318 Forbidden Games

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Martha
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318 Forbidden Games

#1 Post by Martha » Mon Sep 05, 2005 12:35 am

Forbidden Games

[img]http://criterion_production.s3.amazonaws.com/release_images/488/318_box_348x490_w128.jpg[/img]

A timeless evocation of childhood innocence corrupted, René Clément's Forbidden Games tells the story of a young girl orphaned by war and the farm boy she joins in a fantastical world of macabre play. At once mythical and heartbreakingly real, this unique film features astonishing performances by its child stars and was honored with a special foreign language film Academy Award in 1952.

Special Features

-New, restored high-definition digital transfer
-Collection of new and archival interviews with director René Clément and actress Brigitte Fossey
-Alternate opening and ending to the film
-Original theatrical trailer
-Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
-New and improved subtitle translation
-A new essay by film scholar Peter Matthews

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Cinephrenic
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#2 Post by Cinephrenic » Thu Sep 08, 2005 12:59 pm

Details up on Criterion's site:

http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=318

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Lino
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#3 Post by Lino » Thu Sep 08, 2005 1:03 pm

Special Features
#
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
#
Collection of new and archival interviews with director René Clément and actress Brigitte Fossey
#
Alternate opening and ending to the film
#
Original theatrical trailer
#
Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
#
New and improved subtitle translation
#
A new essay by film scholar Peter Matthews

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Gigi M.
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#4 Post by Gigi M. » Thu Sep 08, 2005 3:26 pm

This is great, but don´t you think Criterion is posting their releases a bit too early.

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oldsheperd
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#5 Post by oldsheperd » Thu Sep 08, 2005 3:48 pm

Maybe they're gearing up to go to their ranches for 5 weeks in Crawford.

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Cinephrenic
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#6 Post by Cinephrenic » Thu Sep 08, 2005 3:54 pm

Well it might be a change because of Image's early announcements. I'm not complaining.

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kieslowski_67
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#7 Post by kieslowski_67 » Fri Sep 09, 2005 10:49 am

Alternative opening and ending!

Well, just have to squeeze out $20 bucks to buy this movie again. Hopefully the transfer is better than that of the English Pal release.

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Gigi M.
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#8 Post by Gigi M. » Fri Sep 09, 2005 11:26 am

I was wondering Cinephrenic. Do you own every Criterion title? I see that you've posted in almost every threat. Not that I found that wrong or anything, just amazing that you have that spirit.

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Cinephrenic
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#9 Post by Cinephrenic » Fri Sep 09, 2005 1:34 pm

If your implying that I don't have a life in a nice way, I actually do. I'm own a business, married, and don't own every Criterion. I probably have about one-third of the collection. I have the spirit because i'm sitting in my office doing nothing. :lol:

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Gigi M.
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#10 Post by Gigi M. » Fri Sep 09, 2005 1:48 pm

I didn't mean to offend you. I believe your posts are excellent in every way. I just admire your commitment to this forum.

I also taught that with your knowledge in the world of cinema, you would probably own every Criterion title. I live in the Dominican Republic, and it is impossible to find Criterions, which in my case I have to buy them in the US and have them ship here.

Again, I apologize if my comments offended you.

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Cinephrenic
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#11 Post by Cinephrenic » Fri Sep 09, 2005 2:12 pm

I wasn't offended gigimonagas. I read a lot of material over cinema and such. I just love cinema. It's addicting.

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solaris72
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#12 Post by solaris72 » Thu Sep 22, 2005 4:50 pm

That is peculiar...the sites I looked at listed the old Home Vision VHS as 102 minutes. Maybe it's a mistake on Criterion's website.

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lord_clyde
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#13 Post by lord_clyde » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:27 pm

cinephrenic wrote:I wasn't offended gigimonagas. I read a lot of material over cinema and such. I just love cinema. It's addicting.
It's the uncut cocaine of the arts.

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tavernier
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#14 Post by tavernier » Fri Sep 23, 2005 6:13 pm

modium wrote:I'm curious that there's no talk about the different cuts of the film. On IMDB, the original cut is 102 minutes and the 'alternate' cut is 84, which seems to be what Criterion is releasing. Is this what the alternate opening and ending is, and if not, why isn't there a huge uproar about Criterion not including both cuts, a la Fanny & Alexander or Terminal Station?
I have the French Studio Canal DVD, and the film clocks in at 81 minutes. The disc also includes an alternate opening and ending and interviews with Clement and Brigitte Fossey.

Mental Mike
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#15 Post by Mental Mike » Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:18 pm

I remember renting this film from a laserdisc store years ago. This film and the Lady Vanishes were my introduction to Criterion and I have been hooked ever since!

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Matango
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#16 Post by Matango » Fri Nov 25, 2005 5:00 am

Just picked this up here in Hong Kong today, nice and early. Run time is just under 86 minutes, and the alternate opening and ending total is just under 7 minutes. Comes with an OK 16-page booklet, no photos, just charcoal/pencil drawing as on the cover. No postcard, sadly...

Anonymous

#17 Post by Anonymous » Sun Nov 27, 2005 2:45 am

I strongly suspect there is -- or was -- a 102 minute cut of "Forbidden Games" in existence.

I went back to the earliest source I could find, the NY Times review of December 9, 1952, and -- yup -- that review gave the film's running time as 102 minutes in length.

Now, of course, it's possible someone got the running time wrong way back then, and, for some reason, that error has been perpetuated to the present day... but I don't know... I still have my suspicions...

(By the way, NY Times reviewer Bosley Crowther loved FG, even comparing it favorably to "Grand Illusion".)

December 9, 1952
FORBIDDEN GAMES
By Bosley Crowther


It had been the vague hope of many that the French would eventually come through with a film which would boom such shattering comment upon the tragedy and irony of World War II as their memorable Grand Illusion did for World War I. That hope at last has been realized. Such a film came along yesterday to the Little Carnegie. It is René Clément's Forbidden Games (Jeux Interdits).

A great deal of professional excitement was aroused in Europe by this film, and some of that bubbling excitement had been transmitted over here. For one thing, the film stirred howling protests last spring from visiting critics after a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival because it had not been selected as an official entry of France. For another, it almost got a fast brush at the subsequent Venice Festival, on the grounds that it wasn't eligible because it already had been shown at Cannes—and then, when it was accepted, it won the Venice Grand Prize. And, finally, it has been lambasted (as was inevitable) by certain elements abroad as a vicious and unfair picture of the peasantry of France.

All of this rambling excitement may have sounded excessive over here, especially in the light of some confusions at previous European festivals. But now that the film has been exhibited and its qualities revealed on this side, it may be reported confidently that the excitement is not only understandable but entirely justified. For Forbidden Games is a brilliant and devastating drama of the tragic frailties of men, clear and uncorrupted by sentimentality or dogmatism in its candid view of life.

As Grand Illusion found its area for comment upon the irony of war outside the actual range of warfare—it was about war prisoners, you may recall—this film finds its area for comment upon the damage that has been done to humankind in the seemingly innocent realm of farmers and children in the undisturbed countryside. The towering symbol of the war's vast devastation is one little five-year-old girl. And her immediate world, as we see it, is mostly that of a French peasant's farm.

But out of these plain and modest elements, M. Clément, who directed and helped to write the script with Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost from an original screen story by François Boyer, has fused a powerful drama that cuts a wide swath through the fields of man's ripe hopes and symbolizes the frustration that many Europeans must feel about war.

For the little girl of this story is a pitiful orphan of the war—a child who has seen her two parents and her little dog killed on the road while they were fleeing from the oncoming Germans and has found sanctuary in a peasant home and in the wonderfully sympathetic companionship of a slightly older peasant boy. The only thing is that this youngster has a fondness for the symbols of death—a fondness in which her new companion encourages and comforts her by killing other animals and burying them, with ceremonials, beside the grave of her dog. And the irony is that the peasants have no way to help with this strange attitude because, as is demonstrated, they are burdened and confused by their own pitiably ignorant, hypocritical, and inhuman fixed ideas about death.

We will not attempt a recital of the shattering details of this haunting film—of the swiftness of its dramatic passage from the most tender and heart-tearing scenes of attachment between the naive children to scenes of earthy and ghoulish comedy in which the remarkably credible peasants demonstrate their pathetic crudity. Nor can we express sufficient admiration for the brilliant acting of it—for the five-year-old girl, Brigitte Fossey, from whom M. Clément has got a performance that rips the heart out with its simplicity and sincerity; for a youngster named Georges Poujouly, who makes of the little boy not a creature of juvenile mischief but of spiritual magnificence; for Lucien Hubert, as the boy's peasant father; Suzanne Courtal, as the latter's wife, and for all the remaining actors in this extraordinary film.

All to be said at the moment is that M. Clément has brought forth a film that has the irony of a Grand Illusion, the authenticity of a Harvest, and the fineness of French films at their best.

FORBIDDEN GAMES (MOVIE)

Directed by René Clément; written (in French, with English subtitles) by Mr. Clément, Jean Aurenche, and Pierre Bost, based on the novel Les Jeux Inconnus by François Boyer; cinematographer, Robert Julliard; edited by Roger Dwyre; music by Narciso Yepes; art designer, Paul Bertrand; produced by Robert Dorfman; released by Times Film Corporation. Black and white. Running time: 102 minutes.

With: Brigitte Fossey (Paulette), Georges Poujouly (Michel), Lucien Hubert (Father Dolle), Suzanne Courtal (Mother Dolle), Jacques Marin (Georges Dolle), Laurence Badie (Berthe Dolle), Andre Wasley (Father Gouard), Amédée (Francie Goulard), and Louis Saintève (The Priest).

Anonymous

#18 Post by Anonymous » Mon Dec 05, 2005 5:08 am

Update: I've been able to gather some more information on the 102 minute version of "Forbidden Games".

At some point in its history, FG included a 'framing story'. It's this 'framing story' that seems to comprise all or part of the missing footage under discussion. Somewhere along the line (more on that later), director Rene Clement wanted a prologue and epilogue with Georges Poujouly reading a book to Brigitte Fossey, telling the tale of two children (Paulette and Michel). After the last scene of the film as we know it, Brigitte objected to what she considered a 'sad' ending, so Georges invented a 'happier' one for her, showing the children reunited. (It's this sequence, from what I gather, along with alternate opening and closing credits, that can be found on the Criterion disc, comprising about seven or eight of the 17 or so 'missing' minutes.)

Apparently, there was concern on the part of the filmmakers that 1952 audiences, who had recently experienced the Second World War, would be uncomfortable with, and put-off by, the film's intense portrayal of the horrors of that war from a child's perspective. It was felt that a 'storybook' framing might help audiences feel more receptive to the film, especially French ones who, apparently, wanted an ending 'different' from the one they got. (Perhaps these were preview audiences?) So, Clement decided to give the audiences (like Brigitte) two different endings -- the best of both worlds, so to speak -- by providing the 'storybook' framing device.

Some sources say that, at the last minute, Clement had second thoughts about the framing scenes, and cut them just before the film's initial release. Others suggest that these scenes were, indeed, part of the film's first release, and that Clement removed them later on. Whatever the sequence of events, the 'official' version of FG, the one that's been available on vhs, laser, and now dvd, runs approximately 85 minutes, and doesn't include any framing scenes. Whether or not audiences, either in Europe or the U.S., ever saw them is still, it seems, open to some debate. Criterion, for its part, says that they've found no record of the 'framing story' version ever being released, or words to that effect.

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Morbii
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#19 Post by Morbii » Wed Dec 07, 2005 4:16 am

Well, the deleted scenes are the two you describe from the beginning and end. I'm glad they were cut, personally.

Great movie.

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#20 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Mon Jan 23, 2006 5:30 pm

Morbii wrote:Well, the deleted scenes are the two you describe from the beginning and end. I'm glad they were cut, personally.

Great movie.
I agree. Keeping those fairy tale-type book endings is akin to the compromised bookends that Don Siegel had to film for Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It totally lessens the impact of what happens to these two children.

I went into this film knowing nothing about it and was quite surprised by the brutal opening of the movie... how quickly Paulette's parents are gunned down and how callously the woman throws the little girl's dead puppy into the river! And then Clement hits us up with such a powerful image: Paulette walking through the forest alone, clutching her dead puppy. What a shocking introduction into this harsh world! And what makes it so powerful is the unflinching depiction of how quickly Paulette's parents are taken away from her. In the first few minutes she is left with nothing.

My heart really went out to poor Paulette. The world she knews was gone forever with the death of her parents. What a scary concept at that young age (or any age for that matter). It made me instantly sympathize with her plight and what also made her final fate that much more tragic.

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#21 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Jan 24, 2006 9:01 am

Fletch F. Fletch wrote:It made me instantly sympathize with her plight and what also made her final fate that much more tragic.
SpoilerShow
Yes, and that terrible final feeling that she is just one of many. While perhaps her life with the Dolle's wasn't great, at least she was something special to the boy, now she is just a statistic, her own personal loss overwhelmed by everyone else's grief.
Has anyone noticed the interesting connection of the Forbidden Games release with Masters of Cinema?

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daniel p
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#22 Post by daniel p » Sat Apr 29, 2006 9:08 pm

What a heartbreaker of a film. My first Clément, and I was truly blown away by this. Just a beautiful film.

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kieslowski_67
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#23 Post by kieslowski_67 » Wed May 10, 2006 12:00 pm

It surprised me that no one mentioned that powerhouse performance given by the lovely Bridgett Fossey. The movie would not have worked without her performance. Period. And that performance probably will be remembered as the best child performance (beating out the likes of "Ponette" and "400 blows") ever recorded on the celluloid.

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#24 Post by cdnchris » Wed May 10, 2006 12:24 pm

It's an incredible performance indeed. It didn't even feel like she was acting. Everything she did on screen seemed so genuine, and I know that's what good acting should be, but you don't expect it at all from a child (at least I don't). She was just completely in the moment for every scene like she was living it, and she pretty much alone made the ending so heart breaking.

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HistoryProf
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#25 Post by HistoryProf » Fri Jun 30, 2006 12:35 am

A truly remarkable film. Fossey is phenomenal, and I was absorbed from the opening shot to the end. I can't say I would have felt the same way with the alternate opening and ending - which would have completely muted the power of the story Clement tells. There was nothing fairy tale about World War II, and I have the utmost respect for his standing up for the film as it is. i don't know the story of the Producer, but in the interviews there are comments made by Clement that the studio or whom ever were on a crusade to discredit him - suggesting even that the bad reviews it received upon release were the result of "bribes" aimed at the producer. Anyone know more of this aspect of the film's production? It does not sound as if it was a pleasant experience - but thankfully, it was ultimately as rewarding as it gets.

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