Aiming for a wider audience in 1961, the often overlooked director Jean-Pierre Melville (Les enfants terribles, Le samourai) adapted Beatrix Beck’s autobiographical novel The Passionate Heart. Set in a French village during World War II, Léon Morin, Priest is about a young woman falling in love with a handsome, radical young priest who’s fully aware of his power over her.
The film’s focus is Barny (Emmanuelle Riva), a young Communist widow with a young daughter. With the village coming under German occupation, Barny and other single mothers whose children have Jewish or Communist fathers quickly arrange for baptisms. Barny, who hasn’t been a part of organized religion since her youth, decides to take her Marxist convictions into a confessional and challenge the priest.
However, the young priest Léon Morin (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is up to the challenge. Much of the remaining film is a running dialogue, as Barny and the priest talk about religion and the human experience. This film has a lot of talking. It’s a good bet that Melville was heavily inspired by Emmanuelle Riva’s narration-heavy performance in 1959’s Hiroshima Mon Amour. Here, in Léon Morin, Priest she is almost always talking, whether it’s as the narrator, or in increasingly bizarre conversations. At one point, she prattles on about being infatuated with a female co-worker—though she bristles at the suggestion of any sexual attraction, she talks longingly about her Amazonian aura. (No, that’s not a joke.)
It’s unimportant whether Barny has lesbian desires or yearns for the priest, though she clearly has feelings for both. Living in a Nazi occupied village, the point is that she can still feel passion despite the brutality and death surrounding her. While narration often serves as a unifying force in films, here, Barny’s voice-over is one of profound disarray—fractured, uncertain. In one scene Melville points the camera at a storefront window in which you see the reflected image of German soldiers arresting passers-by. It’s no wonder Barny, who hsant had a relationship with the Catholic Church in years, I looking to God for answers, even if she is sexually attracted to the priest delivering the message.
The most surprising and affecting performance here belongs to Jean-Paul Belmondo. Just as charismatic as he was in Breathless, his role as a priest forces him to tone down his sex appeal—though there’s no denying his attractiveness—his face, and the way he moves his body tells quite an emotional tale. Emmanuelle Riva gives an incredible performance as well, carefully navigating her character’s emotional journey though both dogma and humanity without going over the top. It is also worth noting that Howard Vernon makes a strong impression in a small cameo as a German officer who shows the human side of Nazi’s.
Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1 and with a resolution of 1080p, Criterion has delivered another beautiful black and white transfer. The grayscale rendering offers excellent whites and solid black levels. Sharpness is quite strong, and apart from one or two noticeable scratches, this is an artifact free transfer.
The LPCM track is perfect, having been cleaned up nicely. While there are a couple of crackles present, they shouldn’t interfere with the viewing experience. The film’s dialogue, music and atmospherics all come through perfectly.
English SDH subtitles are included.
Criterion provides the following special features:
- A 1961 television interview on the French program JT19H15 (4:45, 1080i): In a brief excerpt, star Jean-Paul Belmondo and writer-director Jean-Pierre Melville discuss Belmondo’s role, and how much Melvillw wanted him to star.
- Selected-scene commentary – Chapters 1-2 (9:30), 6-7 (11:15), 17-20 (14:29) by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau.
- Two Deleted Scenes (1:21, 2:52, 1080p) While there interesting, they don’t really add much to the story.
- Original theatrical trailer (3:10)
- The enclosed 29-page booklet includes a critically appreciative essay on the movie by author Gary Indiana, and excerpts from Rui Nogueira’s Melville on Melville.
