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The Criterion Collection: Léon Morin, Priest Blu-ray Disc Review

Leon Morin, Priest: The Criterion Collection [Blu-ray] (1961)

LÉON MORIN, PRIEST (1961, Blu-ray released July 26, 2011 – MSRP $39.95)

MOVIE: ★★★★½ 
VIDEO: ★★★★☆ 
AUDIO: ★★★★☆ 
EXTRAS: ★★★½☆ 
BLU-RAY: ★★★★☆ 


Director Jean-Pierre Melville says of his film, Léon Morin, Priest, that “the main idea was to show this amorous priest who likes to excite girls but doesn’t sleep with them.” It’s accurate but truly an oversimplification of deeply complex work, well represented in Criterion‘s exceptional new Blu-ray edition of the film.

    Jean-Paul Belmondo delivers a subtly sensual performance in the hot-under-the-collar Léon Morin, Priest (Léon Morin, prêtre), directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. The French superstar plays a devoted man of the cloth who is desired by all the women of a small village in Nazi-occupied France. He finds himself most drawn to a sexually frustrated widow—played by Emmanuelle Riva—a religious skeptic whose relationship with her confessor turns into a confrontation with both God and her own repressed desire. A triumph of mood, setting, and innuendo, Léon Morin, Priest is an irreverent pleasure from one of French cinema’s towering virtuosos.

I feel like Melville usually upstages the actors in his films. His style, the iron grip he keeps on his storytelling and the subdued nature of his characters usually make him the true star of his own work. But as masterful as his efforts might be behind the camera in Léon Morin, Priest, he simply can’t compete with the raw charisma of superstar Belmondo or the infectious heart of Emmanuelle Riva as Barny, the lead character who is likely a proxy for Béatrix Beck, author of the novel the film is based on. Belmondo smolders, tightly wound in his priest’s cassock, never quite stepping over the line but clearly flirting with sin as he uses the powers of the church and his not-so-hidden charms to engage the women of the town in the sort of theological and existential discussions that not only stir their minds but their bodies as well. And he seems to have a keen interest in widowed, single mother Barny, whose verbal sparring with the attractive, young man of the cloth eventually leads her to develop a love for him that she knows will never see fruition.

Though the story takes place against the backdrop of WWII in occupied France (a popular setting for Melville, having served in and lost a brother to the war) the director never allows it to dominate the characters. In fact, he often illustrates the narrative with unlikely shades of grey – the kindness of a German soldier contrasted with a brutish American GI. It merely sets the stage for the human drama that Melville is more interested in playing with here, providing Barny a reason to feel weak and seek answers and Morin a more battered, desperate clergy to woo.

Léon Morin, Priest looks great on Blu-ray. This fifty-year old film holds up wonderfully in Criterion’s new transfer, showing few signs of wear and tear and remarkable detail and contrast. Blacks are deep, film grain is present and there is absolutely no untoward signs of nasty digital manipulation. An absolutely spot-on black-and-white transfer!

From the included booklet notes:

    This new high-definition digital transfer was created on a Spirit 4K Datacine from a 35 mm fine-grain master positive. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using MTI’s DRS system, while Digital Vision’s Phoenix system was used for small dirt, grain, and noise reduction.

The French lossless audio track is the only option but you won’t be disappointed with it. It’s clean and clear with enough dynamic headroom to keep Martial Solal‘s score sounding full and rich.

From the included booklet notes:

    The original monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from a 35mm optical track print. Clicks, thumps, hiss, and hum were manually removed using Pro Tools HD. Crackle was attenuated using AudioCube’s integrated workstation.

Léon Morin, Priest features a commentary that plays only over selected scenes. I’m of two minds on this sort of track – on one hand, I feel cheated when commentary on a disc isn’t feature length, yet on the other, I’m pleased that my time isn’t being wasted with needless filler, between on-screen scenes of particular note to the speaker. That said, Ginette Vincendeau‘s approximately 37-minutes of background, insight and factoids are well researched and well thought out. It’s a good listen, broken up into three nearly equal chunks on the menu. There are around 5-minutes of deleted scenes on the disc, culled from nearly an hour of footage Melville excised to drive the narrative away from life during wartime and keep it focused on the relationships of the main characters. The disc also includes a 5-minute excerpt from French interview program JT 19H15, featuring Melville and Belmondo chatting about the film. The 28-page booklet included in the package sports an essay by author Gary Indiana and an interview with Melville conducted by Rui Nogueira in 1970. The Blu-ray disc is rounded out with the films theatrical trailer.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Special Features:

  • New high-definition digital restoration with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • French television interview with director Jean-Pierre Melville and actor Jean-Paul Belmondo from 1961
  • Selected-scene commentary by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic and novelist Gary Indiana and excerpts from Melville on Melville

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