818 La chienne

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Minkin
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Re: 818 La chienne

#26 Post by Minkin » Mon Jul 25, 2016 7:56 am


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Sloper
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Re: La Chienne (Jean Renoir, 1931)

#27 Post by Sloper » Wed Jul 27, 2016 7:53 am

matrixschmatrix wrote:That is one of the strongest contrasts with the elephant in the room, Scarlet Street- Lang has a lot of affection for Joan Bennett, and some pity for Robinson, but ultimately it is a starker movie, one full of moral ghosts and nightmares, and not the sort of oddly distanced tragicomedy Renoir finds in the material.
Roger Ryan wrote:As it is, having the murder occur off-camera in a proto-Hitchcock fashion seems like the most effective way to direct this sequence and feels planned that way from the start.
Drucker wrote:In addition, something Faulknor points out in his interview on the disc is the use of doors and windows to illustrate how inside/outside world interact in Renoir's films. While I think he overstates how effective it really is in this film, it certainly is something Renoir's use of the camera has always made me feel: that we are part of the film ourselves, and observing these people in real time. While I felt that was lacking in Boudu, it is present in certain scenes here, especially the murder scene. When the camera goes into the window after the deed, it is a preview of a similar shot used in La Grande Illusion, where everyone approaches the window and we leave a room (rather than enter it.)
Gregory wrote:Renoir said in an interview once that realist narratives in silent films had been accepted but when audiences saw such depressing situations in a talking picture they couldn't accept it.
This last comment makes a lot of sense to me. Looking at the murder scene, there’s something about Simon’s pathetic protests, set against Lulu’s harsh laughter, jarring with the street music we then hear outside, that makes the whole thing quite uncomfortable to watch. The equivalent scene in Scarlet Street, despite the lack of music, has a wonderful melodramatic intensity, building and building until the outburst of shocking violence. But in La chienne the spectacle is drained of intensity and suspense, and there’s something sort of disgusting and grotesque about Legrand kneeling on the bed pawing at Lulu while she laughs at him from behind her arm. It feels less like we’re watching a melodrama, and more like we’re spying on a real-life encounter. That sense of voyeurism is something I associate particularly with the rather stripped-down aesthetic of early sound films. The gravelly quality of the soundtrack (not to mention Simon’s inimitable voice) adds to this effect.

That’s also why I’m not sure I would describe the scene as proto-Hitchcockian, despite the repeated close-up of the letter-knife. The way we’re told that Lulu is being murdered, and then that she has been murdered, is so matter-of-fact that it’s hard to respond with anything more than a philosophical shrug. The same applies to other would-be dramatic highlights: Legrand finding out that Lulu has sold his paintings, the execution of Dédé, the ironic encounter with the portrait in the final scene. Again, remembering how Lang dealt with each of these moments highlights Renoir’s far more restrained, down-to-earth approach. As the prologue and the final descent of the curtain suggest, this film isn’t trying to provoke any intense emotions in us, or to present itself as a profound meditation on some moral issue (both things that Scarlet Street tries very hard to do). Rather than telling us what to feel or think, it just presents us with this disquietingly authentic slice of urban life – how we relate or respond to it is entirely down to us. That seems very characteristic of Renoir’s ‘everyone has their reasons’ ethos – it’s what makes his films so challenging and rewarding, and so different every time you watch them.

I find it also makes them hard to talk about, because whereas it’s pretty easy to get hold of the themes and ideas of Scarlet Street (the main character’s ‘problems with perspective’, what painting means to him, why he therefore falls for Kitty, why he can’t figure out her relationship with Johnny, why he ends up in such a state at the end) and produce some kind of coherent analysis, how do you do that with Renoir’s film? Legrand talks in the first scene about trying (and perhaps inevitably failing) to dream beyond the squalid confines of everyday reality, but I’m not sure I can pin down what that conversation is really about or how it relates to subsequent events. Nor am I sure why Legrand paints, or why he paints in the way he does. Is that a picture of Jesus in a bar-room – is that how he sees himself, or is it a daydream he has? Is his self-portrait a gesture of escapism or a depiction of his own sense of entrapment in bourgeois mundanity, and does the ending suggest that he has happily escaped from what the portrait represents? By not spelling these things out, and by under-playing those moments of heightened ‘affect’, the film makes things harder for us, and as Drucker says about the camerawork, we feel more like participants in the events we’re watching. We’re less ‘involved’ in the conventional sense, because our feelings of compassion or scorn or condemnation are not really being solicited, but by the same token we have to decide for ourselves how we do feel about these people. Sometimes I watch this film and feel almost nothing, except a little bored towards the end; other times I feel a great sense of intimacy and identification with the three main characters; and neither experience is wholly pleasant!

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movielocke
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Re: 818 La chienne

#28 Post by movielocke » Sat Aug 20, 2016 4:11 pm

On Purge Bébé is not very good. It's a one act comedy about constipation, laxatives, strategic chamber pots, and pooping, and oh how humorous it is that the elite deal with poop and pooping as domestic issues. It's sort of amazing to think that chamber pots were still in wide use in 1931, how easily we forget the blessings of modern technology.

What was most interesting to me, was that the film is clearly on the side the of the man, the porcelain manufacturer, as he is comicly harried by his wife making comically unacceptable demands--but interestingly, from a modern perspective, his wife has the right of most of her demands and the husband is a completely recalcitrant jerk who refuses to share the domestic load of raising his children. On the other hand, the wife is such a broad comic caricature that the audience can't ever really be on her side, because we're supposed to be laughing at the outrageousness of everything she does (and she does steal the film, but the performance isn't good, just incredibly broad). Ultimately, the comedy made me laugh out loud only once.

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Rayon Vert
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Re: 818 La chienne

#29 Post by Rayon Vert » Mon Sep 19, 2016 12:18 am

On the Criterion disc, On Purge Bébé is 52 minutes. Was it ever longer? The French Wiki article has it at 62 minutes, and Martin O'Shaughnessy's Jean Renoir book lists it at 60 minutes. (Meanwhile IMDB only mentions a "re-cut" of 45 minutes.)

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Re: 818 La chienne

#30 Post by Moshrom » Fri Sep 23, 2016 12:59 am

Chris Galloway wrote:An early sound film I was not surprised to find the audio is severely limited. It’s a very flat track, with no fidelity at all to it with a fairly tinny and muffled quality to the dialogue. Music can sound a little distorted and edgy but thankfully not overly harsh. The film was shot mostly with live audio on location, so the issue with muffled dialogue and background noise probably comes down to that, as well as the older recording equipment.

What surprised me, though, is actually how clean the track is. Despite the general limitations to the quality of the audio there isn’t any severe damage present. There can be an audible hiss in the background but it’s faint and not overpowering, and doesn’t distract.

All limitations come down to the original recording, the equipment, and the passage of time and I doubt much more could have been done to enhance that part of it. Still, despite any issues I still think the restoration work is very impressive.
Chris, you're very right that the audio track doesn't have good fidelity, and that dialogue is especially muffled, but I must point out that this is not a limitation of age! Plenty of films from this period can sound superb -- tinny and bright, usually, but definitely not muffled. Your surprise that the track still remains clean in spite of these limitations is an astute observation - this is usually a good indication that the high frequencies (which one should expect to exist on such a clean track taken straight from the 35 mm optical soundtrack negative!) were attenuated as part of the restoration.

However...
Cinémathèque Française wrote:The Bitch was restored in 2014 by Les Films du Jeudi and La Cinémathèque française, with support from the CNC and the Franco-American Cultural Fund - DGA - MPA - SACEM – WGAW.

The restoration of the sound was carried out at the L.E. Diapason studio in order to recover the intelligibility of the dialogues whilst preserving the sound of the film typical of the beginnings of speaking films.
The Criterion blu-ray does not present the sound restoration as L.E. Diapason intended. For whatever reason it was decided that all frequencies above ~7 kHz had to go, and they were removed. What's left renders the dialogue muffled and the music dead-sounding. The audio track on the French M6 Vidéo blu-ray (same restoration, no English subtitles) extends past 13 kHz and sounds excellent--tinny and bright, but much more detailed and certainly not muffled.

Out of pure curiosity, I listened to the track on the old Gaumont DVD (from the 3-film set with Tire au flanc and On purge Bébé), and while its noise floor is higher and it exhibits all the hallmarks of being derived from a higher generation source, its high frequencies are intact.

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Re: 818 La chienne

#31 Post by cdnchris » Fri Sep 23, 2016 11:36 am

Moshrom wrote:Chris, you're very right that the audio track doesn't have good fidelity, and that dialogue is especially muffled, but I must point out that this is not a limitation of age! Plenty of films from this period can sound superb -- tinny and bright, usually, but definitely not muffled. Your surprise that the track still remains clean in spite of these limitations is an astute observation - this is usually a good indication that the high frequencies (which one should expect to exist on such a clean track taken straight from the 35 mm optical soundtrack negative!) were attenuated as part of the restoration.
Thank you for pointing this out to me!

Indeed I've heard many older tracks that sound great, though in this case I just assumed (probably incorrectly) that any shortcomings were more related to age or condition of the materials, or possibly a limitation of the equipment being used at the time. I shouldn't have just suggested that it was weak simply because it was older. It was also recorded on location to my understanding, so I'm pretty sure that didn't help in any way.

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hearthesilence
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Re: 818 La chienne

#32 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Sep 23, 2016 2:11 pm

Moshrom wrote:
Cinémathèque Française wrote:The Bitch was restored in 2014 by Les Films du Jeudi and La Cinémathèque française, with support from the CNC and the Franco-American Cultural Fund - DGA - MPA - SACEM – WGAW.

The restoration of the sound was carried out at the L.E. Diapason studio in order to recover the intelligibility of the dialogues whilst preserving the sound of the film typical of the beginnings of speaking films.
The Criterion blu-ray does not present the sound restoration as L.E. Diapason intended. For whatever reason it was decided that all frequencies above ~7 kHz had to go, and they were removed. What's left renders the dialogue muffled and the music dead-sounding. The audio track on the French M6 Vidéo blu-ray (same restoration, no English subtitles) extends past 13 kHz and sounds excellent--tinny and bright, but much more detailed and certainly not muffled.

Out of pure curiosity, I listened to the track on the old Gaumont DVD (from the 3-film set with Tire au flanc and On purge Bébé), and while its noise floor is higher and it exhibits all the hallmarks of being derived from a higher generation source, its high frequencies are intact.
ARRRGH!!! I hate when they do that, it's fine to remove individual clicks, rustles, etc. but an overall wipe out of the top end just sucks the life out of the soundtrack.

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Drucker
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Re: 818 La chienne

#33 Post by Drucker » Fri Sep 23, 2016 2:35 pm

Moshrom's posts have really been invaluable. As I go to more and more repertory screenings, I'm shocked at how powerful film soundtracks can be. Seeing Wild Bunch in 35mm my ears were hurting because the sound of bullets was so piercing. I began to wonder: if BD audio is really lossless, why doesn't it sound the way it does in the theater? Unfortunately I now know why.

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swo17
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Re: 818 La chienne

#34 Post by swo17 » Fri Sep 23, 2016 2:39 pm

Invaluable to the companies making the discs. I don't want to know about it if there's nothing I can do to fix it!

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Drucker
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Re: 818 La chienne

#35 Post by Drucker » Fri Sep 23, 2016 2:40 pm

Ignorance is absolutely bliss when it comes to home video/audio.

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tenia
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Re: 818 La chienne

#36 Post by tenia » Fri Sep 23, 2016 4:15 pm

In some ways, these info are what has always been missing on AQ while easily available for PQ. It's fascinating to see how easy it has been to point out on BD visual limitations but how AQ was going through it more easily despite, in many cases, being audibly limited.

Moshrom
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Re: 818 La chienne

#37 Post by Moshrom » Fri Sep 23, 2016 5:56 pm

At the risk of straying off-topic...

Audio is definitely more difficult to review. It isn't always as simple as pointing out spectrals and examining frequency ranges, although this is sufficient for comparing blu-rays of the same restoration released by different distributors (like this).

A good example of how convoluted it can be is Throne of Blood. The Toho and BFI blu-rays are from the same dated restoration, but while the Toho filters out a good deal of the high frequencies and almost all the low ones, the BFI presents the track without any further mastering prior to BD authoring.

The BFI audio track looks like it should sound amazing -- frequencies that extend until they gentle roll off at 21 kHz. And it does indeed sound better than the Toho.

But the Criterion DVD and BD mono tracks are presumably sourced from a different transfer job, one done by Criterion themselves for their DVD. The Criterion DVD sounds more detailed than the BFI blu-ray, but you probably wouldn't expect it to after just comparing their spectrals. The Criterion blu-ray track is a further processed version of the DVD track and arguably sounds worse than the BFI blu-ray, despite having been taken from the same superior A/D transfer.


There's noise reduction applied at the restoration level or just prior to the preparation of the master that's sent out to all distributors (e.g. Story of the Last Chrysanthemum), but then there's noise reduction that has been applied at the BD authoring stage (or just immediately before it -- same thing, basically). This latter case actually frustrates me more because there's really no reason it's done other than to please viewers (who are unaware that such filtering removes real detail) and the reviewers who condone it.

An odd example is Sweet Smell of Success. As far as I know, the restoration work was done in-house by Criterion, so you would expect the sonic noise reduction to have been applied at the restoration stage, in keeping with Criterion's consistent animosity towards high frequencies. But the Arrow blu-ray of the same restoration actually retains more high-end, and sounds better! So Criterion applied additional noise reduction just before authoring their blu-ray, presumably just to satisfy the home video market. (Thank heavens this practice isn't being done to the restorations themselves!)

Hiss really is like film grain. It increases with each successive analogue generation (dupey optical audio is extremely hissy, in a bad way!), and so probably should be considered a form of distortion. However, removing it will also remove real detail, and so should be done extremely judiciously if at all. Some restoration docs claim to be able to remove hiss without harming dialogue, but when you actually compare their final product with earlier DVD, LaserDisc, or even VHS editions (Frankenstein), you'll find that this is simply untrue. The technology does not exist, just as we cannot harmlessly remove film grain. And, really, why would you want to?! It's not that bad, really!

If more people would understand this, we'd be golden. Hence why I'm trying (after two years of data collection!) to shed some light on this. I understand that it's a total bummer to hear, but eventually--and I'm being very optimistic here--enough people will complain and things might change. It's reassuring that everyone to whom I've shown samples shares my views. Svet excepted, of course.

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Re: 818 La chienne

#38 Post by Werewolf by Night » Sun May 13, 2018 4:17 pm

Nearly two years after purchasing this, I finally got around to watching the extras. The filmed conversation between Simon and Renoir is an absolute joy: two very old friends catching up after a decade apart. It’s just as emotional and as touching as you might expect, and they talk about Boudu as much as if not more than La Chienne. It also features ribald anecdotes, aimless philosophizing, conflicting memories, and ignored prompts to talk more about the films. Honestly, I enjoyed this much more than the film itself.

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Re: 818 La chienne

#39 Post by FrauBlucher » Tue May 15, 2018 3:19 pm

I wholeheartedly agree about the Simon and Renoir sit down. It was one of the better supplements I’ve seen. Indeed it was touching, like old friends that lovingly reminisce. I enjoyed the film but this makes the purchase that much more worth it.

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