Suzanne's Career Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Suzanne's Career Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 9, 2024

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales from Criterion.

One of the rather interesting if simultaneously peculiar trivia points about world cinema is how fecund the French movie critic community has been in producing titans of film making. The iconic French publication Cahiers du Cinéma was a virtual hotbed of activity in this regard, and if names like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut may be at the apex of any list culled from those who began as writers for the magazine and who went on to storied careers in film, there are any number of others, including Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, and the man responsible for the six films (some shorts) in this collection, Éric Rohmer. Rohmer's fame may have at least temporarily eclipsed the likes of Godard and Truffaut, for a little while anyway, when the trifecta of My Night at Maud's, Claire's Knee, and Love in the Afternoon became international sensations as the sixties gave way to the seventies. An obituary for Rohmer in a major newspaper mentioned his "durability" and suggested that even if he didn't have the immediate name recognition of some of his peers, his work had outlasted any flash in the pan sensibility that may have attended releases of films by other former critics. Really fascinatingly in the "trivial pursuit" category is the fact that all six of the "tales" aggregated as exemplars of "morality" by Rohmer are based, at least tangentially, on F.W. Murnau's legendary Sunrise.

You can almost palpably feel Rohmer slowly but surely "stretching out" with this second Moral Tale, which, while not perhaps at true "feature length", offers a more developed narrative and character information in what will be a recurring focus throughout the series on "star-crossed" romance, often with just a tinge of a ménage à trois involved. In this particular instance, a more dashing male named Guillaume (Christian Charrière) is seen with perhaps slightly envious eyes by his more reserved friend Bertrand (Philippe Beuzen), who not so coincidentally is the first person narrator of the story. The "third leg" of the trio is focal female Suzanne (Catherine Sée), who is seduced by Guillaume but then more or less jettisoned, while Bertrand looks on, perhaps judgmentally. There some rather interesting if not overly pronounced sociopolitical and socioeconomic context that Rohmer touches on in terms of what was going on in France generally and Paris in particular in the early sixties.

Suzanne's Career Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Suzanne's Career is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. Criterion's insert booklet states that "the restoration of all six films was undertaken by Les Films du Losange, with the support of the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC)", and further specifies that this particular film was transferred in 2K from the 16 mm original camera negative. Even the DigiPack blurbs mentions this film's "ragged black and white 16 mm photography", and this is a case where the source element "is what it is", to varying degrees of detail, contrast and grain thickness. Some of the earlier interior footage is pretty seriously dark and dingy, with a much more pronounced "dupe" look than a lot of what follows, something that's exacerbated at times with a somewhat milky overlay (despite the overarching darkness) that tends to rob contrast of huge range. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, it's in some of the outdoor location work that things can offer more compelling fine detail levels and a better accounting of both contrast and more tightly resolved grain, but even at its best, this can be a particularly fuzzy looking presentation. Therefore, some may feel that even 3.0 is a generous score.

Suzanne's Career Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Suzanne's Career offers an LPCM Mono track in the original French. As with the film itself, the sound design here is perhaps just a slight step upward from the minimalism of The Bakery Girl of Monceau, though arguably not by a huge increment. Once again the film offers both narration and dialogue, along with relatively robust ambient environmental effects in some of the outdoor material in particular. There's a very slightly thin, boxy sound at times, but nothing overly problematic. Optional English subtitles are available.

Suzanne's Career Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Criterion has packaged The Bakery Girl of Monceau and Suzanne's Career together on one disc with the following supplements, some of which, while "officially" listed under one particular film, may be more general in nature.

The Bakery Girl of Monceau

• Presentation, or Charlotte and Her Steak (1951) (HD; 9:52) is a very early Rohmer effort that took years to complete and which once again revolves around mismatched lovers.


• Moral Tales, Filmic Issues (HD; 1:24:07) is a really interesting conversation between Rohmer and his longtime producing partner Barbet Schroeder. Subtitled in English.

Suzanne's Career

• Nadja in Paris (1964) (HD; 13:11) is a really sweet travelogue of sorts.

Suzanne's Career Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

One of the things that becomes increasingly apparent as Rohmer gets his sea and/or cinematic legs is how facile he is in addressing various "serious" subjects with a surprisingly deft, light touch. There may not be typical farcical mixed identities here, but there's an at least somewhat similar misapprehension of what drives people, as the viewer along with Bertrand himself may surprisingly discover that he's a so-called "unreliable narrator". Video here can be pretty murky and ill defined, but is certainly watchable. With caveats noted, Recommended.