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Le silence de la mer



Jean-Pierre Melville began his superb filmmaking career with this powerful adaptation of an influential underground novel written during the Nazi occupation of France. An idealistic, naive German officer is assigned to the home of a middle-aged man and his grown niece; their response to his presence—their only form of resistance—is complete silence. Constructed with elegant minimalism and shot, by the legendary Henri Decaë, with hushed eloquence, Le silence de la mer is a fascinating tale of moral ambiguity that points the way toward Melville's later films about resistance and the occupation (Léon Morin, Priest; Army of Shadows) yet remains a singularly eerie masterwork in its own right.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• 24 Hours in the Life of a Clown (1946), Melville's seventeen-minute first film
• New interview with film scholar Ginette Vincendeau
• Interview with Melville from 1959
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien

Excited for the short which is surprisingly good though I wish that they also put up When You Read This Letter some day.

A bit surprised Criterion didn't license the French 50 minute making of documentary. It was on the Masters Of Cinema as well.

Note that the MoC release is dual-format and region-free (though the DVD may be in PAL format?)

The DVD is listed as a 2-disc set and, unless those two interviews are really long, those extras do not look like they would need a second disc, so maybe they plan on adding the making of doc and/or something else.

swo17 wrote:Note that the MoC release is dual-format and region-free (though the DVD may be in PAL format?)

It also has one of their most substantial booklets.

Two docs added:

Code Name Melville (2008), a seventy-six-minute documentary on Melville’s time in the French Resistance and his films about it
Melville Steps Out of the Shadows (2010), a forty-one-minute documentary about Le silence de la mer featuring interviews with actor Nicole Stéphane and filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff, among others

Code Name Melville can be found on Studio Canal's release of Le cercle rouge.
Out of the Shadows is the doc' on MOC's Silence de la mer.

They've also added "a selection from Rui Nogueira’s 1971 book Melville on Melville" to the insert (maybe it'll be an actual booklet)

blu-ray.com

Svet wrote:Even if you already have Eureka's release, definitely consider adding this release to your collections

Svet doesn't mention the Nogueira selection - I wonder if its just an oversight on his part, or Criterion dropped it (it is still listed on their website), or its just a reviewer copy issue. In any case, I'm glad Criterion was able to create a great release (despite our reservations when initially announced) - that makes me glad I was dragging my feet on the MoC all this time.

Minkin wrote:blu-ray.com

Svet wrote:Even if you already have Eureka's release, definitely consider adding this release to your collections

Svet doesn't mention the Nogueira selection - I wonder if its just an oversight on his part, or Criterion dropped it (it is still listed on their website), or its just a reviewer copy issue. In any case, I'm glad Criterion was able to create a great release (despite our reservations when initially announced) - that makes me glad I was dragging my feet on the MoC all this time.

FWIW, the packaging photos clearly show a booklet open to the Nogueira piece, so it's just that it wasn't listed in the press sheet most likely.

I'm just happy to see a booklet again.

tenia wrote:Out of the Shadows is the doc' on MOC's Silence de la mer.

I already have the MOC (unopened, actually); is there anything exclusive about it that I may have missed that makes it worth keeping besides the booklet?

From what I gather, the MOC has a Trailer not found on the Criterion as well as a different interview with Ginette Vincendeau (as well as a larger booklet). I haven't seen the film yet but it sounds like if I'm really in love with it, it would be worth getting the Criterion and keeping the MOC. I've just been waffling on opening the shrinkwrap. My Melville is limited to Le Samourai and Un Flic which I though were a little dry for the content but fun, all the same; WWII seems a little more my speed and this one comes pretty well recommended, it seems.

It's very good but not necessarily incredibly representative of Melville as a whole- it's chamber bound and talky in a way his work rarely is.

I certainly wouldn't describe it as more "fun" or less dry than the others.