La bête humaine DVD

Abstract

The phenomenal growth of the DVD medium is seen by many as an excellent opportunity to bring important films of the present and past to audiences worldwide. Among the anxiously awaited issues, long overdue, has been Jean Renoir's 1938 masterpiece La bête humaine, adopted from the eponymous novel by Emile Zola. Set in the closely-knit community of Le Havre's cheminots, or railwaymen, this major work of the French pre-war poetic realism focuses on the gentle engineer Lantier (Jean Gabin) and his tragic struggle with hereditary insanity. The past haunts other characters of the story as well, especially the abused Sévérine (Simone Simon) who, like Thomas Hardy's Tess, is unable to escape her socially pre-determined fateful trajectory....