• La Piscine

8/19/24 (Sun)

Criterion wasted no time in marking Alain Delon’s death the previous day with a special section of his most famous films­. I picked Jacques Deray’s 1969 iconic work in its original French, not knowing that he simultaneously filmed it with the actors speaking English. Watching part of the English version the next day, I was surprised that it’s edited somewhat differently to match the different takes and, less happily, has an inferior alternative ending to match prudish Anglo tastes. (There’s a brief scene early in the French film where the woman is talking on the phone to a Frenchman in English, which made me wonder if they mistakenly edited the wrong version into that space. But in the English version, she speaks German. I have no idea what that’s about.)

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