Léon Morin, Priest

Jean-Pierre Melville

 
Léon Morin, Priest (Criterion Blu-Ray)

Blu-Ray

1 Disc

SRP: $39.95

Criterion Store price:$31.96

+ Add to Cart
  • France
  • 1961
  • 117 minutes
  • Black and White
  • 1.66:1
  • French
  •  
  • Spine #572

SYNOPSIS: 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.

Disc Features

  • 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 an essay by critic and novelist Gary Indiana and excerpts from Melville on Melville

From the CurrentView the Current »

Film Essays

Léon Morin, Priest: Life During Wartime

By Gary IndianaJuly 26, 2011

To a secular eye, Jean-Pierre Melville’s sixth feature film, Léon Morin, Priest (1961), is about almost anything except religion: the deleterious effects of sexual repression Read more »


Press Notes

Press Notes: Léon Morin, Priest

August 02, 2011

The fact that there are no hoodlums or heists in Léon Morin, Priest doesn’t keep it from being one of the tensest, most gripping films from Jean-Pierre Melville, known mostly for his thrillers Read more »