MovieChat Forums > Molière Discussion > Now on DVD!

Now on DVD!

posted 18 years ago by Dash22
10 replies | jump to latest

I have just seen the DVD of Moliere - this is my first time seeing this film. What a wonderful experience!

The DVD contains the 244 minute theatrical release of the film (not the 300 minute TV version) in French with English, Italian, German and Spanish subtitles. The digital transfer quality is very good, the soundtrack is Dolby Digital mono and wide screen 16 x 9 format. Region 2 only.

There is also a 46 min interview with Ariane (done very recently) in which she talks extensively about the struggle in making the film, the reaction at Cannes, how she structured the story and the ideas behind the death scene amongst others. Great stuff!

I would recommend that any fans of this film make every effort to get this DVD (probably French Amazon or Ebay). For others it is a shining light in French cinema history and well worth tracking down.

[–] jcpo 18 years ago

Check out Learmedia, a Canadian distributor, who have arranged for a North American DVD of Ariane Mnouchkine's awesomely brilliant Moliere. http://www.learmedia.ca

[–] ginger929-1 17 years ago

Dear jcpo:

I recently sent for this two-disc set. Now I can drift back to 17th century France whenever I want to--

Thanks,

Virginia

[–] kfreund-1 17 years ago

Oh if this were true! I saw this on PBS when I was in high school in the 1970s and adored it - have the soundtrack on CD but would love to see the film again!

ETA: D'oh! I see it's actually there! (Bad searching on my part...)

[–] amboyle-2 17 years ago

The only problem with the North American dvd (Region 1) is that there are no english subtitles, it's only shown with the original french audio track. Still a beautiful movie, and worth a watch even if you don't understand french.

[–] jcpo 17 years ago

I am able to turn on english subtitles by pressing the SETUP button on my fairly old Toshiba DVD player's remote. I changed all four of the language settings to English which resulted in a French soundtrack and English subtitles. Voila! The subtitles appear mainly in the black area below the wide-screen image so I couldn't set my video screen to maximum image size.
My disks are the Bel Aire Classiques edition obtained from Learmedia in Canada.

[–] sissoed 15 years ago

The NTSC system DVDs that I bought from Lear in Canada do not have any subtitles. "Region 1,'" a DVD coding feature used to limit the geographical areas in which a DVD can be operated in its player, happens to largely overlap the geographical areas that use the NTSC Television tube protocols, but Region 1 and NTSC are not the same thing.

[–] denningcabinetry 17 years ago

That is great news. Does anyone know where to obtain this DVD?

[–] hamletmachin 17 years ago

amazon.fr carries it.

[–] jcpo 17 years ago

Learmedia in Canada.

[–] mssmssmssmss 9 years ago

You can get it now via amazon.com - but beware, apparently at this time you can only find it in PAL format which is not compatible with US DVD players. I got it and I can play it on my laptop which has Windows and Windows Media Player. Someone suggested I could connect my laptop to my nice HD television via an HDMI cable. I plan to try that. It is in French with a choice of subtitles including English.