Product Details

• Actors: Michael Pitt, Louis Garrel, Eva Green, Anna Chancellor, Robin Renucci
• Directors: Bernardo Bertolucci
• Writers: Gilbert Adair
• Producers: Hercules Bellville, Jeremy Thomas, John Bernard, Peter Watson
• Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: July 13, 2004
• Run Time: 115 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (244 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00023P4HY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,985 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Dreamers (R-Rated Edition)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

A love letter to movies (and the French new wave of the 1960s in particular), Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers starts with a 1968 riot outside of a Parisian movie palace then burrows into an insular love triangle. Matthew (Michael Pitt, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), an expatriate American student, bonds with a twin brother and sister, Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel), over their mutual love of film--they not only quote lines of dialogue, they act out small bits and challenge each other to name the cinematic source. Matthew suspects the twins of incest, but that doesn't stop him from falling into his own intimacies with Isabelle. As the threesome becomes threatened, Paris succumbs to student riots. The Dreamers aspires to be kinky, but the results are more decorative than decadent; nonetheless, the movie's lively energy recalls the careless and vital exuberance of Godard and Truffaut. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

From Academy Award®-winning director Bernardo Bertolucci (The Last Emperor, 1987), comes an erotic tale of three young film lovers brought together by their passion for movies -- and each other. When Isabelle and Theo (Eva Green, Louis Garrel) invite Matthew (Michael Pitt) to stay with them, what begins as a casual friendship ripens into a sensual voyage of discovery and desire in which nothing is off limits and anything is possible. Featuring an engaging, seductive cast, The Dreamers is a ?spellbinding, provocative feast!" (Ebert & Roeper)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

186 of 197 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than a masterpiece..., February 25, 2005

By 

Shane M. Warnick "cinephile_12" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dreamers (Original Uncut NC-17 Version) (DVD)

...this film is (for the lack of a better word) a dream--a dream you would not willingly want to wake up from. Completely and utterly mesmerizing, "The Dreamers" pays homage to film, Paris, the 60's, and love. Apart from some of the awkward moments this movie tends to present sporadically, the movie itself was not mired by the abnormalities of some of the main characters. Though, this movie is one of the greatest I've ever viewed, it is not for everyone and cannot be readily recommended without reviewing some of the pros and cons I caught.

CONS:
-First off, if you're offended, in any way, by frontal nudity from either sex... caution: it contains a lot!
-For some, if the ending is a chief factor in deciding that you like a movie, it is possible you could be dissapointed (it ends in an unlikely manner). But if you can appreciate the ending, it doesn't hurt the film at all... Maybe people were disappointed by the ending because they didn't want it to end :)
-If not accustomed to slower-moving movies, based on a load of story depth or the like opposed to action or thiller movies, then it could be a let down.

But the cons are heavily outweighed by the pros...

PROS:
-For film buffs, Bertolucci doesn't dissapoint. The b/w segments intermingled within the storyline are anything short of genius and, for me, was the most beautiful and spellbinding part of this movie.
-For anti-censorship viewers, this movie could seem to be sent from heaven, because it doesn't leave much out.
-The acting is on a par with almost perfection, all three main characters are played flawlessly and completely take on the people they are supposed to evoke... Eva Green is especially amazing.
-The soundtrack is excellent as well. The tone that the music sets is completely appropriate and only adds to the dreamy atomsphere of the film; totally reminiscent of the 60's.
-A perfect representation of Paris in the 60's; eventhough the film's centerpoint is the main characters and their relationship with one another, the artist's home of Europe couldn't be portrayed to be more gorgeous (with the exception of the student riots in foreground).

It is difficult to stop thinking of this movie, even between viewing other movies... if I could i'd give it six stars.

64 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To be of the world or just an extra, April 12, 2004

By 

Reine des Coeurs "reine_des_coeurs" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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Bertolucci's revolutionary film takes place in the tumultous summer of 1968 in which a young American, Matthew (Michael Pitt) has come to Paris to study French. He becames a cinephile and a frequent patron of the Cinemateque Francais, the breeding ground for the New Wave movement. Shortly after the firing of Langlois, he meets fellow cinephiles Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Cassel) and scores an invitation to dinner.

That's how it begins, but this movie isn't linear and it cannot be deciphered merely by the order of events. Quite frankly, I was amazed by Fox Searchlight releasing what may be one of the most revolutionary and sexually progressive films of recent years. In the streets, the young and old found their revolutionary voices in 1968 and fought to institute governmental changes, but inside this chic apartment another revolution is taking place as well only this one involves fewer persons.

Matthew is clearly enamored of Isabelle and Theo (though this latter relationship isn't as developed as in "The Holy Innocents", which I found took away from the storyline) but he is not transfixed by them. He realizes that though they observe the world, they purposely keep themselves outside of it. Theo's father correctly observes early in the movie that to understand the world and change it, you have to become part of it. This is a lesson Matthew is constantly aware of and tries to pass on to his new friends. The first inkling of how grounded he is in this reality comes with the Zippo scene (my favorite) in which his casual observation of how a simple lighter fits into every possible place. Life allows us to fit into many possible spaces as we constantly change and constantly search for the ideal spot, but the cosmic lesson in it is that we will fit into them and consequently, will fit ideally into the one we pick out. We must allow ourselves to inhabit the spaces and become part of them in order to test the waters all the while and we do this by leaving the comfort of our original spot and become part of the overall world.

The sexual relationship between Isabelle and Matthew was passionate, realistic and completely believable. We live in very hypocritical times where nudity has become more taboo than violence and it was a pleasure to see young people making love with all of the intimate gestures that take place between lovers. It obviously takes a great director to pique our cinematic memories and remind us that it takes two nude bodies to make love. The nude scenes between the brother and sister were a bit troublesome to the audience I saw this movie with, but the incestual nature of their relationship in the book has been erased. To me, they just seemed dangerously, asphixiatingly bound to each other, the nudity being just part of said obsession.

All three actors do a fine job, but it takes a brave director to end a film with a police action about to take place to the sounds of Edith Piaf's "Je Ne Regrette Rien". Bertolucci understands his young protagonists and knows the many errors they will continue to commit before they pick and choose what is right and what is wrong because he has been there himself. And he regrets nothing. We should all be so lucky.

81 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An underestimated film, perfectly captures a created dream world, May 7, 2006

By 

C. B Collins Jr. (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Dreamers (R-Rated Edition) (DVD)

This film is very good, I was surprized at how much I liked it considering all the media reviews around its release which emphasized incest and nudity and sexual taboos. In fact, the film is really about the social construction of reality and the testing of your constructed reality model. Let me explain what I mean by this; a pair of beautiful twins, a brother and sister, have developed a passion for film and have developed a highly dependent relationship upon each other that focuses their erotic energies toward each other in their insular world rather than outward. They have constructed an odd reality system, but for them it seems to have worked. They interprete the world through film. The first weakening of this reality system begins when the twins, Isabelle and Theo, invite Matthew into their world. Their parents leave for a month long summer vacation and Matthew moves into their lush apartment.

There is a very telling and important scene where Matthew comes to dinner with the family and the father and Theo have an argument at the table. Theo is angry and full of adolescent rage at his father, but his father is saddened to see Theo full of anger and so empty of real experience. Theo's view of reality is distorted and his sad father realizes that he can't help his son, that only pain and experience will open his eyes. Theo and Isabella have no idea how pampered they really are. Matthew sees it immediately but is gradually seduced by the beautiful and sophisticated twins.

Matthew is the first crack in the wall of their world. He moves into the apartment and they play games around famous films. Isabelle seduces Matthew, who is her first love, while Theo watches and so begins a marathon of love making all over the house from which Theo gradually withdraws. Theo then makes love to a girl in his college class, which is just the trick to stir Isabelle's insecurity, jealousy, and dependency needs. She quickly pulls Theo back into the threesome orbit.

These three young people are consumers, they are not producers, they run out of food and money and eventually drink a lot of the father's wine collection. Matthew, through his genuine love for Isabelle, trys to insert an external reality into their world, but both Theo and Isabelle resist. Around them the city of Paris is in riot yet the twins are oblivious. In a great scene, Isabelle and Theo wish to shave Matthew's pubic hair and he rebels and refuses confronting them with a desire to infantilize him, to make him their little boy - the childhood Theo loved by Isabelle, rather than accept that he loves Isabelle alone and wants out of the triangle.

The parents return because the phone line is dead and when the nude threesome are discovered, in a bedspread tent Isabelle recreates from her childhood, Isabelle decides to kill herself and the others using gas from the oven. This young woman will go to extremes to avoid letting the world enter her reality. To some degree she is the ultimate control freak in that she must control those around her to meet her needs and she does not allow any contrary vision of the real world to enter into her created childhood space. Matthew, though totally in love with her, realizes it is a lost cause. He realizes this when Isabelle and Theo are thrown into an on-going riot and begin acting like characters from a movie, with reckless abandonment as if they were immortal. He merges into the riot and disappears from their lives.

I loved the title, The Dreamers, for this exactly captures Theo and Isabelle's world. At least Matthew finally awoke. This is an underestimated film, it is very well done.