Delerue and Giovanni Fusco. Two vintage interviews with Resnais are included -- one from 1961, the other (audio only) from 1980 -- while leading lady Emmanuelle Riva is represented with an interview shot at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, as well as a longer chat recorded in 2002 as she looked back on the making of the film and working with Resnais. And finally, several "annotations" on sequences from the film, written by scenarist Marguerite Duras, are read along with the scenes they illuminate. In short, a superb and lovingly assembled presentation of an important and influential work, and a great example of what Criterion does best.
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Special Features

Audio Commentary By Film Historian Peter Cowie ; Vintage Interviews With Director Alain Resnais and Actress Emmanuelle Riva ; New Video Interview With Emmanuelle Riva ; Excerpts From Marguerite Duras' Screenplay Annotations, Narrated Over Clips From the Film ; Isolated Music and Effects Track ; Illustrated 32-Page Booklet Featuring an Essay By Critic Kent Jones, Excerpts From a 1959 Cashiers du Cinema Round-Table Discussion About the Film, An Essay On Composer Giovanni Fusco by Russell Lack, and Character Portraits By Duras
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Editorial Reviews

All Movie Guide - Michael Hastings
Director Alain Resnais' tone poem on love, annihilation, and the need for compassion grafts the story of two lovers onto a larger philosophical treatise about the horrors of the atomic bomb. We know very little about the unnamed couple (Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada) at the beginning of the film; Resnais is more interested in the fallout from sex -- the memories, regrets, and images that it can conjure, good and bad -- than in its logistics. Casually juxtaposing scenes of tranquility with graphic documentary footage of the aftermath in Hiroshima, Resnais stresses the importance of contact, nuance, and gesture amid the moment-to-moment uncertainty of a post-war world. Novelist-filmmaker Marguerite Duras scripted the film, which uses its interracial romance as a metaphor for international harmony. Resnais' deliberate, ponderous compositions set him apart from most of his New Wave peers, and he is aided by the legendary Sacha Vierny -- one of the few cinematographers who can make a museum visually compelling. Some critics found the film obtuse on its release, but the Academy thought enough of it to nominate Duras for Best Original Screenplay. The director would apply many of Hiroshima's non-linear storytelling techniques to 1961's L'Année dernière à Marienbad.
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Product Details

  • Release Date: 6/24/2003
  • UPC: 037429180723
  • Original Release: 1959

    • Rating:

  • Source: Criterion
  • Aspect Ratio: Pre-1954 Standard (1.33.1)
  • Presentation: Black & White
  • Sound: Dolby Digital Mono
  • Language: Français
  • Time: 1:30:00
  • Format: DVD
  • Sales rank: 25,300

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits
Emmanuelle Riva She
Eiji Okada He
Stella Dassas The Mother
Bernard Fresson The German Lover
Pierre Barbaud The Father
Technical Credits
Alain Resnais Director
Pierre-Louis Calvet Sound/Sound Designer
Jasmine Chasney Editor
Henri Colpi Editor
Georges Delerue Score Composer
Marguerite Duras Screenwriter
Esaka Production Designer
Giovanni Fusco Score Composer
Samy Halfon Producer
Mayo Production Designer
Anne Sarraute Editor
Michio Takahashi Cinematographer
Sacha Vierny Cinematographer
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Scene Index

Side #1 --
1. Opening Credits
2. Everything and Nothing
3. "Like You, I Forgot"
4. The Lovers
5. Morning in Hiroshima
6. "The Whole World Rejoiced"
7. Young in Nevers
8. The Film About Peace
9. Parade
10. At the Home of the Japanese
11. The Story of Nevers Begins
12. The Story of Nevers Continues
13. The Horror of Forgetting
14. At the Hotel
15. A Walk Through Hiroshima
16. Farewell to Nevers
17. The Casablanca Bar
18. "Hi-Ro-Shi-Ma"
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Menu

Side #1 --
   Play the Movie
   Chapters
   Commentary
      Commentary Off
      Commentary On
      Index
         Alain Resnais
         Process of Healing
         "Little Boy"
         Effects of the Bomb/Duras
         Editing
         "A Documentary on Memory"
         "New Hiroshima"
         "A Profound Opponent of War"
         Degrees of Tragedy
         The Screenplay
         Flashbacks/Counterpoint/Memory
         Remembering and Forgetting
         "Sophisticated Games of Time"
         Confronting the Past
         Montage and Music
         "Farewell to Nevers"
         "The Hour of the Wolf"
         Confirmation of Identities
   Alain Resnais Interviews
      Cinepanorama
      Le Cinéma des Cineastes
   Emmanuelle Riva Interviews
      1959 Interview
      2003 Interview
   Screenplay Annotations by Duras
      Play
   Set-Up
      Audio Options
         Dolby Digital Mono
         Commentary
         Music and Effects
      Subtitles
         English Subtitles On
         English Subtitles Off
      Color Bars
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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 5
( 3 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(3)

4 Star

(0)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(0)

1 Star

(0)

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Sort by: Showing all of 3 Customer Reviews

  • Posted October 1, 2010

    Resnais made a masterpiece.

    This has to be one of the ten best of all time. Unforgettable.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted July 14, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted August 7, 2009

    No text was provided for this review.

Sort by: Showing all of 3 Customer Reviews