In the French Style Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

In the French Style Blu-ray Movie Review

Respiration difficile.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 10, 2016

It’s always fun in a certain kind of way when the commentary track on a Blu-ray features participants who are struggling to come up with something positive to say about the film they’re watching. That’s the case with the trio of conversationalists on In the French Style’s commentary track, one which more or less overtly states that the film really isn’t very good. If Jean Seberg’s first French film, Jean-Luc Godard’s iconic Breathless, might be thought of as poetry in motion, In the French Style is considerably more prosaic and might therefore be best labeled with the sobriquet “out of breath”. Based on a couple of short stories by Irwin Shaw, In the French Style is a film that tries hard—probably a bit too hard, as the commentary avers—to “recreate” a nouvelle vague ambience, without having either the story chops or (especially) the, well, style to actually deliver the goods. It’s an interesting film in a number of ways, but it never really connects emotionally or in fact intellectually in the manner it seems to want to, and therefore might be best appreciated as an experiment which for whatever reason went awry. Shaw’s writing can often tend to tip over into pomposity or even pretension at times, as anyone who has waded through either his novels (The Young Lions, Rich Man, Poor Man) or in fact his shorter works may acknowledge. Shaw’s sometimes overarching literary ambitions also tend to make his stage works at least occasionally ponderous, something that this film perhaps also exhibits. Years ago I managed to get a copy of Shaw’s little remembered (and evidently never officially published) 1939 Group Theater production The Quiet City from the Library of Congress, and was frankly astounded at the sheer length of the work, something that to my unscientific assessment seemed like it might have run well over three, and perhaps even over four, hours—three (or four) hours filled to the brim with weighty monologues, high-falutin’ dialogue and more than a tip o’ the Odetsian hat to the old Art vs. Commerce dialectic. In a way that very disconnect between Art and Commerce is what tends to hobble In the French Style, for both Shaw and director Robert Parrish seem to be aiming for the pure, unbridled “Art” of the French New Wave while also keeping a cautious eye on hoped for box office returns, something that tends to curtail the stylistic flourishes which in fact helped to define the movement personified by Godard and others. The result is an uneasy mishmash that is pleasant enough, but which comes off as a kind of overstuffed and yet curiously malnourished casserole.

Jean Seberg's relatively brief life and career have become the stuff of legend in the time since her death, and there's probably a visceral biographical film to be made out her story (Jodie Foster evidently purchased rights to a Seberg biography many years ago, but a resultant film never materialized). There have been some attempts to tell Seberg's tale, though, albeit in perhaps unexpected forms. Years ago before the internet made finding rare recordings so easy, I used to frequent a wonderful warehouse of used records in Los Angeles, where I delighted in locating albums I thought I would never be able to track down (at least in the “wilds” of the Pacific Northwest). Every time my wife and I would travel to L.A. to visit her family, I’d spend at least several hours and often frankly extravagant amounts of cash in this huge facility, to the point that the owner struck up a friendship with me and would often offer me little “bonus” items to augment my frequent shopping excursions in his emporium. One of these items was a soundboard recording of the West End production of Marvin Hamlisch’s failed musical Jean Seberg, a show which tried to document in song and dance Seberg’s precipitous rise to fame and subsequent traumas which ultimately led to her suicide in 1979 at the relatively tender age of 40. The musical, at least from the recording I received, seemed to be on firmer emotional footing in detailing Seberg’s early career, and it’s interesting to note the context in which In the French Style resides, namely after Seberg’s supposedly disastrous “one-two punch” in American films (Saint Joan, Bonjour Tristesse ), which was then followed by something of a “breather” (no pun intended) with The Mouse That Roared, and then finally her “French period” which began with the Godard masterpiece. At even this relatively early point in Seberg’s career, she had already been through more ups and downs than many actresses twice her age, and there’s a certain world weariness in her eyes which perhaps works against her characterization as supposedly freewheeling expat art student Christina James, a young woman who is passionately attempting to live her life—yes, in the French style.

Perhaps unavoidably given the fact that In the French Style was culled from two apparently quite disparate short stories, the film ends up playing as a series of vignettes rather than an organic whole. One gets the feeling that Shaw and Parrish might have hoped that that segmented approach would in and of itself provide a kind of disjunctive quality that was at least somewhat similar to Breathless, but the result is considerably less effective. The film in essence merely charts the romantic escapades of Christina, adventures which include a young French boy named Guy (Philippe Forquet) and two older gentlemen (Stanley Baker and James Leo Herlihy). A considerable amount of time supposedly passes between these encounters, but Christina’s character arc from winsome naif to more or less browbeaten “adult” is still underdeveloped and haphazard feeling.

One tangential if at least somewhat interesting element arises with regard to Christina’s hoped for career in painting. While the aforementioned commentary reflects the opinion shared by Christina’s father (Addison Powell) in the film, namely that her work isn’t very good, in reality the sketches and/or paintings shown in the film at least occasionally have more than a dash of style. One is reminded of comments that have been made about Cabaret, where (as in the film) if there’s a knockout playing Sally Bowles, the audience is left to ponder how such an outstanding talent got shunted to a “dive” like the Kit Kat Klub? Similarly, some may wonder if Christina’s talent is at least a little better developed than her father (and evidently the public at large) seem to think, something that adds to the character’s ultimate disillusionment. Dreams die hard, but they’re especially poignant when a production designer offers props that suggest a budding magazine illustrator if not a new Picasso.

In the French Style Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

In the French Style is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. Culled from the Sony-Columbia catalog, this is a great looking transfer that really has no major signs of age related wear and tear, and one which preserves a healthy and organic grain field throughout the presentation. Contrast is generally consistent and strong, as are sharpness and clarity, though there are occasional variances, most notably in some location work, especially in some early going with Seberg and Forquet traipsing around Paris on his scooter or enjoying some time in a park. There are several long(ish) opticals in the film where softness and grain understandably spike. Detail levels are commendably strong throughout the presentation, especially in close-ups, where little items like the faux leather cover on the transistor radio offer an almost palpable sense of texture (see screenshot 9).

In the French Style Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

In the French Style features a fine sounding DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track which capably supports what is in essence a dialogue driven film (with occasional bridging narration). Some of the urban environments occasionally offer a busier sound design, but this is a fairly quiet film overall, and while there's not a lot to "write home about" here, fidelity is fine, and prioritization is well handled.

In the French Style Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Original Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:11)


• Isolated Score Track is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and features some effects.


• Audio Commentary features Lem Dobbs hosted by Twilight Time's Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman.

In the French Style Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's a pretentious quality to In the French Style that is pretty unmistakable, but that doesn't mean the film is pure drivel. There is a certain style to this piece, albeit not the shattering approach of a Godard. Seberg is as lovely as ever, even if she, like the material, can come off as too mannered at times. Technical merits are strong, and with caveats noted, In the French Style comes Recommended.