Search - A Man and a Woman on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Questionable for Children Movie Release: 1966 DVD Release: 03/18/2003 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV - Closed Captioned Edition: Dual Layered Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English, French, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 43 mins Studio: Warner Home Video Members Wishing: 10 Genres: Drama, Romance, Romantic Drama, Psychological Drama

The ultimate "date" movie of the mid-1960s, director Claude Lelouch's A Man and a Woman (Un Homme et Une Femme) stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimee in the title roles. The twosome meet at the boarding school where their children are enrolled. Aimee, an actress, misses her train home, and Trintignant, a professional race car driver, offers her a ride. It is the first of several friendly encounters which eventually blossom into love. Both want to commit to each other, but neither can shake the Past. The now-famous climactic scene in a train station was not scripted at the time of shooting, thus Aimee was unaware that director Lelouch had decided upon a tearful reunion between her and Trintignant. This explains the look of utter surprise on the actress' face. Much has been written about the possible motivation behind Lelouch's decision to film some scenes in color, others in black-and-white. None of the more ardent auterists truly want to hear the director's explanation: he'd run short of money halfway through production, and black-and-white film stock was infinitely cheaper. The winner of two Oscars (one for Best Foreign Film), A Man and a Woman also scored on the "top ten" with its memorable theme music by Francis Lai. A sequel, A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later appeared....twenty years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Anouk Aimée - Anne Gauthier
Jean-Louis Trintignant - Jean-Louis Duroc
Pierre Barouh - Pierre Gauthier
Valerie Lagrange - Valerie Duroc
Henri Chemin - Jean-Louis' Codriver

This release of this film is what DVD ought to be about. A Man and a Woman was one of the most popular French films of the 1960s, and perhaps of all time, reaching audiences in the United States that seldom even thought of attending foreign films -- its love theme also constituted a genuine hit, one of those soundtracks that was totally ubiquitous in 1960s adult pop circles. And for all of that, the movie never made it onto laserdisc, bypassing that format across the 1980s and 1990s. But the DVD version arrived in April of 2003 without a lot of fanfare, in a beautifully realized master of the film, and carrying a healthy share of bonus materials. The film itself looks at least as good as it ever did in a theater, with the naturalistic tones of the shooting captured perfectly. The aspect ratio of about 1.66:1 (European non-anamorphic widescreen standard) frames the visuals well, and the sound has been mastered at a healthy volume. The 20 chapters for the 103-minute movie have been well chosen, and they properly delineate the key plot elements. Additionally, a pair of documentary bonuses have been included -- in the newer of them, the12-minute-long "37 Years Later With Claude Lelouch," the director explains how the notion of the movie came to him by sheer chance, and everything else seemed to fall into place, from the cast to the movie's then-groundbreaking visual style (which evolved out of expediency, owing to technical and budgetary limitations). His recollection is supported by a 22-minute period documentary about the shooting, featuring stars Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant and director Lelouch, and both are accompanied by the trailers for this movie and its much less well-regarded sequel, A Man And a Woman: 20 Years Later. The disc opens automatically to a menu that goes down to a second layer for the bonus features, and offers a choice of French-language audio with English, French, or Spanish subtitles, or an English-language soundtrack. It's all a serious bargain-priced package for one of the most successful romantic films of the 1960s, and one long overdue in a high-end video format. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide