Eyes Without a Face

Eyes Without a Face
Directed by	Georges Franju
Produced by	Jules Borkon
Written by	Pierre Boileau Thomas Narcejac Jean Redon Claude Sautet Georges Franju
Starring	Pierre Brasseur Alida Valli Edith Scob François Guérin Juliette Mayniel
Music by	Maurice Jarre
Cinematography	Eugen Schüfftan
Editing by	Gilbert Natot
Distributed by	Lopert Pictures
Release date(s)	France: 1959[1][2][3] Italy: May 3, 1960 United Kingdom: 1960 United States: October 24, 1962
Running time	84 min.
Country	France Italy
Language	French

Eyes Without a Face (French: Les Yeux sans visage) is a 1959^[3] French-language horror film adaptation of Jean Redon's novel of the same name.^[4] Directed by French filmmaker Georges Franju, the film stars Pierre Brasseur as Doctor Génessier, Alida Valli as Louise, his assistant, and Edith Scob as Christiane Génessier. The plot revolves around the obsessive Doctor Génessier and his attempt at heterografting by experimental surgery to restore the face of his daughter, Christiane, whose face has been horribly disfigured in a car accident. With the help of Louise, Doctor Génessier lures young women into his home laboratory to perform experiments on them that will restore Christiane's beauty.

During the film's production, consideration was given to the standards of European censors by setting the right tone, minimizing bloodiness and eliminating the mad scientist character. Although the film passed through the European censors, the film's 1960 release in Europe caused controversy nevertheless. Critical reaction ranged from praise to disappointment and disgust.

Eyes Without a Face received an American debut in an edited form in 1962 under the title of The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus. It was released as a double feature with the horror film, The Manster. The films initial critical reception was not overtly positive, but subsequent theatrical and home video re-release of the film increased its reputation.^[4] Modern critics praise the film today for its poetic nature as well as being a notable influence on filmmakers such as John Carpenter, Jesús Franco and John Woo.

Plot

At night just outside Paris, a woman named Louise (Alida Valli) drives along a riverbank, disposing of a corpse in her backseat in the river. After the body is recovered, Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) identifies the remains as those of his missing daughter, Christiane Génessier (Edith Scob), whose face was horribly disfigured in an automobile accident that occurred before her disappearance. Following Christiane's funeral, Génessier and his assistant Louise, the woman who had disposed of the dead body earlier, return home where the doctor has hidden Christiane. The body belonged to a young woman that died following Dr. Génessier's unsuccessful attempt to graft her face onto his daughter's. Génessier promises to restore Christiane's face and insists that she wear a mask to cover her disfigurement. After her father leaves the room, Christiane calls her fiance Jacques Vernon (François Guérin), who works at Dr. Génessier's hospital, but hangs up without saying a word.

Christiane (Edith Scob) fails to make a phone call to Jacques Vernon. Scob's face is hidden for most of the film.

Louise lures a young woman named Edna Gruber (Juliette Mayniel) to Génessier's home. Génessier chloroforms Edna and takes her to his secret laboratory, where he performs heterograft surgery, removing her face. The doctor successfully grafts the skin on his daughter's face and holds the heavily bandaged and faceless Edna against her will. Edna escapes but falls to her death from an upstairs window. After disposing of Edna's corpse, Génessier notices flaws on Christiane's face. Her face grows worse within days; the new tissue is being rejected and she must resort to wearing her mask again. Christiane again phones Jacques and this time says his name, but the phone call is interrupted by Louise.

Jacques reports the call to the police, who have been investigating the disappearance of several young women with similar facial characteristics. The police have gotten a lead concerning a woman who wears a pearl choker, whom Jacques recognizes as Louise. Inspector Parot asks a young woman named Paulette Mérodon (Beatrice Altariba) to help investigate by checking herself into Génessier's hospital. After being declared healthy, Paulette leaves for Paris and is promptly picked up by Louise, who delivers her to Dr. Génessier's secret lab. Génessier is about to begin surgery on Paulette, when Louise informs him that the police want to see him. While the doctor talks with the police, Christiane, who has become disenchanted with her father's experiments, frees Paulette and stabs Louise in the neck. She also frees the dogs and doves that her father uses for experiments. Dr. Génessier dismisses the police and returns to his lab, where the dogs attack him, brutally disfiguring his face. Christiane walks slowly into the woods outside Génessier's house with one of the freed doves on her hand.

Production

In the late 1950s, British horror films such as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Horror of Dracula (1958) were popular with the French filmgoers. At the time, similar modern horror films had not been attempted by French film makers until producer Jules Borkon decided to tap into the horror market. Borkon bought the rights to the Jean Redon novel and offered the directorial job to one of the founders of Cinémathèque Française, Georges Franju, who was directing his first non-documentary feature La Tête contre les murs (1958). Franju had grown up during French silent film era when filmmakers such as Georges Méliès and Louis Feuillade were making fantastique-themed films, and he relished the opportunity to contribute to the genre.^[2] Franju felt the story was not a horror film; rather, he described his vision of the film as one of "anguish... it's a quieter mood than horror... more internal, more penetrating. It's horror in homeopathic doses."^[5]

To avoid problems with European censors, Borkon cautioned Franju not to include too much blood (which would upset the French censors), refrain from showing animals getting tortured (which would upset English censors), and leave out mad scientist characters that would cause problems with German censors. All three of these were part of the film, presenting a challenge to find the right tone for presenting these story elements in the film. First, working with Claude Sautet who was also serving as first assistant director and who laid out the preliminary screenplay, Franju hired the writing team of Boileau-Narcejac (Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac) who were fresh from writing screenplays for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) and Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Diaboliques (1954).^[5] The writers shifted the novel's focus from Doctor Génessier's character to that of his daughter, Christiane; this shift revealed the doctor's character in a more positive and understandable light and helped to avoid the censorship restrictions Borkon proposed.^[2]

For his production staff, Franju enlisted people with whom he had previously worked on earlier projects. Cinematographer Eugen Schüfftan was chosen to render the visuals of the film. Schüfftan had worked with Franju on La Tête Contre les Murs (1958).^[6] Film historian David Kalat called Shüfftan "the ideal choice to illustrate Franju's nightmares".^[2] (Only two years later, Shüfftan won an Academy award for his work on The Hustler (1961).^[7]) French composer Maurice Jarre created the haunting score for the film.^[5] Jarre had previously worked with Franju on his film La Tête Contre les Murs (1958).^[6] Modern critics note the film's two imposing musical themes, a jaunty carnival-esque waltz (performed while Louise does her duties for Doctor Génessier) and a lighter, sadder piece for Christiane.^[8][9][10] Jarre went on to make award winning scores for films including Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965).^[11]

Cast

• Pierre Brasseur as Doctor Génessier: a University professor, physician and father of Christiane. Génessier experiments on his pet dogs and performs heterograft surgeries on women to try and restore the face of his daughter Christiane. Brasseur previously worked with director Georges Franju in the drama, La Tête contre les murs (1958), again in a leading role playing a doctor.^[12]
• Alida Valli as Louise: a woman who is Génessier's assistant, kidnapping young women, assisting him in the lab and acting as a surrogate mother to Christiane. Louise aids Génessier partly because of his help in restoring her damaged face in events that happened before the film begins.
• Edith Scob as Christiane Genessier: the daughter of Doctor Génessier. Christiane's face was damaged in a car accident caused by her father. For most of the film, her face is covered by a stiff mask that resembles her face before the accident. Like Brasseur, Scob was also cast by Franju in La Tête Contre les Murs, but in a minor role.^[12] Scob went on to work with Franju in four more of his films.^[13]
• François Guérin as Jacques Vernon: a student of Génessier and Christiane's fiancé. Jacques is unaware of Doctor Génessier's criminal acts and believes Christiane is dead. After receiving a phone call from Christiane, he helps the police force in investigating the crime.
• Juliette Mayniel as Edna Gruber: a young woman who becomes a victim of Doctor Génessier experiments after being befriended by Louise in Paris. Edna is the first woman whose face is successfully transplanted to Christiane. While recovering from the surgery, she attacks Louise and then leaps from a window at Génessier's home and dies.

Release and reception

Eyes without a Face was first shown in France on August 18, 1959, and received a theatrical release on March 2, 1960.^[1][3] Although it passed through the European censors, the film caused controversy on its release in Europe. The French news magazine L'Express noted the audience "dropped like flies" during the heterografting scene.^[2] The French critics' general response was moderate, ranging from mild enthusiasm to general disdain or disappointment, claiming it to be either a tired repetition of German expressionism or simply too much like Grand Guignol theatre.^[14] In England, Isabel Quigly, film critic for The Spectator, called it "the sickest film since I started film criticism",^[15] while a reviewer who admitted that she liked the film was nearly fired.^[2] During the film's showing at the Edinburgh Film Festival, seven audience members fainted to which director Franju responded, "Now I know why Scotsmen wear skirts."^[2] A review in Variety was negative, noting specifically that the "stilted acting, asides to explain characters and motivations, and a repetition of effects lose the initial impact" and an "unclear progression and plodding direction give [the film] an old-fashioned air".^[16]

The film was released in America as The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus along with the The Manster in 1962. The distributors play on the artistic nature of the film in this poster that modern critics would later praise.^[17]

For the American début in 1962, the film was released in an edited form. It was given an English-language dub, and re-titled The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus.^[18] Edits in the Dr. Faustus version removed parts of the heterografting scene as well as scenes showing Doctor Génessier's more human side such his loving care for a small child at his clinic.^[2] The distributors recognized the artistic intent of the film and played up that element in promotion with an advertisement quoting The London Observer's positive statements about the film and noting its showing at the Edinburgh Film Festival.^[2] This is in contrast to presentation of the secondary feature, The Manster (1962), which mainly focused on the carnie-show aspect with its "two-headed monster" and "Invasion from outer space by two-headed creature killer".^[19] Eyes Without a Face had a very limited initial run and there was little reception from the American mainstream press.^[20]

It was not until the 1986 re-release of the film (in conjunction with retrospectives at the National Film Theatre in England and at Cinémathèque Française in France of the director's back catalogue) that its critical status began to be re-evaluated.^[14] The film was re-released in its original form to American theatres on October 31, 2003 and received great critical acclaim. Based on 35 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, Eyes Without a Face received an average 97% overall approval rating with an average rating of 8.1/10.^[21][17] The reviewers commented on the film's poetic nature and noted the strong influence of French poet and film maker Jean Cocteau. Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader praised the film, referring to it as "absurd and as beautiful as a fairy tale".^[22] J. Hoberman of The Village Voice declared the film "a masterpiece of poetic horror and tactful, tactile brutality".^[23] The Encyclopedia of Horror Films noted the Cocteau influence, stating that "Franju invests [the film] with a weird poetry in which the influence of Cocteau is unmistakable."^[22] David Edelstein of Slate also compared the film to Cocteau's work, commenting that "the storyline is your standard obsessed-mad-doctor saga, one step above a Poverty Row Bela Lugosi feature ... [b]ut it's Lugosi by way of Cocteau and Ionesco".^[9]

Home video

Eyes Without a Face was released on VHS on January 9, 2001 by Kino Video and on DVD on October 19, 2004 by The Criterion Collection.^[21] The DVD also contains Georges Franju's first documentary Blood of the Beasts (1949), a depiction of a French slaughterhouse.^[2] A Region 2 release of Eyes Without a Face was released May 12, 2008 by Second Sight Films.^[24] A Region 4 release of the film was released on July 2, 2007 by Umbrella Entertainment.^[25] The disc also included Franju's documentary Blood of the Beasts.^[25]

Soundtrack

Ma Periode Française
Soundtrack by Maurice Jarre
Released	February, 2005
Genre	Film music
Length	71:11
Label	Play Time

Long after the film's original release, in February of 2005, the French soundtrack record label Play Time released the soundtrack on Compact Disc along with other soundtracks preformed by Jarre. This also includes soundtracks from other Franju films including La Tête contre les Murs and Thérèse Desqueyroux.^[26]

Tracklisting

All music composed by Maurice Jarre^[26].

Legacy

Eyes Without a Face has influenced a handful of European films since its release. Spanish director Jesús Franco created films throughout his career that were influenced by the film.^[27] Franco's first was the Spanish and French co-production of Gritos en la noche (1962). Franco's variation of Eyes Without a Face concerns the efforts of a mad surgeon, Dr. Orloff, to reconstruct the face of his disfigured daughter Melissa. Inspector Edgar Tanner investigates Orlof using his girlfriend, Wanda Bronsky, as an undercover spy. Franco followed with several sequels to Gritos en la noche.^[28] He made one more film strongly influenced by Eyes Without a Face, titled Faceless (1988). Faceless has a similar plot involving beautiful women who are abducted by Dr. Flamand's (Helmut Berger) female assistant and kept hostage. The doctor uses the skin of the women to perform plastic surgery on his disfigured sister, but the experiments leave the victims mutilated and dead.^[29] At the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, a French science fiction film, Chrysalis (2007), was presented that contained homages to Eyes Without a Face.^[30] These homages are seen in the plot line of a police lieutenant who is investigating the circumstances behind the death of a young girl whose body has scars around the eyes. The lieutenant's investigation eventually leads him to a plastic surgery clinic, a similar plot motivation to Eyes Without a Face.^[31]

The film also influenced American film productions. John Carpenter has suggested that Eyes Without a Face inspired the idea of a featureless mask for the Michael Myers character in the popular slasher film series Halloween. Carpenter recalls that the film crew "didn't have any money to make a mask. It was originally written the way you see it, in other words, it's a pale mask with human features, almost featureless. I don't know why I wrote that down, why Debra and I decided on that, maybe it was because of an old movie called Eyes Without a Face".^[32]

DVD film reviews have suggested the film influenced director John Woo; critics have compared the graphic detail of the face transplant scene in Woo's action film Face/Off (1997) to the face transplant scene in Eyes Without a Face and noted the similarity.^[8][33][34] Another resemblance is Woo's trademark use of white doves in his films that is similar to the character Christiane's dove-laden escape in the film's finale.^[8]

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Ashby, Justine; Andrew Higson (2000). British Cinema: Past and Present. Routledge. ISBN 0-41522-061-0. 
• Ince, Kate (2005). Georges Franju. Manchester University Press. ISBN 0719068282. 
• Hawkins, Joan (2000). Cutting Edge: Art-Horror and the Horrific Avant-Garde. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-81663-414-9. 
• Schneider, Steven Jay (2005). 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Barron's Educational Series. ISBN 0-76415-907-0. 
• Turan, Kenneth (2005). The X-list: The National Society of Film Critics' Guide to the Movies That Turn Us On. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306814455. 
• Hardy, Phil; Tom Milne, Paul Willemen (1986). The Encyclopedia of Horror Movies. Harper and Row. ISBN 0060550503. 

External links

• Eyes Without a Face at Allmovie
• Eyes Without a Face at the Internet Movie Database
• Eyes Without a Face at Metacritic

• Eyes Without a Face at Rotten Tomatoes
• Eyes Without a Face at the TCM Movie Database

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