Sixty-five years on, the power and poetry of ‘Eyes Without a Face’ are undeniable

4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / SDR SCREENSHOTS

Her face horribly disfigured in a car accident caused by her father, Christiane (Edith Scob) must wear a mask as he tries to perfect a transplant.



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4K screenshots courtesy of The Criterion Collection via Filmmaker Mode - Click for Amazon purchase

“EYES WITHOUT A FACE: THE CRITERION COLLECTION”


4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray, 1960, unrated, graphic surgery, violence



Best extra: “The Unreal Reality,” the essay by author and film historian David Kalat



HORROR MOVIES got a significant makeover in the late-1950s when “The Curse of Frankenstein” (1957) and “Horror of Dracula” (1958), both produced by Britain’s inimitable Hammer studios, showed that audiences were eager for more suspense, sexuality and gore.



Likewise for French cineastes. But as author/historian David Kalat writes in “The Unreal Reality,” his 2004 essay included in this Criterion release, no director “had yet attempted a full-blooded horror picture of the kind being made so profitably in England and America.” Why? The genre was fundamentally at odds with the intrinsically artistic nature of the nation’s cinema.

Producer Jules Borkon “set out to cross that Rubicon” when he bought the rights to the Jean Redon novel “Les yeux sans visage” and offered the film to director Georges Franju. A film buff “steeped in a passion for pulp,” the co-founder of Cinematheque francaise was already notorious for “Blood of the Beasts,” his 1949 documentary that combined footage of slaughterhouses with children at play. Where other directors might have been insulted by such an offer, Franju relished the chance to make his own contribution to the genre of the fantastique.



(1&2) In the opening sequence, Louise (Alida Valli), the doctor’s assistant, dumps the body of one of his victims into the Seine. (3) Dr. Genessier (Pierre Brasseur) gives an address on his grafting procedure. (4) A funeral is held for Christiane after Genessier tells the police that it was her body that was recovered from the river. It was a lie.



Borkon had a few requests: Don’t show too much blood lest it worry the French censors. Don’t show animals being tortured because that upsets the Brits. And no mad scientists “since the Germans are touchy about the whole Nazi-doctor thing.”

“This Borkon said while handing Franju a project about a mad doctor who tortures animals while cutting off women’s faces,” Kalat writes.

 

You can probably guess its reception. L’express reported that “spectators dropped like flies.” French critics were so outraged that they tried to deny the film even existed. In the U.K., the only English reviewer to admit that she liked it was nearly fired. At the 1960 Edinburgh Film Festival, seven viewers actually fainted, prompting this priceless reaction from Franju: “Now I know why Scotsmen wear skirts.”





When it was released in the U.S. in 1962, the movie was rechristened “The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus,” dubbed and watered down.



Though mild given what passes for horror today, the power and poetry of  “Eyes Without a Face” — written by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac (“Diabolique,” “Vertigo”),  shot by Eugen Schufftan (“Port of Shadows,” “The Hustler”) and scored by Maurice Jarre (“Lawrence of Arabia,” “Doctor Zhivago”) — are undeniable.



 (1) Louise tries to reassure Christiane, telling her to have faith in her father. (2&3) Promising her a room to rent, Louise drives young Edna Gruber (Juliette Mayniel) to the doctor’s estate. The unsuspecting girl is immediately chloroformed. (4) Christiane comforts one of the many dogs that her father tortures. (5&6) In the film’s most notorious sequence, Genessier removes Edna’s face. The scene was so shocking that viewers at the 1960 Edinburgh Film Festival fainted.

Pierre Brasseur plays Dr. Genessier, a prominent, dominating surgeon who is responsible for a car accident that left the face of his daughter Christiane (Edith Scob) so disfigured that she wears a mask — her father has even had the mirrors in his estate painted black so that she can’t see her reflection. Driven by guilt and love, Genessier kidnaps young women, removes their faces and grafts them onto Christiane. He’s assisted by Louise (Alida Valli), who, having emerged intact from his surgery, represents his success. In the opening sequence, she dumps the body of Edna Gruber (Juliette Mayniel), one of his victims, into the Seine.


Edna’s kidnapping is part of a pattern, and when Detective Parot (Alexandre Rignault) finally gets a lead that points to Louise, he and another detective (Claude Brasseur) recruit young shoplifter Paulette Meriden (Beatrice Altarbia) to admit herself to Genessier’s clinic. After she’s released, she’s kidnapped by Louise.



Christiane, who still possesses what her father does not: a soul, frees Paulette, plunges a scalpel into Louise’s neck and frees the caged dogs, also victims of the doctor’s experiments, that rip her father apart. The final shot of her walking into the woods surrounded by doves could have come from a painting by Dali, Kalat writes.



VIDEO/AUDIO


“Eyes Without a Face” was remastered in 4K from the 35mm original camera negative by the Paris-based distributor Le Chat qui Fume (The Smoking Cat). Their handiwork is stellar. Schufftan brings a luminous silver to Franju’s fairy-tale realism that captivates from the first frame. The non-HDR blacks are deep, contrasts could not be sharper. Detail is solid, too. The only gripe is that the subtitles sometimes get lost against the white backgrounds,



The monaural soundtrack, struck from the 35 mm original soundtrack negative, is also exceptional. Jarre’s score is crystal-clear with depth to spare. Same goes for the singing birds, barking dogs, footfalls and other ambient effects. Even the many silent passages seem deep.



 (1&2) Edna cringes on the bed when she realizes what has been done to her. She soon falls to her death trying to escape and the doctor hides her body in a mausoleum. (3) Genessier examines Christiane following the transplant, but his success is short-lived.



EXTRAS


All of them have been picked up from previous releases. Kalat’s essay is the ideal starting point, but make time for a 2013 interview with Scob. She talks at length about working with Franju (they did a handful of films together), who wanted an unknown actor. Playing Christiane was a challenge, she says, because she could not use her face or voice to express herself. Wearing the mask “left me completely on my own [and that] served me well for playing the role.


“Eyes Without a Face” is not a horror film, Scob adds. “It’s a film about the fantastic.”



You’ll also find archival interviews with Franju, excerpts from a 1985 documentary about screenwriters Boileau and Narcejac, an essay by novelist Patrick McGrath and Franju’s aforementioned 1949 documentary “Blood of the Beasts.” This longstanding vegan passed on that one.



— Craig Shapiro

(1&2) Paulette Meroudon (Beatrice Altariba) is examined by the doctor at his clinic. At the request of the police, she was admitted complaining of headaches and is kidnapped after being released. (3-6) Christiane watches as Paulette struggles in her bonds before freeing her, then releases the dogs and doves being held by her father.

SPECS:

• 66 GB disc

• TRUE 4K mastering

• 35mm black-and-white film stock captured with a spherical lens, 1.66:1 aspect ratio.

• Video bitrate: 70-plus Megabits per second. A running time of 88 minutes.

• Rotten Tomatoes: Rated No. 1 as the Best French Horror film, 97 percent. And, selected No. 20 on RT’s Best Horror Movies of All Time list.