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The Love of a Woman

Posted: Fri May 12, 2017 5:44 pm
by domino harvey
Image
The Love of a Woman (L'amour d'une femme) was the final feature of the great French filmmaker Jean Grémillon, concluding a string of classics that included such greats as Remorques, Lumiere d'eteand Pattes blanches.

Marie, a young doctor, arrives on the island of Ushant to replace its retiring physician. She experiences prejudice from the mostly male population, but also love in the form of engineer André.

Starring Micheline Presle, whose impressive career has encompassed French, Italian and Hollywood cinema, and Massimo Girotti, best-known for his performance in Luchino Visconti's Ossessione, The Love of a Woman is a sad, beautiful, romantic masterpiece.

Special Features:

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition presentations of the feature, from materials supplied by Gaumont
• Original French mono audio (uncompressed LPCM on the Blu-ray)
• Optional English subtitles
• In Search of Jean Gremillon, a feature-length documentary on the filmmaker from 1969, containing interviews with director Rene Clair, archivist Henri Langlois, actors Micheline Presle and Pierre Brasseur, and others
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jennifer Dionisio
• First pressing only:Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Ginette Vincendeau

U.S. STREET DATE: AUGUST 22.

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 5:59 am
by alacal2
Genuinely surprised at the lack of response to this release given the frustration this board had with Criterion's delay in releasing any Gremillon. Any Gremillon release is a major event and Arrow deserve a lot of respect in delivering a Blu and with what appears to be an excellent extra.

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 6:15 am
by NABOB OF NOWHERE
90 % of Le Grem's output is worthy of a mighty Hurrah but I think the forum would have erupted had Maldone, Les Gardiens des Phares or La petite Lise been slated.

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 9:56 am
by Rayon Vert
alacal2 wrote:Genuinely surprised at the lack of response to this release given the frustration this board had with Criterion's delay in releasing any Gremillon. Any Gremillon release is a major event and Arrow deserve a lot of respect in delivering a Blu and with what appears to be an excellent extra.
Mediocre script and all-around lacklustre film. Grémillon's last two films fell well below his usual standard.

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 7:41 pm
by swo17
I mostly bought this to support Arrow releasing more Grémillon. It may not boast much of the visual inventiveness of his earlier work (a point driven home in clips featured in the lengthy documentary included as an extra) but it's still a fine film. Thematically, I suppose this is somewhat tied to Le ciel est à vous in terms of its female protagonist's drive to succeed in her career, though where that lead was able to fall back on a loving marriage for strength, here the love interest discourages her pursuits. I found the situation relatable, the acting moving, and the whole mise-en-scène rather romantic. I also really liked the score. Now bring on Pattes blanches! (And Daïnah la métisse, La Petite Lise, Maldone, Gardiens de phare, etc.)

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 10:02 pm
by swo17
A much better review than mine. I think I agree the doc is actually a bigger selling point than the feature.

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 5:51 am
by alacal2
Swo there's a French Bluray with English subs. I've not seen any reviews and have yet to watch my copy. I've just read David's fine review and I see he's already covered Pattes Blanche. Love David's historical background references too. The Bfi played a selection of Gremillon from the Edinburgh Film Festival of which I managed to see four or five - usually with the same growing band of excited Gremillon supporters. I too hope the Arrow release gives his work a jump-start.

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 6:52 am
by NABOB OF NOWHERE
swo17 wrote: Now bring on Pattes blanches! (And Daïnah la métisse, La Petite Lise, Maldone, Gardiens de phare, etc.)
Dainah has been restored by Gaumont but unfortunately is still only the butchered 48 min version. God knows what Pathé are doing with the restored Lise. Maldone was shown on Arte some years back and is perfectly serviceable as is the Tokyo based print of Gardiens which I saw at the Edinburgh Grem retrospective. These 4 would make a magnificent set but I think we would be more likely to see either Remorques or Gueule first given the Gabin connection. There are docs on the french edition of Pattes, Lumiere d'Ete and Remorques that easily be ported with english subs as well as the Gremillon episode from the series Opera Intime that looks more at Gremillon's use of music. We live in hope

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 10:04 am
by swo17
alacal2 wrote:Swo there's a French Bluray with English subs.
I know, I actually own it. It could use a wider release though, and I assume it would be a logical next step as long as rights aren't an issue.

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2017 2:47 pm
by Jean-Luc Garbo
david hare wrote:Review here:

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... 9909642657" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Could you expand on this comment: "Sensualist and theological thinker, hetero and homo, tough shell and fragile artiste"? Are you saying Grem was a bisexual? Or a particularly religious man? Knowing little of his life but loving his films, I find this comment especially intriguing.

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2017 3:05 pm
by Big Ben
A quick Google search states that Grémillon was Bisexual and that his 1937 film Lady Killer contained LGBT content. However it was all incredibly vague. So take that as you will.

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2017 10:09 pm
by knives
If Lady Killer has homoerotic content it's buried pretty deep in the closet.

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 7:42 am
by NABOB OF NOWHERE
I think the reference is between the charged relationship between Lucien and René which comes to a head when they are arguing about who deserves the Mireille Balin character more and Gabin utters the ambiguous line " I loved her as much as you" Also it could be argued that the final farewell is a lover's wave.

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 9:52 am
by knives
I still take that for a stretch. Certainly the film contrasts masculine friendship with female romance in a way that prefers the masculine, but that in and of itself is not homoerotic though I suppose it is homo something.

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 11:35 am
by NABOB OF NOWHERE
I will consult with my avatar if there is a suitable epithet.

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 8:43 pm
by Jean-Luc Garbo
I certainly wouldn't have caught any of that on first glance. Thanks for the head's up!

Re: The Love of a Woman

Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2017 3:13 am
by NABOB OF NOWHERE
david hare wrote:. If the kiss and the patting and stroking of hair and the fussing about don't suggest to you that Rene's "hero worship" and his penultimate need to "impress" Lucien with a proposed marriage to the trophy Madeleine is a barely disguised homoerotic fixation I wont' try to convince anyone either.
.
OK lads, my avatar suggests eyes down for a re-watch with Gaydar turned to 11