Lies And Deceit: Five Films By Claude Chabrol

Blu-ray Release Date: Feb. 22, 2022
Price: Blu-ray $79.99
Studio: Arrow/MVD

Too often overlooked and undervalued, Claude Chabrol was the first of the Cahiers du Cinema critics to release a feature film and would be among the most prolific. The sneaky anarchist of the French New Wave, he embraced genre as a means off lifting the lid on human nature. Nothing is sacred and nothing is certain in the films of Claude Chabrol. Anything can be corrupted, and usually will be.

Arrow Video is proud to present Lies & deceit: Five Films by Claude Chabrol featuring Cop Au Vin (Poulet au vinaigre), Inspector Lavardin, Madame Bovary, Betty and Torment (L’enfer), this inaugural collection of Claude Chabrol on Blu-ray brings together a wealth of passionate contributors and archival extras to shed fresh light on the films and the filmmaker.

Dark, witty, ruthless, mischievous: if you’ve never seen Chabrol before (he’ often considered to be the “French Hitchcock”), you’re in for a treat. If you have, they’ve never looked better.

Emmanuelle Beart and Francois Cluzet in 1994’s Torment

This handsomely packaged, smartly appointed limited edition box set includes the following:

• High definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentations of all five films
• New 4K restorations of Madame Bovary, Betty, and Torment
• Original lossless French PCM mono audio on Cop Au Vin, Inspector Lavardin, Madame Bovary and Betty
• Original lossless French PCM stereo audio on Torment
• Optional English Subtitles
• Archive introductions to all films by film scholar Joël Magny
• Select scene commentaries for all films by Claude Chabrol
• Theatrical trailers and image galleries for all films
• 80-page collector’s booklet of new writing by film critics Martyn Conterio, Kat Ellinger, Philip Kemp and Sam Wigley, and archive material
• Limited edition packaging with newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella

• DISC 1: COP AU VIN  (1985)
• New commentary by critic Ben Sachs
• New interview with film historian Ian Christie
• Claude Chabrol at the BFI, Chabrol on stage with film historian Ian Christie in 1994
• Claude Chabrol, Jean Poiret & Stephane Audran in conversation, archive Swiss TV episode with director and cast discussing Cop Au Vin

• DISC 2: INSPECTOR LAVARDIN (1986)
• New commentary by critic Ben Sachs
• Why Chabrol?, new interview with film critic Sam Wigley on why Chabrol remains essential viewing

• DISC 3: MADAME BOVARY (1991)
• New commentary by critic Kat Ellinger
• Imagining Emma: Madame Bovary on screen, new visual essay by film historian Pamela Hutchinson

• DISC 4: BETTY (1992)
• New commentary by critic Kat Ellinger
• Betty, from Simenon to Chabrol, new visual essay by French Cinema historian Ginette Vincendeau
• New interview with Ros Schwartz, the English translator of the Georges Simenon novel on which the film is based

• DISC 5: TORMENT (L’ENFER) (1994)
• New commentary by critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson
• On Henri Georges Clouzot, archival interview with Chabrol about, Clouzot’s abandoned attempt to make L’enfer
• Interview with Marin Karmitz, archive interview with Chabrol’s most frequent producer from 1985 onward