Director: Georges Franju
Screenplay: Jean Redon, Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, Claude Sautet, Pierre Gascar
Starring: Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Juliette Mayniel, Édith Scob
Country: France / Italy
Running Time: 90 minutes
Year: 1959
After his daughter Christiane (Edith Scob) is horribly disfigured in a car accident he caused, the brilliant and obsessive plastic surgeon Dr. Genessier (Pierre Brasseur) is driven mad with guilt. As atonement, the doctor, aided by his loyal assistant Louise (Alida Valli), lures young women to his secluded chateau and takes them to his secret laboratory to surgically remove their faces with the hope of grafting them on to his daughter’s ruined features and restoring her former beauty. But will Christiane allow him to succeed in his dangerous experiments?
I’ve always thought of 1960 as a watershed year for horror. Michael Powell buried his own career with Peeping Tom. And Hitchcock, fueled by frustration at missing out on adapting 1955’s Diabolique, gave the studio system a well-aimed kick with Psycho. Actually, had the French gazumped him again already with Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes Without A Face), the year before Norman Bates indulged his mummy issues?
Released this month on UHD by the BFI, Georges Franju’s film is astonishing. Accomplished, contradictory, poetic. A calling card for a sub-genre yet to be, one we now take for granted. It takes the mad scientist trope and re-examines it through a prism of realism. And while everyone maintains a very French sense of decorum, really, it’s getting weird. The result is disturbing, troubling and even sentimental. It disgusted some critics at the time and struggled to find it’s audience; like all the best horrors, quite frankly. We know better now.
The cast are wonderful to watch. Pierre Brasseur is a straight-shot arrow of French stoicism. Édith Scob, for the most part hidden behind a mask (a creation designed by Auguste Capelier that should be celebrated more), is a wistful phantom. Around them, Franju conjures a twisted fairytale atmosphere, emphasised by Maurice Jarre’s carousel-esque score.
A must-see masterpiece of horror, so influential, Billy Idol made a song with the same name. It is a gruesome film without being overtly so, wrapped in a sentimental blanket, not unlike Frankenstein.
VIDEO
Eyes Without A Face has been well-treated on physical media, so this upgrade needs to earn its keep. And it does so emphatically. Eugen Schüfftan’s outstanding photography responds beautifully to the UHD transfer. A silky, silvery image with a bullish contrast separation, palpable detail in the textures. The chrome trims on cars, the plastic rain coats; characters positively pop against misted landscapes.
EXTRAS
The transfer of the main feature is reason enough to upgrade, but the previous release by the BFI was otherwise thorough. They’ve stepped it up here as well though, with a new audio commentary to accompany the original one. The new artwork for the packaging is gorgeous as well.
- New 4K (2160p) UHD presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
- New audio commentary by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
- Audio commentary by Tim Lucas (archival)
- Introduction by Mark Kermode
- “Monsieur et Madame Curie” (Georges Franju, 1953) — short film
- “La Première Nuit” (Georges Franju, 1958) — short film
- “Les Fleurs maladives de Georges Franju” (2009) — documentary overview of Franju’s career
- Interview(s) with Edith Scob
- Original theatrical trailer
- Collector booklet and newly commissioned artwork (BFI packaging)
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