4 March 2008

having started his film career as an underwater cameraman for famed undersea filmmaker Jacques Cousteau, French filmmaker Louis Malle went on to direct some 33 films over a 41 year period, many of which are held in the highest esteem, including Le Voleur (The Thief – 1967), Lacombe Lucien (1974) and Au revoir les enfants (1987). He was also one of the few French filmmakers of his generation to successfully make the transition to Hollywood, his films there including the controversial Pretty Baby (1978), the intellectual talk-fest My Dinner with Andre (1981) and the excellent Atlantic City (1980). Now Criterion have announced the May release of two of Malle's earlier films, including the one that established his reputation as a filmmaker to watch.

Les Amants (The Lovers - 1958) reunited the director with the fabulous Jeanne Moreau, whose natural beauty was was so strikingly evident in Malle's previous Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Lift to the Scaffold or Elevator to the Gallows, depending on which side of the Atlantic you reside) and cemented the reputation of both. A deeply felt and luxuriously filmed fairy tale for grown-ups, perched on the edge between classical and New Wave cinemas, Les Amants presents Moreau as a restless bourgeois wife whose eye wanders from both her husband and her lover to an attractive passing stranger (Jean-Marc Bory). Thanks to its frank sexuality, Les Amants caused quite a stir, being censored and attacked for obscenity around the world. If today its shock has worn off, its glistening sensuality and seductive storytelling haven't aged a day.

Criterion's DVD will have the following features:

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer of the complete, uncensored version;
• Selection of archival interviews with Louis Malle, actors Jeanne Moreau and José Luis de Villalonga, and writer Louise de Vilmorin;
• Gallery of promotional material from the U.S. theatrical release;
• New and improved English subtitle translation;
• A new essay by film historian Ginette Vincendeau.

Le Feu follet (The Fire Within - 1963) broke with the style Malle had established with the crowd-pleasing Les Amants and Zazie dans le métro (1960), instead being a penetrating study of individual and social inertia. Maurice Ronet (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud), in an implosive, haunted performance, plays Alain Leroy, a self-destructive writer who resolves to kill himself and spends the next twenty-four hours trying to reconnect with a host of wayward friends. Unsparing in its portrait of Alain's inner turmoil and shot with remarkable clarity, Le Feu follet is one of Malle's darkest and most personal films.

Criterion's disc will have the following features:

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer;
• Archival interviews with director Louis Malle and actor Maurice Ronet;
• Malle's Fire Within, a new video program featuring interviews with actor Alexandra Stewart and filmmakers Philippe Collin and Volker Schlöndorff;
• Jusqu'au 23 Juillet, a 2005 documentary short about Pierre Drieu la Rochelle's novel Le feu follet and dadaist writer Jacques Rigaut (the inspiration for the main character), featuring actor Mathieu Amalric, writer Didier Daeninckx, and Cannes festival curator Pierre-Henri Deleau
• New and improved English subtitle translation;
• A booklet featuring new essays by critic Michel Ciment and historian Peter Cowie.

Both discs will be released individually in the US by Criterion in May 2008 (exact date to be confirmed at the SRP of $29.95 each.