Belle de Jour

UPC: 715515088916

Studio: Criterion

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:[Not For Children, Adult Humor, Sexual Situations]

Summary: Belle de Jour dramatizes the collision between depravity and elegance, one of the favorite themes of director Luis Bu?uel. Catherine Deneuve stars as a wealthy but bored newlywed, eager to taste life to the fullest. She seemingly gets her wish early in the film when she is kidnapped, tied to a tree, and gang-raped. It turns out that this is only a daydream, but her subsequent visits to a neighboring brothel, where she offers her services, certainly seem to be real. This illusion/reality dichotomy extends to the final scenes, in which we are offered two possible endings. Thanks to a question of copyright and ownership, Belle de Jour disappeared from view shortly after its 1967 release, not even resurfacing on videotape. When it was reissued theatrically in 1994, many critics placed the perplexing but mesmerizing film on their lists of that year's best films. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Category: Drama

Awards: Golden Lion – Venice International Film Festival

Features: Audio commentary featuring Michael Wood, author of the BFI Film Classics book Belle de Jour
New video piece featuring writer and sexual-politics activist Susie Bright and film scholar Linda Williams
New interview with screenwriter Jean-Claude Carri?re
Segment from the French television program Catherine Deneuve
Original and rerelease trailer
A booklet featuring an essay by critic Melissa Anderson and a 1970s interview with director Luis Bu?el

Belle de Jour

Format: DVD

Release Date: 01/17/2012

Audio: DD1 Dolby Digital Mono

Runtime: 100 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) French

Subtitles: English

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- Belle de Jour
1. Opening Credits [2:00]
2. "She's Yours Now" [3:35]
3. "Happy?" [1:54]
4. Husson at the Ski Lodge [3:22]
5. "Houses" [5:21]
6. Henriette [2:11]
7. 11, Cit? Jean de Saumur [6:15]
8. Madame Ana?s, Monseiur Adolphe [9:35]
9. A Headache [2:35]
10. "Pierre, I Beg You to Stop!" [1:13]
11. The Professor [7:36]
12. The Box [4:04]
13. "Death Still Touches Me" [6:38]
14. Lily Seeds [2:49]
15. Hippolyte and Marcel [8:50]
16. Waiting For Belle's Return [8:21]
17. An Unwelcome Client [4:08]
18. "Fire!" [1:25]
19. Leaving [1:45]
20. Marcel Chez S?verine [4:14]
21. Gunshots [4:04]
22. Husson's Sympathy [5:53]
23. "Do You Hear That?" [2:06]
24. Color Bars [:00]

Tom Wiener

Director Luis Bu?uel's first film in color, Belle de Jour also kicked off the last phase of his great career, which produced some of his most popular films (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, That Obscure Object of Desire). Catherine Deneuve serves Bu?uel here as Grace Kelly did Alfred Hitchcock, as the glacially beautiful blonde who is barely concealing smoldering desires. S?verine, Deneuve's character, finds that marriage is not the beginning of contentment, but a key which unlocks the doors of her abusive past to allow her imagination to run unfettered. How many of the film's events are "real" is left up to the viewer; Bu?uel clearly wants to blur the distinctions between S?verine's erotic dreams and her attempts to fulfill them. A lesser filmmaker would wallow in the prurience of the story of a sexually frustrated wife turning to prostitution; for Bu?uel, however, making films about sex is about exploring much more than human desire and physical contact. What makes his approach unique is its playfulness; he can have it both ways, provoking the audience one moment and winking the next, as if to say, "This thing we call life, it's a big joke, isn't it?" ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Dominique Dandrieux  Actor 
Georges Marchal  Actor 
Marc Eyraud  Actor 
Muni  Actor 
Michel Charrel  Actor 
Bernard Fresson  Actor 
Claude Cerval  Actor 
Iska Khan  Actor 
Brigitte Parmentier  Actor 
Bernard Musson  Actor 
Marcel Charvey  Actor 
François Maistre  Actor 
Luis Buñuel  Director 
Luis Buñuel  Producer 
Luis Buñuel  Screenwriter 
Jean-Claude Carrière  Screenwriter 
Raymond Hakim  Producer 
Robert Hakim  Producer 
Catherine Deneuve  Actor 
Jean Sorel  Actor 
Michel Piccoli  Actor 
Geneviève Page  Actor 
Macha Meril  Actor 
Francisco Rabal  Actor 
Pierre Clémenti  Actor 
Francis Blanche  Actor 
Françoise Fabian  Actor 
Maria Latour  Actor 

Country: France,Italy