Product Description

Zorg lives a quiet and peaceful life, working diligently and writing in his spare time. Until Betty walks into his life, a young woman who is as beautiful as she is wild and unpredictable. When Betty's wild manners start to get out of control, Zorg is forced to watch the woman he loves slowly go insane. Featuring French Superstars Jean-Hugues Anglade, Béatrice Dalle. From Jean-Jacques Beineix, the acclaimed director of the cult art house favorite, Diva. The sexy cult classic is now available from the first time on DVD and it's the unrated director's cut! Academy Award® nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #58610 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-10-12
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Director's Cut, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 185 minutes

Amazon.com
Sex and sunlight are on ample display in Betty Blue, director Jean-Jacques Beineix's passionate look at mad love. (Every French director is contractually required to make at least one movie about l'amour fou.) It begins at the seashore, where handyman and failed novelist Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) has his life electrified by Betty, a woman whose sense of abandon frequently tips over into the pathological. This was the role that introduced gap-toothed, voluptuous Beatrice Dalle to the world, and neither Dalle nor the world has ever quite recovered. Traces of Beineix's preciousDiva are still present, though this is a darker and more memorable ride, especially in the three-hour "version integrale" that restores an hour of footage. Its copious nude scenes are a drawing card, but stick around for the age-old alchemy of life translated into art. Gabriel Yared's score is a favorite of movie-soundtrack mavens, especially its haunting piano theme. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Two haunting performances say it all.
Betty Blue is touted as an "erotic drama" by the distributor, a tag which sells the film grossly short. It certainly has frank depictions of sexuality and much nudity -- after all, this is a film that opens on a real-time extended sequence shot of two people having sex -- but to call this erotica is to miss the complete picture.

Betty Blue is an organic look at a troubled relationship in all its glory and ugliness, tenderness and violence, joys and sorrows, made possible by the director's sympathetic and unembarrassed eye, and the sheer dedication of lead actors Jean-Hugues Anglade and Beatrice Dalle. Seldom has a cinematic couple been better paired, and seldom with so much chemistry. Dalle conveys a world of psychological complexity in her face, her eyes seeming to shift with her inner beats. Dalle received the bulk of the attention for this, her breakthrough role, so it might be easy to overlook Jean-Hugues Anglade, a fantastic actor who's every bit as good as Gerard Depardieu, perhaps even half a notch above Jean Reno. In reality, he is the anchor for the film's wrenching emotional journey. When Zorg plays the piano theme for Betty, easily the loveliest scene in the film, Anglade's eyes seem to dance, and the actors say more with their looks during their moments together than all the sex scenes in the world. Thanks to the deft direction, all those nude scenes don't seem like titillation -- merely an illuminating fly-on-the-wall view into the relationship. This couple certainly seems like the type who would be comfortable being naked around each other, and those scenes create a sense of genuine intimacy, rather than intent to arouse.

If there's one thing this film does well, it is the mixture of comedic and tragic scenes which makes it seem such a complete picture. Betty is not always wild and uncontrolled; Zorg is not always patient and loving. They are two flawed characters, made all the more likeable because of their flaws, and their interactions make us laugh, smile in understanding, frown, and cry.

This extended edition makes the film far better. It's been about 10 years since I last saw it so I can't make very specific comparisons. But the restored scenes are substantial, not cosmetic addition of shots, but an explosion of the story, and while I can't name too many specifics, as a whole this version just feels more right, more natural, and more emotional.

Look beyond the film's "erotic" reputation and find a character study, and a portrayal of a relationship, which is as moving as any I've seen.

one of my must-have's
I've been anxiously awaiting this DVD for a long time as it's one of my all-time favorite movies. I was fortunate enough to see this uncut version many years ago in Germany. The sequences that were cut in some cases don't mean a lot, but there are many entire scenes (including sequential scenes that had been cut) that add SO much to the character development and fill in plot holes (like, why does Zorg show up at the hospital wearing a dress?.. this bit always confused me until I saw the uncut version).
Overall, the acting is brilliant and the story is solid and interesting. If you're looking for something light and uplifting, though, this movie's not for you. Highly recommended.

Beautiful film
There's something so entrancing about this film. It takes you into its world, a world of passion and spontaneity, love and madness. Even though it's not the most brilliantly written film, it is just utterly captivating. It stayed with me for days after the first time I saw it.

I saw the director's cut before I watched the original version. When I watched the much shorter original, I felt cheated of experiencing some of Betty and Zorg's life. It is still a good movie in its original form, but the director's cut seems more complete. If you can't get enough of this movie, make sure you see the long version too.