I checked into Criterion’s new Blu-ray disc of Claude Lelouch’s A MAN AND A WOMAN last night. It’s a film I tend to revisit every few years, and one I must admit to letting wash over me like a song or an atmosphere. Each time I see it, the actual story - more accurately, the often outrageous turns and details of the story - strikes me as preposterous, but somehow the whole of it always works. It satisfies me.
The extras were illuminating, giving me my first extended exposure to Lelouch, his biographic details, his philosophy, his work methods. He came to the new interview superbly prepared; perhaps he rattles off his success story all the time, but it was new to me and I was impressed. I knew that his approach to filmmaking was somewhat improvisational but the word is somewhat misleading; he improvises (or leaves it to the actors to improvise, often keeping them in the dark about what the other actors have been told to do) within a fixed framework.
But what really took me by surprise is something which probably hasn’t been as obvious to me since the first time I saw the movie: as he says to a reporter in the making-of, this is a very simple story that is made extraordinary by being told out-of-sequence, involving flashbacks and flash-forwards. There was a scene in the making-of when we see him instructing Trintignant that “this is the first scene after their first kiss, so the feeling between them is very different” - and I had to rack my brain to remember a first kiss. It may be that he was referring to a scene that was cut, otherwise their first kiss takes place in bed. How strange it would for for a movie like this to omit the lovers’ first kiss, but I think it’s possible!
However, the thing about the film being told out of order was striking because it all happens so effortlessly and understatedly that I never bracketed this film alongside the likes of, say, PERFORMANCE or PETULIA or even WOODSTOCK. I should also mention that, in my own thoughts as I was watching, I expected certain scenes to feature dialogue that did not turn up until later, and the same with unforgettable visual moments like the man walking his dog on the boardwalk of the beach at Deauville.
Shot full aperture for 1.66:1 screening, in alternating color and tinted black-and-white (for budgetary reasons, but handled in the best artistic way), the film looks absolutely lovely and I noticed that fresh work had been done on the sound mix of everything here. The music sounds lush, as it should, even in the vintage documentary shorts. But there are some disappointments with this release: there is no audio commentary, and the booklet is very thin, distinguished only by a Carrie Rickey essay that can be read in full on the film's Criterion page (see URL below). Based on their past aversion to including English dubs of foreign films, I wasn’t expecting one here, though the one done for this film (by Titra, IIRC) was charming and there are times when that is specifically the version I want to revisit.
Available at: https://www.criterion.com/films/34966-a-man-and-a-woman?srsltid=AfmBOoq6vWkv4sH446ejsrNg58WbdCBJK4bdtTVDID-s02PeIFu0uuDf
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