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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0715515031523
Format: Black & White, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Label: Criterion Collection
Manufacturer: Criterion Collection
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Criterion Collection
Region Code: 1
Release Date: September 16, 2008
Running Time: 97 minutes
Sales Rank: 8845
Studio: Criterion Collection
Theatrical Release Date: 1952
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Product Description:
Roving with his dazzlingly mobile camera around the decadent ballrooms, bucolic countryside retreats, urban bordellos, and painter's studios of late nineteenth-century Parisian society, Max Ophuls brings his astonishing visual dexterity and storytelling bravura to this triptych of tales by Guy de Maupassant about the limits of spiritual and physical pleasure. Featuring a stunning cast of French stars (including Danielle Darrieux, Jean Gabin, and Simone Simon), Le plaisir pinpoints the cruel ironies and happy compromises of life with a charming and sophisticated breeziness. SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:New, restored high-definition digital transfer, Introduction by filmmaker Todd Haynes, English- and German-language versions of the opening narration, From Script to Screen, a video essay featuring film scholar Jean-Pierre Berthome discussing the evolution of Ophuls's screenplay for Le plaisir, Interviews with actor Daniel Gelin, assistant director Tony Aboyantz, and set decorator Robert Christides, New and improved English subtitle translation. PLUS: A new essay by film critic Robin Wood.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - What a pleasure!
(I can't resist) LE PLAISIR is a pleasure. It's brilliant.
Director Max Ophuls transferred 3 Guy de Maupassant stories (set circa the late 1800s) to the screen while retaining an amazingly strong sense of their literary source.
The 3 stories are a wry look at love. They're not for those people "in love with love". They're for and about cynical, down-to-earth types. Despite that, the stories are vibrant and fun and I never lost interest.
This is a B&W film, directed with Ophuls mystical touch and influenced by the Impressionistic paintings of the story's milieu.
It's an ensemble piece filled with wonderful actors. Just to name a few: Danielle Darrieux -- so very lovely here -- and she gets to show off her equally lovely singing voice a little. Jean Gabin. Claude Dauphin. And a delightful surprise for me, Simone Simon, who demonstrates how much she was wasted by Hollywood.
This is a quality DVD from the Criterion Collection. The special features include an interview with one of the actors, Daniel Gélin, and an insightful behind-the-scenes presentation by French film scholar Jean-Pierre Berthome (speaking in English). I would suggest watching the "Intro" by Todd Haynes AFTER seeing the movie since he gives away too much for my taste (these stories are full of little surprises) -- but definitely watch it.
A couple years earlier, Max Ophuls made a similarly-themed ensemble piece with many of the same actors which Criterion ... Read More
Rating: - Ophüls' Swirling Lesson in Pleasure.
It was a happy day when I learned Criterion was finally releasing Max Ophüls' three great films, La Ronde, Le Plaisir, and Earrings of Madame de.... Ophüls is celebrated for his brilliant tracking shots and elaborate camera movements (which influenced Stanley Kubrick). He is also revered for his sparkling, Oscar-nominated black-and-white French comedy/drama, Le Plaisir (1952), which is nothing short of truly great French cinema. After experiencing this film, few would disagree with Roger Ebert's assessment of Ophüls as "one of the great pleasures of the cinema."
Based on three stories by 19th-century French writer Guy de Maupassant (a protégé of Flaubert), Le Plaisir is a lesson in how humans are ruled by pleasure. Featuring an ensemble cast of French stars (including Danielle Darrieux, Jean Gabin, and Simone Simon), Le plaisir live up to the promise of its title. "Le Masque" tells the story of an aging man who hides behind a mask of youth at a dance hall in an effort to extend his youthful reveries in his pursuit of women. "La Maison Tellier" examines a small-town Madam and her bordello of girls (whores) on a summer outing to experience a first communion. "Le Modèle" (the best of the three tales) tells the story of an artist's model, who jumps from a window out of her love for Jean the painter.
The Criterion edition of Le plaisir features a newly restored high-definition digital transfer; an introduction by filmmaker Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven); "From Script to Screen", ... Read More
Rating:  - Another classic from Ophüls
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.
Le Plaisir, meaning "pleasure" is a film based on three stories by Guy de Maupassant. Le Masque, La Maison Tellier, and Le Modèle.
In the first story, Le Masque, an elderly man hides his age with a mask and goes to a ball and dances energetically with a woman and he later falls down in exaustion. In the second story, La Maison Tellie, the women and madam of a brother go on a field trip. In the third story, Le Modèle, a woman falls in love with a male artist whom she poses for.
I found the film to be entertaining and liked the opening sequence with the old man in the mask.
The DVD has some great supplements too which are quite good. Todd Haynes gives an introduction to the film, also is a video slideshow with narration which provides the transition of the film from its script to its production, there are also interviews with actor Daniel Gélin, and crewmembers, Tony Aboyantz, and Robert Christidès. There are also alternate language versions of the opening narration in English and German.
This is a film that you won't want to miss.
Rating: - Max Ophuls' marvelous film of pleasure and, perhaps, love
The screen is pitch black and we hear a voice..."I'm so happy to be talking in the dark as if I were beside you, and maybe I am." The speaker is Guy de Maupassant (voiced by Jean Marais), and Le Plaisir is three of his stories filmed by the great director Max Ophuls. The connecting thread? That pleasure, or even love, lies in how people intermingle their lives, with a shrug, assumptions, an apology, a thank you. Le Plaisir is not so much a sophisticated film of attraction and hope as it is a film of rueful wisdom. It's best to keep in mind while watching this movie that while life can be enjoyed, there are times when hope can disappear.
The three stories consist of, first, La Masque. We are in 19th Century Paris at the Palais de la Dance, where great, swirling balls are held. This is a place where young women hope to find pleasure and rich men; where old women chase memories and young suitors; where prostitutes and their pimps gather, where the men are young bucks and old goats, where "rough cotton to the finest cambric" can combine. One slender man in full dinner dress rushes into the palace and begins to dance with a beautiful young woman. He prances and kicks, yet his face is like a frozen mask of youth. He collapses on the dance floor and a doctor is called. When the doctor loosens the man's clothes, he finds...well, let's say that when the man is delivered home to his wife by the doctor, she tells him a story of the battle between pleasure and love.
In La Maison Tellier, we learn ... Read More
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