Eclipse Series 4.
Features: DVD
One of the greatest and least-known filmmakers of all time, Raymond Bernard helped shape France's national cinema into one of the world's most formidable Hollywood alternatives. Typical of films from the largely unheralded period, between the silent era and the rise of poetic realism, Bernard's dazzling dramas painted intimate melodrama on epic-scale canvases. These two masterpieces-the wrenching World War I tragedy Wooden Crosses and a mammoth, nearly five-hour Les Miserables, widely considered the greatest film adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel-exemplify the formal and narrative brilliance of an unjustly overshadowed cinematic trailblazer.
"[Miserables] ...a peak of epic filmmaking...This version remains the finest..." Sight & Sound
"[Wooden] ...one of the great films in motion-picture history..." The New York Times
Editor's Note
Combining wrenching melodrama with epic sweep, the films of director Raymond Bernard's are some of the finest in French cinema--and some of the least known. As a corrective, this collection includes two of Bernard's best works: his heartbreaking and innovative World War I tragedy, WOODEN CROSSES; and his five-hour version of LES MISERABLES--the richly detailed story of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his pursuer, Inspector Javert--long-considered the best adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel.
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