La Bête Humaine (Directors Suite) (1938)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Booklet-La Bête Humaine: Filming Zola Gallery-Poster Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1938
Running Time	95:59 (Case: 100)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Jean Renoir
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Jean Gabin Simone Simon Fernand Ledoux Blanchette Brunoy Gérard Landry Jenny Hélia Colette Régis Claire Gérard Charlotte Clasis Jacques Berlioz Tony Corteggiani André Tavernier Marcel Pérès
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	Joseph Kosma

    La Bête Humaine is based on the novel of the same name by Emile Zola. The novel was published in 1890 and it was hugely successful. The theme of the novel and Jean Renoir's adaptation of it in 1938, is the tragic consequences of love and its related emotions, jealousy, lust, greed, envy and murder. This is certainly no easy subject matter and the theme of the film could only be made in the 1930s in Europe. It took Fritz Lang to remake it in 1954 in the United States, films like this would never have passed the US censors in the 1940s.

    Jean Gabin, the great French actor who reached his creative zenith in the 1930s with films such as Pepe Le Moko, The Grand Illusion, Port of Shadows and this film plays Jacques Lantier, a train engineer who has an inherited madness (according to the novel) or epilepsy (according to film reviews based on Renoir's adaptation). To control his overwhelming feelings to want to kill women who he gets involved with he seeks to live a quiet life, driving his train, which he describes as his "true love". Simone Simon plays Séverine Roubaud, a beautiful young woman who is convinced by her husband to kill her godfather after he tries to seduce her. They succeed in killing Grandmorin, Séverine's godfather, but the murder is witnessed by Lantier, who blackmails the couple for his silence due to his love for Séverine. From here the film plays out its tragic outcomes, as all classic film noirs do.

    The film proved to be Jean Renoir's greatest mainstream financial success and it led to the establishment of a production company. Unfortunately, the failure of his next film, The Rules of the Game and the advent of the Second World War meant that Renoir had to go to Hollywood to continue to work. He wouldn't find success in his filmmaking ventures until 1951's The River, made in India and The Golden Coach, made in 1953 in Europe. Jean Gabin had a similar career path. His difficult personality was tolerated when he was hugely successful in France in the 1930s. However, he too fled to the United States and found work for foreigners was not so conducive to the critical adulation he was used to in France. He would go on to star in a series of box office failures until Jacques Becker threw him a lifeline with a lead role in Touchez pas au grisbi in 1954 (Incidentally this great crime noir film was released by Madman's Directors Suite label recently, and it will be reviewed on this site soon). Simone Simon did find success in Hollywood in the 1940s in her starring roles in the The Devil and Daniel Webster and Cat People. Her film career stalled in the 1950s, her last notable roles were for Max Ophüls in his 1950s films, La Ronde and Le Plaisir.

    This is the third Jean Renoir title to be released by Directors Suite, after The River and The Golden Coach with more Renoir titles on the way with the release of his other 'stage and spectacle' trilogy films after The Golden Coach, French Cancan and Elena and Her Men and the exciting release of his unfinished classic, Une Partie De Campagne coming in March 2010.

Video

    The film is presented on a single-layered DVD-5 disc. The average bitrate is 4.91 mb per sec, but this bitrate is consistent throughout the film.

    The aspect ratio is 1:33:1 full frame not 16x9 enhanced for widescreen televisions.

    The video transfer seems to be identical to the Region 1 restored Criterion Collection transfer which is generally very sharp, although some transition scenes have not been restored and the viewer can certainly spot the difference between the parts of the film that have been improved upon and those which have not, although these scene transitions are usually minor, short scenes. Shadow Detail is crisp and precise, as good as it can look on DVD. Grain is minimal and there is no significant low level noise, despite the video transfer only being presented on a single-sided DVD-5 disc.

    The black and white cinematography looks pristine in its restored state. It's hard to believe that the film was made in 1938, at times it looks that good!

    Film Artefacts are present on the transfer. These are mainly dust marks and scratches, but these are infrequent.

    Madman again provides its customers with the option of white or yellow subtitles which is especially praiseworthy. The only minor criticism I can offer with the subtitling is the small size of the captioning at the bottom of the screen. It's okay for me to read as I am in my late-thirties, however it may not be so easy to read for our elderly fans of this site who pick up this DVD.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio transfer has not been restored in the same manner in which the video transfer has. It has been cleaned up though and the audio soundtrack is okay for a film of this age.

    The main audio track is in French, encoded in Dolby Digital 2.0 at 224 kbps.

    Dialogue is mainly clear and is synchronised.

    The music soundtrack by Joseph Korma is typical for the late 1930s, full of melodramatic orchestral string sections to heighten the emotional tension in the film. There is also a lot more incidental sounds used in this film than was normal for a film of its period, with many background sounds used to orientate scenes, especially with train station sounds and moving train sounds. The main soundtrack does contain a slight background hiss throughout the film, although there are no significant pops or crackling effects.

    There is no surround channel usage as the main soundtrack is in mono.

    The subwoofer is not utilised either.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Booklet - La Bête Humaine: Filming Zola

Theatrical Trailer (3:03)

Gallery-Posters

Directors Suite trailers

    The Region 1 Criterion Collection release of La Bête Humaine has an identical video and audio transfer to the Region 4 Madman release, although it has more extras. These include the following:

• An introduction to the film by Jean Renoir
• An interview with director Peter Bogdanovich
• Archival interviews with Renoir discussing his adaptation of Emile Zola’s novels, his process with actors, and directing actress Simone Simon
• A gallery of on-set photographs and theatrical posters
• The original theatrical trailer
• A liner notes booklet featuring writings by film critic Geoffrey O’Brien, historian Ginette Vincendeau, and production designer Eugene Lourie

    Therefore, with its additional extras, the Region 1 Criterion Collection version of La Bête Humaine is the best version currently available on DVD.

    La Bête Humaine is certainly not a film that can be compared to other films of its era. It is a tragic crime film noir, the type of film that became more popular in Hollywood in the late 1940s and early 1950s through the works of directors such as Jules Dassin, Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Otto Preminger, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder and Orson Welles. This was Jean Renoir's most successful film financially, and its success led Renoir to make his most personal film yet, the magnificent 1939 masterpiece, The Rules of the Game, which was the culmination of Renoir's realised social criticism of 1930s French society realised onto film up to that point.

    If you are a fan of Jean Renoir's works or of French classic cinema in general, then this fine presentation of La Bête Humaine by Directors Suite on DVD comes highly recommended.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall