Eyes Without a Face
1960 ‘Les yeux sans visage’ Directed by Georges Franju
Synopsis
A brilliant scientist, Professor Genessier, is guilt-stricken after having disfigured his daughter’s face in a car accident. He has almost perfected the technique of grafting skin tissue and intends to use this science to rebuild his daughter’s damaged face. But he needs a supply of donors to experiment on.
Cast
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Pardon my French (no pun intended) but: Holy shit, darling, where have you been all my life? This has always been a title that eluded me for some reason or other, but I finally got round to watching it. And I'm so glad I did.
Eyes without a face felt more like a poem, written by someone like Edgar Allen Poe, made visual than it felt like a film. The story isn't really important here. It doesn't break any boundaries in the genre and that's fine, as the way the story is told is brilliant.
Franju's treatment of most scenes is superb. He finds the perfect balance between the up-tempo tension filled scenes (with fantastic music) and the almost intimate,…
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I was wondering how long it would be before Les Yeux Sans Visage grabbed me enough that I would stop playing a certain Billy Idol song over and over in my head. The answer? Quite a long time, actually.
That's not because this film is rubbish or anything like that - but neither is it in a hurry. This classic and extremely influential French horror film, of course, sees Pierre Brasseur play a surgeon who enlists the help of his assistant, Alida Valli, in kidnapping attractive but lost young women and slicing off their faces in an attempt to find a transplant for his horribly disfigured daughter, Edith Scob. It doesn't go too well.
The first half an hour of…
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What a little gem of a film. An obvious inspiration for Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In, with a similar premise. Georges Franju's work is a far more austere and restrained film than the Spaniard's (as you would expect given both the time it was made and Almodovar's trademark exuberance).
The austerity is the film's biggest plus point for me, as it makes the moments of genuine horror all the more shocking (they are still horrific today, one can only imagine the reaction back in 1960). The plot is fairly simple: Pierre Brasseur plays a gifted plastic surgeon who causes a car crash in which his daughter (Edith Scob) is horrendously disfigured (her face described as an open wound…
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One of my favorite things about watching classic horror (especially for the first time) is recognizing it's influence in current films. All throughout this movie, all I could think of was how that new Almodóvar movie The Skin I Live In is plastered with queues from this movie. Obviously, Almodóvar took it several hundred steps further but it was still a nice call back. On it's own, I really enjoyed this movie. The acting, particularly from Edith Scob who pulls off a magnetic performance without ever really showing her face, is spot on and the score fits the tone perfectly. I love it when movies open with kinetic music over someone driving, especially when it's raining and they're driving to a mansion. Two out of three ain't bad.
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''The future, Madame, is something we should have started on a long time ago.''
Film #26 of The December Project
I think the December project is finally beginning to takes its toll on me, watching 26 films in the last 6 days hasn't been difficult, its writing 26 reviews to go along with them, which are all beginning to sound the same, and to anyone who reads them I sincerely apologize. Anyways, tonight I was looking for an easy watch and after flip flopping through many titles, I finally decide on 'Eyes Without a Face', was it an easy watch ? no, was it a masterpiece ? yes!
After he is the cause of the disfigurement of his daughter,Christiane's face…
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This is #1 of My Thoughts on Horror Cinema list!
Exquisite ambience. In interiors, shadows surround the characters, and in external shots they’re plated by some strange opaque light, always referring a misty atmosphere. The sound aspects are also uniquely important here. When that anxious soundtrack shows up to emphasize the moral deviations of the crooked characters it’s terrific, as well as when we witness Dr. Génessier arriving his home, while he’s morbidly received with a round of anguished moans from imprisoned dogs.
Actor Pierre Brasseur composes brilliantly a mean character, drowned in his own egocentrism, consuming himself with what he thinks it’s a justification for exercising his carnage. The lethargy in which he deals with the bureaucratic task of…
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This movie gets better each time I watch it.
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I want to begin by saying that Eyes Without a Face is a fantastic title for a horror film. The plot is effectively creepy and the leads all provide superb performances, but it's the haunting imagery that really lingers. Considering this was made the same year as Psycho (1960) - a film which is perhaps best known for its iconic (yet somewhat bloodless) shower scene - it is very surprising what director Georges Franju achieves in one particular scene here. I've been sparing with details because this film really is quite special and I implore you to hunt it down and check it out if you haven't already.
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Thriller terrorífico con aires "nouvellevaguescos". Clara inspiración (si no copia) para La piel que habito de Almodóvar. Parte de una premisa clásica bastante manida a lo largo de la historia del cine: científico brillante (y algo locuelo) con una obra un cuanto discutible éticamente hablando. Tras desfigurar a su hija en un accidente del que se siente culpable, el doctor Génessier comienza a raptar jovenzuelas con el fin de aprovechar su piel y así poder reconstruir la cara de su hija.
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This is really just a B horror movie, but the French accent makes critics think it's a lot more sophisticated than it is. Not a bad movie at all, but not the all-time classic that critics makes it out to be, either.
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Fairytale horror, creepy imagery. Seek more Franju.
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What a little gem of a film. An obvious inspiration for Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In, with a similar premise. Georges Franju's work is a far more austere and restrained film than the Spaniard's (as you would expect given both the time it was made and Almodovar's trademark exuberance).
The austerity is the film's biggest plus point for me, as it makes the moments of genuine horror all the more shocking (they are still horrific today, one can only imagine the reaction back in 1960). The plot is fairly simple: Pierre Brasseur plays a gifted plastic surgeon who causes a car crash in which his daughter (Edith Scob) is horrendously disfigured (her face described as an open wound…
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Imagine wearing a creepy mask of your face, over your already extremely creepy face.
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A great classic film, very thrilling and suspenseful to the very end.
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'Les Yeux Sans Visage' is not your average horror film, and I was expecting a little more gore, but it was the haunting storyline, elegant black and white cinematography and mystifying score which amplified the feeling of horror in this masterpiece.
I really enjoyed Franju’s take on the “mad scientist” character. Doctor Genessier’s flourishing career, social acceptance and his love for his daughter slightly dignifies his outlandish actions, rather than turning him into the psychopathic serial killer.
Definitely didn’t disappoint.