Eyes Without a Face [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Georges Franju Georges Franju

Overview

French director Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux Sans Visage) is an unsettling, sometimes poetic horror film. Pierre Brasseur plays a brilliant plastic surgeon, Prof. Genessier, who has vowed to restore the face of his daughter, Christiane (Edith Scob), who was mutilated in an automobile accident. With the help of his assistant (Alida Valli), he kidnaps young women, surgically removes their facial features, and attempts to graft their beauty onto his daughter's hideous countenance. This naturally has an adverse effect on the "donors," some of whom commit suicide rather than go through life faceless. Franju's haunting, muted handling of basic horror material is what lifts Eyes Without a Face out of the ordinary and into the realm of near-classic. When the film failed to draw crowds under its original title, however, the distributors decided to exploit it as a two-bit "scare" flick with the new title The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/15/2013
UPC:	0715515110815
Original Release:	1960
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W, Wide Screen]
Language:	English
Time:	1:30:00
Sales rank:	8,498

Special Features

New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack; High-definition digital restoration of Blood of the Beasts, Georges Franju's 1949 documentary about the slaughterhouses of Paris; Archival interviews with Franju on the horror genre, cinema, and the making of Blood of the Beasts; New interview with actor Edith Scob; Excerpts from Les Grand-Pères du Crime, a 1985 documentary about Eyes With a Face writers Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac; Trailers; Plus: a booklet featuring essays by novelist Patrick McGrath and film historian David Kalat

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Pierre Brasseur	Prof. Genessier,Inspector
Edith Scob	Christiane Genessier
Alida Valli	Actor
Francois Guerin	Jacques Vernon
Juliette Mayniel	Edna Gruber
Béatrice Altariba	Paulette,Paulette
Alexandre Rignault	Inspector Parot
Rene Genin	Bereaved Father
Michel Etcheverry	Forensic surgeon
Yvette Etiévant	Actor
Lucien Hubert	Actor
Charles Blavette	The Man from the Fourriere
Marcel Peres	Actor
François Guérin	Jacques Vernon
Maurice Jarre	Composer

Technical Credits

Georges Franju

Pierre Boileau

Thomas Narcejac

Claude Sautet

Pierre Gascar

Jean Redon

Georges Franju	Director,Screenwriter
Pierre Boileau	Screenwriter
Thomas Narcejac	Screenwriter
Claude Sautet	Screenwriter
Pierre Gascar	Screenwriter
Jean Redon	Screenwriter
Jules Borkon	Producer
Henri Assola	Special Effects
Antoine Archimbaud	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Often cited as one of the most poetic horror films ever committed to celluloid, French director Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face has a lingering effect that conjures more melancholy malaise than outright fright. Franju opts for a deliberate pacing that perfectly compliments the somber tone of his dark tale, and cinematographer Eugen Schüfftan's moody nighttime photography provides the ideal visual representation of the inner turmoil experienced by both the father who longs to make up for past indiscretions (regardless of the pain he inflicts to achieve his goal) and the daughter whose horrendous appearance serves as a constant reminder of the mistake that will haunt him to the grave. As the nearby howls of caged hounds haunt the quiet halls of the doctor's vast estate, viewers are constantly reminded of the horrors set to be unleashed at a moment's notice. Considering that such an artful "horror" film with so many expressionistic embellishments was released by its original stateside distributor, United Artists, under the lurid banner The Horror Chamber of Doctor Faustus, audiences expecting a blood-soaked fright-fest were no doubt disappointed. Though the film does offer a few shots that remain fairly shocking even decades after the film's 1960 release, the true horror lies in the madness of regret and the torture of remaining dead to those one holds dearest, despite living on to experience their shattering despair. In addition to soulful performances by leads Pierre Brasseur and Edith Scob, Italian screen veteran Alida Valli provides a memorably sinister turn as Prof. Genessier's (Brasseur) devoted and unquestioning assistant. Re-released to stateside theaters in mid-2003, Franju's downbeat frightener reached a whole new generation, who embraced the director's seductively dark vision.

All Movie Guide - Jason Buchanan