Boudu Saved From Drowning (Jean Renoir)

[pro-bassoonist]

This film will likely get the same treatment Pandora and the Flying Dutchman is

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Boudu Saved From Drowning Blu-ray

Park Circus Films is delighted to announce it has acquired UK theatrical, home video and video on demand rights for the fully restored version of Jean Renoir's 1932 classic BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING (Boudu sauvé des eaux) from international sales company Pathé. The restoration screened to an excellent reception at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival, as part of the Cannes Classics Official Selection.

A Parisian bookseller, Lestingois, fishes Boudu, a vagrant, out of the Seine after seeing the man throw himself into the river. He befriends the tramp and puts him up at home. Boudu's coarse and irreverent behaviour shocks the whole household at first but he agrees to change his appearance and Madame Lestingois succumbs to his charms. Boudu, however, only has eyes for the maid, who happens to be the bookseller's mistress. Events take a different turn when Boudu wins 100,000 francs in the lottery…

The restoration was carried out through a 2K digitalisation of the original nitrate negative and a safety print. The original 1.19 aspect ratio has been re-established; this specific ratio was often used in the early days of talking pictures but was soon abandoned in favour of a more rectangular frame. The restoration of the soundtrack was based on the best available source, a positive exhibition print, as the original elements - incomplete and chemically damaged - were impossible to use.

A previously missing scene was, by chance, conserved in the original negative, allowing a more complete version of the film. This is the surprising sequence in which Boudu spits on a book by Balzac then jeers at the portrait of a soldier in uniform. This scene was probably removed following the intervention of the Paris Chief of Police, who summoned Jean Renoir and Michel Simon in order to make them cut certain scenes that could have possibly “disturbed the peace”.

The film's grading was completely revised by Isabelle Julien, renowned for her work in this field (and recently on the restoration of La Dolce Vita). The work was carried out at the Immagine Ritrovata laboratories in Bologna and at Digimage, Paris.

BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING will be released in UK cinemas late 2010 / early 2011.

Pro-B