Product Details

• Actors: Gerard Depardieu, Nastassja Kinski, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, Victoria Abril, Dominique Pinon
• Directors: Jean-Jacques Beineix
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: French, English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Cinema Libre
• DVD Release Date: October 20, 2009
• Run Time: 137 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002JCYSKU
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #146,020 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Moon in the Gutter (The Jean-Jacques Beineix Collection)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

About the Director

A rabid movie fan when he was young, Jean-Jacques Beineix first studied medicine before entering the movie business. During the seventies, as an assistant director, he worked with Claude Berri, René Clément, Claude Zidi and even Jerry Lewis. But, like many assistants, Beineix' dream was to direct. His first effort was in 1977 with the short Le Chien de Monsieur Michel (Mr. Michel s Dog). A promising debut, it earned a César nomination for best short film. In 1981, he directed his first feature Diva, a stylish thriller based on a book by Delacorta. When it came out, Diva was not supported by French critics, but slowly the film gained momentum due to good word of mouth and positive reactions in various festivals like Moscow and Toronto. Ultimately, the film became a great success internationally, winning four Césars. His next film, La Lune dans le caniveau (The Moon in The Gutter), was an adaptation of a David Goodis novel, more radical than Diva in its deliberate artificiality. It premiered at Cannes in 1983. Beineix came back in 1986 with 37°2 le matin (Betty Blue), based on a Philippe Djian novel. Despite mixed reviews, the film was another international hit, won the top price at Montréal festival, and was nominated for best foreign film at both the Oscars and Golden Globes. It also earned 9 César nominations including best film and best director. In 1989, Beineix directed Roselyne et les lions (Roselyn and the Lions) (1989) followed in 1992, by IP5, which was known for being French actor Yves Montand's last role. Beineix then resurfaced where he was least expected with social documentaries. He did a film about children in Romania; one on obsession, Otaku, shot in Japan; and a piece for television on the French Elle editor, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a stroke that resulted in locked-In syndrome, Assigné à residence. In 2001, he returned to fiction with Mortel Transfert (Mortal Transfer), a psycho-thriller based on a Jean-Pierre Gattégno novel. In 2002, Beineix drew strong ratings with the made-for-TV documentary Loft paradoxe, an attempt to analyze the success of reality show Loft Story. With his intense focus on the power of images, Beineix paved the way for directors like Luc Besson, Leos Carax and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. A self-proclaimed misanthropist who never hid his contempt for producers and was often deemed excessive and irascible, he will go down in history as a director who raised controversy not for the subjects he tackled but for his stylistic approach. With Diva and 37°2 le matin, he directed two seminal French films of the eighties that engaged a worldwide audience. Jean-Jacques Beineix created his own production company in 1984, Cargo Films, in order to keep artistic independence. The company produces feature films and documentaries on a wide variety of themes from science to art, to women's rights to social problems. Several films have been made in partnership with national scientific organization such as CNES and CNRS. In 2006 he published the first volume of his autobiography, Les Chantiers de la gloire published in French only. This title clearly alludes to the French title of Stanley Kubrick's film, Les Sentiers de la gloire (Paths of Glory). Additionally, Beineix, is a painter, with several works available to view on his website.

Product Description

Studio: Cinema Libre Studio Release Date: 10/20/2009 Run time: 137 minutes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Moon in the Gutter--brilliant French existentialist Noir, September 6, 2008

By 

Richard L. Jackson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Moon in the Gutter [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This brilliant film is an example of existential angst wrapped up in a modern Noir type of packaging. It was not truly appreciated when released in the theaters but is well worth watching and owning. The film is so engrossing that the reading of the dialogue is not wearisome as some foreign films are. The directors stylistic use of images to hint at and suggest deeper themes is truly artistic. Not only that, the book it is based on is an often overlooked novel by one of America's less appreciated authors David Goodis. He has often been the author of books chosen for the films. His 1st novel DARK PASSAGE was, of course, a challanging vehicle for Bogart. You will not regret purchasing the film. But PLEASE read the book too. You will never regret the experience of seeing the lonely of the loser struggling against all odds just to survive as a descent man in a world set against him. Good acting by Gerard and Natasha as well. Money well invested.

Richard Leo Jackson

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disjointed and flawed, but visually striking and worth a look, April 27, 2010

By 

Kardius (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Moon in the Gutter (The Jean-Jacques Beineix Collection) (DVD)

I really wanted to like this movie, since I'm an admirer of Diva and Betty Blue, and I'm a huge fan of the three leads (Gerard Depardieu, Nastassja Kinski, and Victoria Abril), but, despite the wonderful production design and the intriguing noirish setup for the storyline, there was no getting around the fact that the movie doesn't work as a whole in the current version. It's clear to see why it was critically panned upon release. As it is, the film is a series of beautiful but disjointed scenes, with exceptional acting, that drags at certain points and fails to fully develop its main characters.
Gerard Depardieu is at his best and he has rarely looked so hot in a movie. Beineix shot some of the most flattering close-ups I have seen of him. Nastassja Kinski was at the peak of her beauty, and as always is a striking presence, but sadly there's not much character development to her part. Best of all is Victoria Abril, rightfully nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Cesar, who brings an much needed energy to the film, even if she's playing a stereotype. The scenes between Depardieu and Kinski are the most visually beautiful, but the acting honors go to the ones with Abril and Depardieu. It's amazing that Kinski and Abril were so young (23?) when they shot this film, since they bring an emotional complexity and maturity, expressed in very simple gestures, that I cannot imagine in any contemporary young actress.
To sum up, I recommend checking it out for the visuals and the acting, but it's flawed. It would be wonderful if somehow the edited scenes were to be found somewhere and Beineix could do a better, longer edit, like he did with Betty Blue.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WILL EVENTUALLY BE ACCORDED HIGHER STATUS., December 1, 2004

By 

rsoonsa (Lake Isabella, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Moon in the Gutter [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Jean-Jacques Beineix recently stated (transl.) "An auteur does not speak the truth" and here, within this enormously powerful film, he but flirts with reality, while most of the director's creative fires feed upon his singular employment of colour and set design. The style of Beineix, as a cinematic architect, may be designated as Rococo with, as he avers, a preeminence of (transl.) "atmosphere over narrative", fostering an element of whimsy, greatly enhanced by his recognition of a symbolic authority resting upon commercial advertising and its adjuncts. A studied development of exaggerated imagination marks the film, each frame being carefully composed for a production that originally extended to over four and one half hours, in the face of Beineix' assertion that he abhors filmic structuring. This organizational factor, at least in part, stems from an obligatory reflex of the director as recognition of the film's source, a novel by David Goodis, wherein the action occurs primarily at and about dockside Philadelphia, transferred here to an undesignated Marseille, and with the novelist's prototypical women intact, one, Loretta (Nastassia Kinski), angelic and carnally unattainable, ("you are pure" declaims Gerard Depardieu to her), the second, Bella (Victoria Abril) triumphantly lusty and possessed of will such as the work's protagonist, Gerard Delmas (Depardieu) apparently does not have. Delmas is compulsively drawn to the site of his sister's gruesome death by her own hand following her sexual violation, hoping to discover keys to what prompted her suicide, to the identity of her assailant, and to a rationale behind his own obsession. Thus is formed a basis for a plot, such as it may be, yet style is properly victor over substance with this undervalued and enigmatic piece that is nearly all filmed in studio, the greatest portion lighted by arcs and photo floods, with scoring contributed in elegant and operatically motival fashion by Gabriel Yared, and paced throughout, as Beineix describes it, with (transl.) "slow gestures forming the choreography."