Product Description

Disc 1:

- Lady Chatterley: Extended European Edition 201 MINUTES (40 MINUTES OF NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN FOOTAGE)
- In French with Optional English subtitles
- Enhanced for 16x9 TVs

Disc 2:

- Interviews with Pascale Ferran, Marina Hands, Jean-Louis Coulloc h and Hippolyte Girardot
- Individual Scene Commentary by Cast and Crew
- Photo Gallery

Winner of five Cesars (the French Oscar) and at the top of 2007 ten best lists when it debuted in America, Pascale Ferran s Lady Chatterley was praised as a filmic adaptation that found the soul of the celebrated D.H. Lawrence novel (Los Angeles Times) and ranks as one of the sexiest, smartest page-to-screen transfers ever made (Time Out New York). Kino is now proud to present Lady Chatterley in a new, two-part, Extended European Edition featuring nearly an hour of additional material excluded from the film s theatrical cut that explores the emotional and sensual borderlands uniting sex, love, and loyalty with even more intelligence, passion, and power than before. Through extra footage never seen in the US release, director Pascale Ferran s rapturous visual tone poem (New York Times) becomes both a highly erotic immersion into Lady Chatterley and Parkin s passion and an equally frank and unsentimentally provocative portrayal of a marriage hobbled by war and ultimately torn apart by hypocrisy. Ferran and her cast, led by the award-winning Marina Hands in the title role, Jean-Louis Coulloc h as Parkin, and Hippolyte Girardot as Sir Clifford Chatterley, dramatize D.H. Lawrence s tug of war between social classes with a narrative precision and poetic detail rivaled only by Lawrence s novel itself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54999 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-10-14
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 201 minutes

Customer Reviews

Sense and Sensuality: DH Lawrence's Masterpiece Glows in the Hands of the French!
DH Lawrence's novels may be tough to translate to the screen, so much of his writing is dependent on the words on the page as they form images of extraordinary beauty and sensuality. His novels are quintessentially British and reflect on the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization, confronting issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, sexuality, and human instinct. During his lifetime he was even labeled a pornographer, but that was then and now is now, and under the gifted guidance of director/writer (with Roger Bohbot and Pierre Trividic) Pascale Ferran, Lawrence's exquisite tale of sexual awakening has found what for this viewer is the finest transition of the novel to the screen.

The place is England after WW I and Sir Clifford Chatterley (Hippolyte Girardot) is the paraplegic wealthy husband of Constance/Lady Chatterley (a radiant Marina Hands). Quite apropos for the era, Constance tends to her impotent husband, does needlepoint, and takes walks to while away her boredom. On one of her walks she encounters the gamekeeper Parkin (Jean-Louis Coullo'ch), seeing a partially nude man for the first time in her life. The impact awakens her somnolent sexuality and she manages to visit Parkin daily, gradually allowing her lust to unfold. Parkin is 'below her class' but is a masculine, sensuous embodiment of everything Constance has never experienced. They slowly bond and both of them become passionately in love, finding lovemaking in Parkin's hut, in the woods, in the rain - wherever they encounter. Constance wants to have a baby and convinces Clifford that she can become impregnated and the resulting child would be 'Clifford's' by pact. Constance travels to London, the Riviera, and other ports, only to return home believing that Parkin has reclaimed his ex-wife. But there are many surprises that greet her and the manner in which the story resolves (in Ferran's hands) leaves us unsure of the future.

The film is captured amidst the beauties of the natural world - flowers, trees, springs, brooks - and these aspects of the natural world are an influential part of Constance's sexual awakening. Yes, there are scenes of complete nudity and love making but they are photographed so well by
Julian Hirsch that they become an integral part of the story. The musical score by Béatrice Thiriet finds the right quality of elegance and sensuality. If there is a problem with this nearly three-hour film it is in the editing by Yann Dedet and Mathilde Muyard that takes liberties with scene transitions that prove disruptive.

But it would be hard to imagine two actors who could match the subtlety and sexual tension that Marina Hands and Jean-Louis Coullo'ch to this film. It is breathtakingly beautiful to experience DH Lawrence's story in the hands of the French crew and cast. Grady Harp, December 07

Fernan's LADY CHATTERLEY
Pascale Ferran's LADY CHATTERLEY is an exquisitely wrought film. The themes of the Lawrence novel frame the film, but Ferran seems to have put together her own very contemporary treatment despite the literary and time period setting. The photography is breathtaking and is integral to my characterization of the film as "exquisitely wrought." The first part of the film moves very, very slowly with almost no dialogue as the luxurious expanses of the country landscape are defined along with the formal and aristocratic settings of the Wragby estate. The obsession, both photographically and from a time duration standpoint, with the landscape serves a significant two-fold purpose---establishing Nature as a primary element in this world and reinforcing the beauty/sensuality of that Nature. That becomes a critical underpinning to the orchestration to the unfolding of the very sensual and sexual relationship of Constance and the Gamekeeper Parkin. If there was a weakness in the film, it would be the concluding section of the film which seemed more simply a patchwork of ideas and actions and not the carefully orchestrated ever increasingly complex visual and thematic development of the first half to two-thirds. However, the ending left everything up in the air as concerns the future of their relationship which I thought was a masterful stroke. There was no smug Hollywood resolution in either direction nor did Ferran give it a particularly French "affaire de passion" resolution. The ending seemed very realistic and "now" and in that sense probably departs from Lawrence in the most dramatic way. This is a must see film!

Lady Chatterley
A very beautiful interpretation, with a slow, emotionally honest exposition. Makes one feel as though looking at Lawrence's novel quite afresh, without all its encrusted history of sweaty-palm controversies. It is situated very convincingly in its era (1920s), at a point of openiing up against the sexual restrictions of its class, society and period. It shows the slow discovery of the possibilities of reaching for sexual passion and physical satisfaction - especially for the woman (after all, the title of the movie is: "Lady Chatterley", without the "lover" of the book.). This is done without any prudish voyeuristic clichés, or romanticized imageries, yet, at the same time, fully engaging with all the power of sex and sensuality, and not avoiding looking at man's and woman's nudity. The acting is wonderfully restrained and subtle, mostly through looks, gestures, and the characters' postures and movements.