| Notes | Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition
Jean-Paul Belmondo delivers a subtly sensual performance in the hot-under-the-collar Léon Morin, Priest (Léon Morin, prêtre), directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. The French superstar plays a devoted man of the cloth who is desired by all the women of a small village in Nazi-occupied France. He finds himself most drawn to a sexually frustrated widow—played by Emmanuelle Riva—a religious skeptic whose relationship with her confessor turns into a confrontation with both God and her own repressed desire. A triumph of mood, setting, and innuendo, Léon Morin, Priest is an irreverent pleasure from one of French cinema’s towering virtuosos.
New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
French television interview with director Jean-Pierre Melville and actor Jean-Paul Belmondo from 1961
Selected-scene commentary by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau
Original theatrical trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic and novelist Gary Indiana and excerpts from Melville on Melville
New cover by Sarah Habibi |
