Eyes without a face
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The house of horrors of Dr. Rasanoff (cinema) eyes without a face |
| Original title | Les Yeux sans face |
| Country of production | France , Italy |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1960 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 (formerly 18) |
| Rod | |
| Director | Georges Franju |
| script |
Pierre Boileau Thomas Narcejac Jean Redon Claude Sautet Pierre Gascar |
| production | Jules Borkon |
| music | Maurice Jarre |
| camera | Eugen Schüfftan |
| cut | Gilbert Natot |
| occupation | |
| |
Eyes without a face (also: The House of Horrors of Dr. Rasanoff) is a French - Italian black and white film by Georges Franju from 1960 . He combines elements of the thriller with motifs from the horror film . The screenplay based on the novel Les Yeux sans visage (also the French original title of the film) by Jean Redon was created with the collaboration of crime fiction authors Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac .
The focus of the film is a Parisian surgeon who wants to restore his daughter's disfigured face after an accident with the help of skin grafts . He does not shy away from a series of murders to obtain donor skin.
action
The daughter of the famous Parisian surgeon Dr. Génessier is missing. A girl's corpse washed up on the banks of the Seine is identified by Génessier as his daughter Christiane and buried. In reality, Christiane is kept hidden by her father in his villa outside the city. Her face was disfigured in a car accident he was responsible for. In order to save her the sight of it herself, he has had the mirrors covered in the house and asks her to wear a mask. Génessier has performed successful skin grafts on dogs; now he is doing everything possible to give his daughter a new face. For the planned transplant he needs the skin of a young woman. His loyal assistant Louise, who was operated on by Génessier herself, is supposed to help him get them. In Paris, Louise approaches the student Edna, who is looking for a room, and lures her to Génessier's villa. The girl is anesthetized and taken to an operating room, where Génessier transplants Edna's facial skin onto his daughter's face. The student survived the operation and is being held in a room in the castle and being looked after by Louise. When she is inattentive, she is knocked down by Edna. She escapes through the castle rooms, but falls out of a window after she became aware of her condition. The professor and Louise hide the body in his family crypt. Meanwhile, the operation seems to have been successful, but the foreign tissue is rejected again after a few days.
After an anonymous call to her ex-fiancé, he is convinced that Christiane is still alive. Police speculate that Dr. Génessier could be involved in a series of missing persons cases, and has the young shoplifter Paulette admitted to his clinic for a sham. After her release, Louise takes her with her in her car, takes her to Génessier's villa and prepares her for another operation. But this has to be interrupted because the police go to the clinic and ask about Paulette's whereabouts. Christiane frees Paulette, who is fixed on the operating table, with a scalpel, which then flees in a panic. When Louise enters the room, Christiane pokes the scalpel in her throat. She then releases the test pigeons and dogs and bites the génessians to death.
Film bug
A film error can be seen in the scene in which the professor and his secretary drive up in front of the castle with their Citroën. The front registration number of the car is 7769GR75, when the car is in the garage, the rear registration number begins with a 2.
background
Eyes Without a Face premiered in Paris on March 2, 1960. On the Schedule Overview of the Paris weekly L'Express has eyes without a face with the headline "Eyes Without a Face is the poetry of terror. But not for the faint of heart ” (“ Les Yeux sans visage - la poésie de l'horrible. Mais pas pour nerfs fragiles ”). According to L'Express critic Bruno Gay-Lussac, the film caused shocked reactions and even fainting attacks at the Edinburgh Film Festival .
On March 11, 1960, the film was shown in Germany under the distribution title Das Schreckenshaus des Dr. Rasanoff on. For the German audience, the operation scene, which was explicit at the time, was defused. Alternative film material was used to hide the cuts. The speculative theatrical distribution title was retained in the first TV broadcasts, but later replaced by eyes without a face . In the German theatrical version, Alida Valli was dubbed by Elisabeth Ried and Pierre Brasseur by Wolfgang Eichberger . In 1976 ZDF produced a new dubbed version in which Günter König Brasseur lent his voice, Renate Küster spoke the role of Alida Valli.
The film was first released in the United States on October 24, 1962 as The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus shown. For the US market, not only the operation scene but also a dialogue scene was cut because this gave Génessier more sympathetic features.
Reviews at the time of the premiere were mixed. It was not until later revivals (1986 in France, 2003 in the USA) that the film received (almost) unanimous recognition from critics and its status as a classic.
reception
Reviews
"An unbelievable mixture of horror film and fairy tale [...] A wonderful film in the full sense of the word [...] that shines from beginning to end thanks to Franju's unique instinct for poetry."
"A scary film production enriched with sentiment of decorative craftsmanship, but a spark of irony would have given it the vitality it urgently needed."
Aftermath
Although found Eyes Without a Face a multitude of imitators, but these were limited exclusively to low-budget productions in the area of the horror genre such Seddok - The Strangler with the Devil's Claw (Italy 1960), screams through the night ( Spain 1962), The Beast with a scalpel ( United Kingdom 1968), The House with the Torture Cellar (USA 1976) and Faceless (France 1988). Even The Skin I Live In (Spain 2011) by Pedro Almodovar was influenced by the film.
For his song Eyes Without a Face (1984), the British singer Billy Idol used the English and (in the chorus) the French title of Eyes Without a Face , but his text has no contextual reference to the film.
Publications
DVD and Blu-ray
- Published in 2002 René Chateau Video Les yeux sans visage as a DVD for the French market.
- In 2004 the US company Criterion released a DVD with the restored version of the film (in French with English subtitles) and Franju's documentary Le sang des bêtes (1949) under the title Eyes Without a Face .
- In 2008 the company released Second Sight Eyes Without a Face on DVD for the UK market. This publication also contains an original version with English subtitles.
- A DVD released in 2008 by the German company Eyecatcher Movie was available in three alternative sleeves (with identical content). Two covers were entitled Eyes Without a Face , the third was The House of Horrors of Dr. Génessier . The DVD contained the dubbed version from 1976. Since the company did not own the rights to the film, the DVD had to be taken off the market.
- The Concorde Video DVD, released in October 2009, contains the original French version and the 1960 theatrical dubbing as well as the documentation Les fleurs de Maladives .
- In 2010, Gaumont released a French-language Blu-ray Disc of the film.
Film music
- In 1991, Maurice Jarre's film music, reworked into a suite and recorded by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid under the direction of José Nieto , was released on a compilation CD entitled Sevilla Film Music Concerts - Maurice Jarre - José Nieto .
- In 2005 Jarre's original score was released on a compilation CD entitled Maurice Jarre - Ma periode française .
literature
- Jean Redon: Les yeux sans visage. Fleuve noir , Paris 1959.
- Kate Ince: Georges Franju. Manchester University Press, Manchester 2005, ISBN 0-719-06828-2 .
Web links
- Eyes Without a Face in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Review on Filmzentrale.com
- 2 German dubbing versions
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for eyes without a face . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , June 2009 (PDF; test number: 20 828 DVD).
- ↑ a b c Eyes without a face in the Internet Movie Database.
- ^ Joan Hawkins: Cutting Edge - Art-Horror and the Horrific Avant-garde, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 2000, ISBN 0-81663-414-9 .
- ^ L'Express , No. 456, Paris 1960.
- ↑ a b eyes without a face in the lexicon of international films
- ↑ Comparison of the old TV version and the uncut version at Schnittberichte.com
- ↑ Eyes without a face in the dubbed version from 1960 and from 1976 in the German dubbing index .
- ^ David Kallat: The Unreal Reality, accompanying text for the American DVD edition by Criterion, 2004.
- ^ Catherine Wheatley: Les Yeux sans visage . In: Senses of Cinema , No. 42, February 13, 2007, accessed December 22, 2011.
- ↑ “An incredible amalgam of horror and fairytale […] Illuminated throughout by Franju's unique sense of poetry […] it's a marvelous movie in the fullest sense.” - Time Out Film Guide, Seventh Edition 1999, Penguin, London 1998.
- ^ Concorde Film Entertainment "Eyes Without a Face" in August . March 2018. Archived from the original on July 8, 2012.