@Devilman. I'm not "blaming" Kino for anything really. After all, before their edition of LBF, the film was almost unavailable in the English-speaking world. It is, however, a serious problem that in 2021, their edition is still the only one out there without having to do special imports from France, etc..
I think you are likely correct that Kino's source was something like an 'international release cut' (the Kino-dvd even has its English subtitles burned into the image). Yet IMDb and other official quasi-sources never even *mention* that such radically divergent cuts of the film exist let alone have something like hegemony in a large chunk of the world! Hence my posts now detailing for the record at least most of the major divergences between the French/Studio Canal and English-speaking world/Kino cuts. In my view, people who've only seen one version *need* to track down and watch the other.
Chabrol never quite achieved the fame of some of his New Wave colleagues in the English-speaking world, and that problem of inattention persists, e.g., Criterion only has two early Chabrols on blu-ray. My memory is that LBF itself only got a dvd-release in the US (i.e., by Kino) in the mid-'90s after La Ceremonie became a bit of an arthouse hit. Lots of Chabrol films aren't widely available in the English-speaking world, few on blu-ray or in any sort of HD quality. Lots of presumptive Chabrol masterworks such as Les Biches and Le Boucher and La Rupture that are still mainly known in the US and elsewhere via 1990s-era dvds may, for all I know, turn out to be as divergent & internationally expurgated as LBF. Being a Chabrol-fan outside of France is tough! In recent decades previously quite hard to see French directors such as Rivette, Rohmer, Varda have all had their days in the sun, and now all their best stuff is widely available in definitive editions. Not so Chabrol, whose best work (let alone his minor titles) mostly remains hard or even impossible to find in good order.
reply
share
Devilman (442)
3 years ago
Sadly this happened to many films there are even some that are no longer the original cut that was shown initially when released and we are stuck with edited or trimmed down versions.
reply
share
swanstep (2616)
3 years ago
@Devil. I think we agree about almost everything! Note that since I'm going through a bit of a Chabrol phase right now, I can cite as further evidence of how dire the situation is with his films, the minor Chabrol, Les liens de sang a.k.a. Blood Relatives (1978). It was shot in Montreal w/ some actors using English and some French. All dialogue may in fact have been post-recorded, Italian Giallo-style. Anyhow, all versions I've seen are clearly at least partially dubbed. There seems to be no version where all the audio matches up with lip movements perfectly.
So be it, but much more irritating is the fact that the English dub I've seen is a *completely* different cut from the French version I've seen (for which no subtitles exist apparently). Different scores are used throughout (lots of classical in the French version!), different sequences, shots and edits throughout too. They're flat out different films with the English Version being distinctly trashier than the French! Needless to say, the copies I've been able to get hold of have different aspect ratios, and feature wildly different colors and contrast levels, with the English version being so dark at the climax that you *really* can't see what's going on! Oh brother....
reply
share