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DVD

1 of 1 Copy Available

  • CENTRAL: Audiovisual Collection
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Irma Vep

Call Number

  • DVD FOREIGN (CEN)

Edition

Director-approved two-DVD special edition.

Languages

In French, with English subtitles; English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Performers

Maggie Cheung, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Nathalie Richard, Bulle Ogier.

Publication Information

[Irvington, NY] : Criterion Collection, [2021]

Physical Description

2 videodiscs (99 minutes) : sound, color and black & white ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 folded sheet (color illustrations ; 19 cm.)

Audience

Not rated.

Summary

"The live-wire international breakthrough of Olivier Assayas stars a magnetic Maggie Cheung as a version of herself: a Hong Kong action-movie star who arrives in Paris to play the latex-clad lead in a remake of Louis Feuillade's classic silent crime serial Les vampires. What she finds is a behind-the-scenes tangle of barely controlled chaos as egos clash, romantic attractions simmer, and an obsessive director drives himself to the brink to realize his vision. Blending blasts of silent cinema, martial-arts flicks, and the music of Sonic Youth and Luna into a hallucinatory swirl of postmodern cool, Assayas composes a witty critique of the nineties French film industry and the eternal tension between art and commercial entertainment."--Container.

Notes

Originally produced as a motion picture in 1996.

Special features: New 2K digital restoration, approved by director Olivier Assayas ; new interview with Assayas ; "On the set of 'Irma Vep'," a behind-the-scenes featurette ; interview from 2003 with Assayas and critic Charles Tesson ; interview from 2003 with actors Maggie Cheung and Nathalie Richard ; Musidora, the Tenth Muse (2013), a documentary on the actor who originated the role of Irma Vep ; Les vampires: hypnotic eyes (1916), the sixth episode in Louis Feuillade's silent-film serial ; Cinema in the present tense, a June 2020 address on the state of cinema by Assayas ; Man Yuk: a portrait of Maggie Cheung, a 1997 short film by Assayas ; black-and-white rushes for the film.

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