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He might sound ungrateful, but he's not actually wrong to say that the decision to award him a joint Palme with Seydoux and Exarchopoulos was pretty weird and capricious, and could be seen as a backhanded compliment about his work as a director. Is he being a little childish and oversensitive about it? Sure, but that doesn't make him a monster.

Agreed, he's not wrong. Or should we retroactively award more lead actors in Palme-winning films? Actor-as-auteur is an interesting conversation to have, but this was largely based on a whim. I can see where that would be frustrating, especially to someone who has butted heads with the French film establishment.

Besides, the main thrust of the story to begin with (i.e. why Kechiche was speaking in the first place) is about him putting his Palme d'Or up for auction (along with several other valuable items) to fund the rest of post-production on his new film that has become two films and lost its original funding as a result.

On Amazon.ca this is retailing for OOP prices...I wonder if the long rumoured special edition is still being planned or if it's scraped?

This supposed special edition must be up there with Khrzhanovsky’s Dau – in the sense that I would die of shock if it ever actually came out! Surely, by now, Kechiche has moved on; one gets the impression that the film has pretty unpleasant associations for him now and that he’d be happy to put it behind him.

Robespierre wrote:scraped

Scraped, huh? Boy, that sounds painful! I surely would not like that to happen to me!

Poop, I forgot that scraped is a real word and not a new compound-slang word for a more scratchy version of rape. That's no fun!

I bought the current barebones edition since at this point I've lost hope for a special-er edition, not to mention they removed reference to that upcoming edition from the website.

So if they announce something within the next two to seven months, it was my fault.

Yaanu wrote:I bought the current barebones edition since at this point I've lost hope for a special-er edition, not to mention they removed reference to that upcoming edition from the website.

So if they announce something within the next two to seven months, it was my fault.

I thought it had become clear a while ago that Kechiche is no longer interested in revisiting the film.

I certainly wouldn't say no to an extended cut if it did turn up but honestly I always felt the film as it is was more Apoc Now than it was Once Upon A Time In America, Kechiche was probably pushed to keep it somewhat shorter but it wasn't butchered by the studio and judging from his latest perhaps kept him in check?

Looking at the deleted scenes on the DVD for example I think there certainly not lacking in quality but I can definitely see why they were cut. The garden party was I'd imagine intended to be a mirror of the latter one with the art crowd similar to the two "meet the parents" scenes yet I think Adele ends up too sidelined in it and the "first love" message just seems a bit too on the nose. Likewise I think the scene with her gay friend would have to have been included at a point where the film wants to show her having shifted in terms of character and dropping school associations.

I mean, "the shortest three hours" has become a bit of a cliché but I think the existing cut really does feel like that for me, such a tight focus and natural flow to it that barely ever feels like digression. In terms of how it plays its drama as well I think the balance is very well set, doesn't feel like its either wallowing in tension filled subtly(another recent Cann winner 4 months, 3 weeks 2 days comes to mind, not to say I dislike it) or throwing unearnt melodrama at you for me.

Was this film not released as a dual format edition?
Strange as the numbered spine has it smack dab in the middle of those releases, but then again, wasn't Grande illusion spine #1, but delayed due to the fining of a new print? I think that one ended up being Crierion's 50th release, or something like that.

Yes, Grand Illusion came out much later after a better print was discovered.

Warmest Color came out during the time of dual-formats but Critetion released it in both separate, and featureless, Blu-ray and DVD editions for the general market (and rentals when that was still a thing) to rush the film out since it was the talk at the time, with the promise of a bigger special edition (maybe dual-format later). That edition, as you can see, never happened.

As I recall it was released to monopolize on anticipated awards attention it never really received, stateside at least. Then the horrible press the director got, in part due to revelations about this film, didn't help a new edition materialize. I would go so far as to say there's no way in Hell this ever gets the promised longer version from Criterion

Part of the 2nd release never happening also probably is because Kechiche already can't finish editing his regular projects on time, so it always looked unlikely for him to be able to re-edit a previous movie on top of that (and indeed, it still has to happen with this one).
For Criterion to re-release it potentially, I guess this re-edit would need to happen first, and this probably will never happen to start with.
(I'm assuming here the re-edit's ball is in Kechiche's side, not Criterion)

jojo wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2017 6:27 pm His behaviour is probably something we're going to hear about every time a new movie of his is released. I haven't read anything about him that has crossed that invisible line I have in my mind about what is "completely unacceptable behaviour" yet, but part of me keeps wondering when the day will come when he does. As it stands, he's worse than most by modern standards but still a ways from "Klaus Kinski unacceptable."

Considering what happened on his very next film, this really turned out to be a prescient post. The discussion earlier in the thread about whether this behavior should be tolerated? Don't care how much a director abuses his actors? Fascinating in retrospect.

Which is too bad, because Blue is the Warmest Color is really a fantastic movie, and Kechiche is a talent. I thought the way he handled Adele's relationships was brilliant. He shows her and Thomas not connecting on anything both on the bus and then while stuffing their faces with gyros, and her attempts to be attracted to him failing on multiple occasions. Then when she meets Emma, we see an initial bond over some intellectual pursuits (in addition to their physical attraction), and we initially feel like she may have found someone on her wavelength. But even that early on, Emma and Adele find some disagreement over authors (Sartre in particular, I believe?), and they are really unable to back off of their preconceived opinions and consider the other's viewpoint. We don't really notice it that much at the time, but it gets magnified as the film progresses. They just aren't compatible. Emma is an artist, and all of her friends are artists and talk about intellectual stuff that Adele just really isn't that interested in. Adele wants a simple life as a teacher with a supportive partner, but Emma wants her to be an artist (a writer, specifically). She even goes so far as to say Adele won't be fulfilled otherwise. Adele is rightly confused by this. But quite frankly, Emma needs to be around (and with) other artists, and Adele is not that person. Adele tries to engage in the conversations, but really doesn't know much beyond Picasso.

Emma's comfort in her sexuality is also strikingly different than Adele's, and likely due to their upbringing and social circles. They are unable to find common ground there either.

Their sexual compatibility is through the roof. I don't think Adele is ever really able to separate the two. Emma does. She confesses her sex life is nowhere near the same with Lise as it was with Adele, but with Lise she has a family, someone she can relate to more on a personal level, raising children with Lise which makes her happy as well. Adele could not provide those things for her. I'm sure Emma would like to have it all, but for her, she is willing to have a more boring sex life for the rest of the positive aspects she gets in her relationship with Lise. I thought the longing look at Emma and Lise as they posed for photos together during the art exhibition was stunning. Adele always imagined herself being the partner in those photos. She does finally come to terms with the fact that this relationship is over and reconciliation ain't happening, and she will finally move on, and she will be better off for it. Took her a long damn time, but she got there.

Also, personally, I really liked the teaching scenes. That is, Adele teaching pre-schoolers and then first graders. The movie really is about her growth as a person, NOT just about her relationship with Emma. Her dream is to be a teacher. We see her happy fulfilling that dream, and at the same time dealing with personal struggles and trying to continue being good at (and learning how to better at) her job. These are skills she's building for the next few decades of her life. Just as she's building relationship skills.

The high school scenes early on I felt were a little tiring, though I think they were necessary to better understand her character: She stays relatively closeted because her parents, her upbringing, her classmates. During the scene where her "friends" attack her for going out with a woman, we see a glimpse of the girl who kissed her on the stairs (and then rejected her in the bathroom) looking on.... and she looks aghast. She's like "Well, I'm certainly not coming out to these assholes."

Anyway, Exarchopoulos puts on a performance for the ages. I can't believe her career never really took off. What happened there?

You know, after reading that, I might have to revisit this one sometime soon. I've always felt it was a good movie that was kind of sabotaged by its sex scenes, both because they dominated a lot of the conversation about it and because they're not very good.

Exarchopoulos' and Seydoux's career paths after this movie came up in a Discord server I'm in a little while ago. Now that I think about it, I can see kind of a parallel between the way you summed up their characters' differences and the way Seydoux want to Hollywood and became this kind of in-demand star while Exarchopoulos has mostly remained in French festival movies.

It's also kind of not surprising given the impression they make at a pretty superficial level in this film -- Emma is presented as very interesting, desirable, and visually striking, in a way that Adele, though we're kind of invited to relate to and sympathize with her more directly, isn't really. Both actresses are fantastic in this film, but it's hard to imagine it making Exarchopoulos the kind of sex symbol Seydoux became, and I think that was a pretty significant factor in Seydoux's later success. And for all I know, Exarchopoulos could be perfectly happy doing what she's doing.

For what it's worth, Léa Seydoux was already getting roles in international box-office hits years before appearing in Blue Is the Warmest Colour (Inglourious Basterds, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Midnight in Paris, Robin Hood), so it's arguable that her Hollywood ascendancy, such as it is, would have happened in exactly the same way regardless. It stands to reason that Exarchopoulos, then a relative unknown in 2013 and nearly a decade younger, might follow a different career trajectory – but given her continuing headline roles in French films, I wouldn't say she's exactly slumming it or fallen off the radar (unless we're using a metric that treats a Bond girl role as the pinnacle of thespian achievement and regular leads in Cannes-selected features + successive César nominations as doing it tough).

Seydoux being the granddaughter of Pathé’s chairman probably didn’t hurt.

True, especially regarding her international career already taking off somewhat by the time Blue came out. I think my perception may have been skewed by the fact that Blue was the first thing I saw her in. And you're right about Exarchopoulos not having less of a career, per se -- I just don't keep up with the kind of stuff she's been doing since, so I don't tend to hear much about her, whereas one can't help but hear about at least some of the stuff Seydoux has been in.

The family connection probably explains a bit as well, of course.

Exarchopoulos has played in 21 feature-length movies (Seydoux 19), 2 TV shows, 1 Amazon comedic show, and voice acting Elemental since she starred in La vie d'Adèle.

However, indeed, the projects are probably a bit more French-centric and less visible than what Seydoux is doing. I'm not sure it's all down to being some kind of A-lister vs B-lister, it seems that Exarchopoulos is also liking exploring smaller projects, like Je verrai toujours vos visages, Sibyl, Rien à foutre, Les cinq diables, Mandibules and Fumer fait tousser, or Les anarchistes, while Seydoux definitely has a career on bigger international projects (James Bond, Cronenberg, Anderson, Dune, etc).

tenia wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 2:18 pm ... while Seydoux definitely has a career on bigger international projects (James Bond, Cronenberg, Anderson, Dune, etc).

Don't forget Death Stranding!