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À Nous la Liberté (Criterion Collection)

 

  Written and Directed by René Clair

France 1931 / Comedy / Satire / 83 min / Black & White / Monaural / 1.33: 1 / NTSC /  In French with Optional English Subtitles
Henri Marchand, Raymond Cordy, Rolla France, Paul Olivier, Jacques Shelly, Germaine Aussey

À Nous la Liberté is an early talkie from French filmmaker René Clair. Louis (Raymond Cordy) and Emile (Henri Marchand) are a pair of convicts whose lives take decidely different paths after prison. Emile works his way up the ladder of capitalism, becoming a phonograph factory boss, a job that finds him overseeing a bleak outfit of automatous drones. Louis, on the other hand, lives the life of a poverty-stricken vagabond. Despite their contrasting lots, the pair meet up again later in life. À Nous la Liberté is perhaps best remembered for being the main inspiration for Charlie Chaplin's 1936 classic Modern Times.

 
       

Bonus Features:

◦ New Digital Transfer
◦ Deleted scenes
◦ Entr'acte (1924), the short Surrealist masterpiece by Clair and artist Francis Picabia
◦ Video interview with Madame Bronja Clair
◦ Film historian David Robinson on the Tobis lawsuit against Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times
◦ New and improved English subtitle translation