Features: DVD, Mono Audio, Black & White
About the Transfer:
Eyes Without a Face is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1. On standard 4:3 televisions, the image will appear letterboxed. On standard and widescreen televisions, black bars may also be visible on the left and right to maintain the proper screen format. This new high-definition digital transfer was created on a Spirit Datacine from a 35mm fine-grain master positive. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, and scratches were removed using the MTI Digital Restoration System. The soundtrack was mastered at 24-bit from the 35mm fine-grain positive optical track, and audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss, and crackle. The Dolby Digital 1.0 signal will be directed to the center channel on 5.1-channel sound systems, but some viewers may prefer to switch to two-channel playback for a wider dispersal of the mono sound.
"...a masterpiece of poetic horror and tactful, tactile brutality." J. Hoberman, Village Voice
"Disturbing, disorienting, quietly terrifying," Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times
"...never tires as hypnotic, touching, ghastly fun." Wesley Thomas, Boston Globe
Editor's Note
Based on Jean Redon's novel LES YEUX SANS VISAGE, French director Georges Franju's gloomy, atmospheric horror film EYES WITHOUT A FACE is a masterpiece of cinematic poetry. After his daughter Christiane (Edith Scob) becomes horribly disfigured in a car accident of which he was the cause, guilt-ridden plastic surgeon Doctor Genessier (Pierre Brasseur) grows obsessed with perfecting the reconstruction of her once-beautiful, but now-ravaged, face. With the help of his sadistic nurse Louise (Alida Valli), Genessier kidnaps young girls and brings them back to his isolated manse for grisly medical procedures that graft the victims' living skins onto that of his daughter's. Often compared to Jean Cocteau's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, the film's nightmarish power springs from the surrealistic beauty of its haunting images--from the fiercely blank mask that shields Christiane's wounded face to the merciless incisions of Genessier's surgeries--and a moving climactic scene that garners one of the most transcendent finales in all of cinematic history.
Plot Summary
The pulp poetic masterpiece from surrealist director Georges Franju, in which a maniacal plastic surgeon becomes obsessed with restoring his beloved daughter's face, which was mutilated in a horrible accident. When all conventional methods fail, he hatches a mad plot, murdering women in an insane attempt to graft their faces onto his daughter's.
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