Les salades de l'amour: The SupplementsDirector: Starring: 2003 NR/E Color min. The Criterion Collection Reviewed By: Chris Galloway Film ReviewThe Criterion Collection gathered together all the films in Francois Truffaut's Antoine Doinel saga and released them in a beautiful new box set appropriately called The Adventures of Antoine Doinel. The set includes 5 discs, the first 4 containing the films themselves (each with their own set of extras) and the fifth disc containing another assortment of supplements. The disc I am reviewing here is that supplement disc, which is only available of course in the box set I've mentioned. The disc has been titled Les Salades de l'amour and it's cover is made to look like the cover that appeared in Love on the Run for Antoine's novel. The box set contains a great assortment of extras and is definitely worth getting for them alone. This review will concentrate specifically on the supplements available on this disc, but keep in mind that this disc is just an addition to an already great set. Picture ReviewN/ASound ReviewN/ASupplement ReviewThe Criterion Collection gathered together all the films in Francois Truffaut's Antoine Doinel saga and released them in a beautiful new box set appropriately called The Adventures of Antoine Doinel. The set includes 5 discs, the first 4 containing the films themselves (each with their own set of extras) and the fifth disc containing another assortment of supplements. The disc I am reviewing here is that supplement disc, which is only available of course in the box set I've mentioned. The disc has been titled Les Salades de l'amour and it's cover is made to look like the cover that appeared in Love on the Run for Antoine's novel. The box set contains a great assortment of extras and is definitely worth getting for them alone. This review will concentrate specifically on the supplements available on this disc, but keep in mind that this disc is just an addition to an already great set. The fifth DVD is a single-sided, single-layered disc and it presents some excellent supplements. The first supplement is Truffaut's first short film, Les Mistons (The Mischief Makers). This 18-minute feature presents the story of a group of youths who more or less become infactuated with a young woman. She ends up falling in love with another young man and the youths begin to pester the two. This early work shows Truffaut's early fascination with looking through a child's eyes, and while the film may be sort of creepy at times (like a young boy sniffing her bicycle seat), the film has a certain charm, even if Truffaut dismissed it as an early experiment. The feature looks pretty good considering it's age. The film has some print problems (debris, scratches, grain) and it also has some compression artifacts, but grey levels are good and sharpness is acceptable if not much else. The audio is Dolby Digital mono (in French of course) and it sounds pretty good as well. Accompanying it is an audio commentary by Claude de Givray, who worked as assistant director. The track is in French with optional English Subtitles. The track is more of an interview and it looks as though he is viewing the short film as his comments occasionally refer to what is going on onscreen. He talks about working with Truffaut and getting the film together, and also touches briefly on Truffaut's fascination with the children. He also touches on how Truffaut could feel dissatisfied with his own work. Yet again it can be kind of tedious because of the subtitles (somehow they don't really work well with commentaries) but it's actually a pretty good track. And with the film you also find what is referred to as a "primer" by Serge Toubiana, who goes briefly (about a minute and a bit) over the film and it's production history. Not really a must to view, but it's short so it's not a real time waster. "Portrait of Francois Truffaut" presents a clip from the documentary Francois Truffaut. It lasts about 25-minutes and presents a bit of information about the man. It presents Truffaut talking about his love for cinema and his career as a film critic, assistant director and eventually filmmaker. Eventually it moves on to his films Les Mistons and The 400 Blows and has Truffaut and the narrator talk about them. While there is some interesting stuff in here, it can be also found throughout the rest of the discs and in the booklet. It's also filled with many photos and film clips, which eat up a lot of the time. It's not a bad little extra, but the repetiveness of it actually makes it one you don't have to really see if you've already gone through everything else beforehand in the box set. "Working with Francois Truffaut" is a rather large supplement. Running almost 44-minutes (and divided into 6-chapters), this collection of footage presents an interview with co-writers Claude de Givray and Bernard Revon. According to the text intro, the footage was actually to be used in a documentary called Arbeiten mit Francois Truffaut, but only a small segment was used. Here, Criterion has managed to get at the whole segment and have put it together here. The two of course talk about meeting the man (de Givray meet him at the theaters, Revron met him through de Givray) and the about what it was like to work with him. They also touch on working with him on certain films in Doinel saga. The two are seated at a table in front of a blue screen, and clips from some of the films are played during it. This supplement proves to be quite fascinating, serving as an expansion of sorts with the bonus found on the Bed and Board DVD that showed Truffaut and Revon working together. Here, they obviously only talk about it, but they have many interesting comments about how the films came together, and also their examinations of the Doinel character, who was really too much of a child (irresponsible, a liar, manipulative, etc.), but there was still something about him. They touch on his other films as well, but Criterion has limited it down to focus on the films in the Doinel series. They also touch on some of his unfinished products. While some of it is already covered elsewhere, there is still a lot of new stuff in here, all of which is pretty interesting and warrants a definite look. Very appreciative of Criterion to take the extra step to get this material together. Champ contre champ is a 7-minute clip from a French television show, which has Truffaut talking about Jean-Pierre Leaud and making films which are personal to him but have managed to find an audience. Some familiar ground is covered again (how Leaud was cast, anlysis of the character, etc.) but for some reason always I like to watch Truffaut, who always seems energetic, talk about his work. It's not the most compelling extra on the whole set, but it too warrants an examination. And finally, we come to "Promotional Art", which presents about 7 posters: 3 for The 400 Blows, 2 for Stolen Kisses and then 1 each for Bed and Board and Love on the Run. Not the most vast collection of stills ever, but it's interesting to see older promotional art. The disc is not jam-packed, but the supplements that were gathered here are all pretty good, specifically the extras gathered for the short film Les Mistons (and the short itself) and the great interview with de Givray and Revon. As an addition to the box set, it actually wraps up things nicely and offers a great look at director Francois Truffaut. Worth looking through. A-Originally Written: 5/5/2003 Revised Date: 5/22/2003 | CDN Price: $N/A US Price: $N/A Standard Features
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