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A Day in the Country



This bittersweet work from Jean Renoir, based on a story by Guy de Maupassant, is a tenderly comic idyll about a city family's picnic in the French countryside and the romancing of the mother and grown daughter by two local men. Conceived as part of a larger project that was never completed, shot in 1936, and released ten years later, the warmly humanist vignette A Day in the Country ranks among Renoir's most lyrical films, with a love for nature imbuing its every beautiful frame.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Introduction by director Jean Renoir from 1962
• New interview with Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner about the film's production
• New video essay by Faulkner on Renoir's methods
• Un tournage à la campagne, an 89-minute 1994 compilation of outtakes from the film
• Interview with producer Pierre Braunberger from 1979
• Screen tests
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by film scholar Gilberto Perez

Good news. I'm happy with the BFI disc, except that the subtitles can't be switched off, and they are evidently simplified.

My favorite Renoir, a light and lovely cinematic treat. Looks like some nice extras too. Plus, it always has a place in my heart for being name-checked in my favorite episode of NewsRadio

My all-time favorite French film. I'm very happy that Criterion will finally be releasing this! All these years of waiting will be worth it ... for this 2K restoration on Blu-ray.

domino harvey wrote:name-checked in my favorite episode of NewsRadio

That being? (The film references that have always stuck with me from NewsRadio are Persona and Logan's Run.)

"Rose Bowl," where Lisa does Dave's performance review and chastises him for recommending A Day in the Country without properly crediting her for his initial exposure. Coincidentally Ed also had an even more obscure Jean Renoir reference via Phil Stubbs quoting him on filmmaking in one of the first episodes, so even before I knew anything about film I knew who Renoir was!

By the way, those who haven't seen the film should be aware that it is essentially complete. It has beginning, middle, and end, and the material that is missing makes such a natural ellipsis that you wouldn't necessarily guess that the film was originally intended to be longer.

That beautiful moment when a window is opened onto a deep focus shot of the garden outside is reprised in a fashion in Grand Illusion during the fugitive's sojourn at the farmhouse.

Tied for the most unwatchable vhs transfer I've ever seen, looking forward to seeing a more coherent video image that is stable for more than five seconds at a time.

bottled spider wrote:By the way, those who haven't seen the film should be aware that it is essentially complete. It has beginning, middle, and end, and the material that is missing makes such a natural ellipsis that you wouldn't necessarily guess that the film was originally intended to be longer.

This film could be a contender for Fate's Greatest Edit. It's hard to imagine Renoir coming up with a better film if he'd been able to complete the project.

zedz wrote:

bottled spider wrote:By the way, those who haven't seen the film should be aware that it is essentially complete. It has beginning, middle, and end, and the material that is missing makes such a natural ellipsis that you wouldn't necessarily guess that the film was originally intended to be longer.

This film could be a contender for Fate's Greatest Edit. It's hard to imagine Renoir coming up with a better film if he'd been able to complete the project.

I agree, it seems to me that the shop-set scenes back in Paris would be superfluous, to say the least. The Seine is one of the film's most important characters; to move the action elsewhere would be impure. All of the work that those scenes would've done is perfectly conveyed in a brief inter-title.

My third-favourite Renoir after only La regle du jeu and La bete humaine. Each of these films offers something so unique, yet they are all quintessential Renoir. Partie de campagne is a necessary edition to the Collection, and to everyone else's.

I'll be shocked if there winds up being many 2015 releases that excite me more than this. It's my favorite Renoir as well, and alongside Simon of the Desert one of those "incomplete" films that are completely perfect.

I wonder if the Perez essay will be new or whether it'll be taken from his wonderful chapter on Renoir in The Material Ghost, which focuses largely on A Day in the Country.

Shame this doesn't carry over the Phillip Kemp commentary from the BFI, or add a new one of its own. Still really excited about it, though.

ordinaryperson wrote:DVDBeaver

Looks really good, I can't wait

Maybe it should be in the pricing thread, but a full $40 price for a 40 minute movie...
Pretty good with extras, but I would have hoped for more, as people said the BFI commentary etc.

Looks very nice! I can't wait to own this Blu-ray. The restoration did its magic to remove the layer of white noise near the end of the film (the 6th screen capture at DVDBeaver). To me, this restored Une Partie de Campagne on Blu-ray is priceless [translation: I don't mind spending a little more on it ]. And to also get Un tournage a la campagne in 1080p is just grrreat!

The BFI DVD has been my most frequently watched DVD (among the DVDs and Blu-rays that I own). This Criterion Blu-ray will sit next to the BFI DVD on the shelf.

Just went through this film and most of the excellent supplements, and have to say this is definitely one of the best releases of the year. I think some were a bit taken aback at price tag for a short film with not a whole lot of extras, but I would consider those extras pretty exhaustive. We get small interviews with people involved with the film. Faulkner's interview is great, as it gives details about the film, an explanation about the footage that is missing due to its incomplete nature, and general observations about the point Renoir was at his career at this point, and how it synced up with France's history. All of the extras I went through (all but the full film of the outtakes), were great, and the transfer looked superb.

I do have one question about Faulkner's take on the film:

Spoiler

Faulkner keeps referring to Henriette's rape as a "seduction." Sure seemed like a rape to me. Especially backed by her defiance at the end, and her decision to control the rowboat instead of her husband, as a way to never lose control of a situation again. That's how I read it. Am I off, here?

It seems over analysing to me.

Spoiler

I don't think it's a rape at all, it just seems like the old way of showing a resisting woman which is then seduced, quite roughly but still, by the man. It certainly isn't the only movie showing stuff like this (for instance, recently, I've seen a similar sequence in On The Waterfront). In the case of A Day in the Country, I don't think Renoir would have overlapped this sequence by the nice singing of birds.