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Claude Chabrol was the most prolific of the New Wave directors. He didn’t only do murder thrillers; this fine selection of Chabrols from the ten year period 1985-1994 begins with a pair of detective tales but moves on to a masterful adaptation of a great book and two engrossing experiments, one of them picking up where an earlier French master left off. The players are terrific as well: Jean Poiret, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Claude Brialy, Bernadette Lafont, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-François Balmer, Christophe Malavoy, Jean Yanne, Marie Trintignant, Jean-François Garreaud, Emmanuelle Béart, François Cluzet.

Lies and Deceit: Five Films by Claude Chabrol

Blu-ray

Cop au Vin (Poulet au vinaigre), Inspector Lavardin (Inspecteur Lavardin), Madame Bovary, Betty, Torment (L’enfer)

Arrow Video

1985-1994 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 9 hours and 17 minutes / Street Date February 22, 2022 / Available from Arrow Video (UK website) / Available from Amazon U.S. / 99.95

Common Credits:

Cinematography: Jean Rabier (3), Bernard Ziterman (2)

Production Designer:...

Pierre Etaix is much on my mind, you could say, since I've just written about 9,000 words on him (to be trimmed down considerably, I assure you) for the forthcoming Criterion Collection box set of his cinematic works. Though his last film for the cinema (as director: he has continued to act in films such as Micmacs and Le Havre), Etaix had a brief burst of activity directing for TV in the 1980s, which included one feature, L'âge de Monsieur est avancé, a filmed play which bursts its bounds and includes the audience and stagehand in the drama. It looks delightful, but as my French is at the level of your average two-year-old (and not even a French two-year-old), I can't really write about it.

But See Rank Le cauchemar de Méliès (The Nightmare of Méliès), produced the next year for a TV compendium tribute to Georges Méliès (also featuring contributions...

This week production began on an Audrey Tautou toplined project which once again taps into familiar semi-dramatic rom-comedic functions as some of her more recent string of roles. Having just completed filming on actor-turned director Jalil Lespert's Des vents contraries, she'll be shooting in the French capitol for author turned director David Foenkinos who is turning his best-seller novel Delicacy into a feature film. Tautou will be paired alongside Belgium's François Damiens (nominated for the 2011 Best Supporting Actor César for Heartbreaker). 2.4.7 Films' Marc-Antoine Robert and Xavier Rigault are producing. Gist: Also starring Bruno Todeschini, Joséphine de Meaux, Mélanie Bernier, Pio Marmai, Monique Chaumette, Christophe Malavoy and the always enjoyable Ariane Ascaride, here's the book description: Nathalie and François had been the perfect couple, and perfectly happy. But after François dies suddenly, only seven years into their still blissful marriage, the widowed Nathalie begins to erect a fortress around her...