Diary of a Chambermaid

This wicked adaptation of the Octave Mirbeau novel is classic Luis Buñuel. Jeanne Moreau is Celestine, a beautiful Parisian domestic who, upon arrival at her new job at an estate in provincial 1930s France, entrenches herself in sexual hypocrisy and scandal with her philandering employer (Buñuel regular Michel Piccoli). Filmed in luxurious black-and-white Franscope, Diary of a Chambermaid is a raw-edged tangle of fetishism and murder—and a scathing look at the burgeoning French fascism of the era.

France
1964
98 minutes
Black & White
2.35:1
French
Spine #117

Special Features

Spectacular new widescreen transfer, with digitally restored image and sound and enhanced for 16x9 televisions
Video interview with screenwriter and longtime Buñuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière
Transcript of a late 1970s interview with director Luis Bunuel
Original theatrical trailer, narrated by Jeanne Moreau
New and improved English subtitle translation
Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

New cover by Keiko Kimura

DVD 1 Disc Out Of Print SRP: $29.95

Special Features

Spectacular new widescreen transfer, with digitally restored image and sound and enhanced for 16x9 televisions
Video interview with screenwriter and longtime Buñuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière
Transcript of a late 1970s interview with director Luis Bunuel
Original theatrical trailer, narrated by Jeanne Moreau
New and improved English subtitle translation
Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

New cover by Keiko Kimura

Cast & Credits

Cast

Jeanne Moreau: Celestine
Michel Piccoli: Monsieur Monteil
Georges Géret: Joseph
Daniel Ivernel: Captaine Mauger
Françoise Lugagne: Madame Monteil
Jean Ozenne: Monsieur Rabour
Muni: Marianne
Jean-Claude Carrière: The priest

Credits

Director: Luis Buñuel
Producer: Serge Silberman
Producer: Michael Safra
Screenplay: Luis Buñuel
Screenplay: Jean-Claude Carrière
From the novel by: Octave Mirbeau
Cinematography: Roger Fellous
Cameraman: Adolphe Charlet
Decors and costumes: Georges Wakhévitch
Sound: Antoine Petitjean
Editing: Louisette Hautecoeur
Assistant director: Pierre Lary
Assistant director: Jean-Luis Buñuel
Production manager: Henri Baum

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Jean-Claude Carrière

Writer

A quietly influential force in art cinema throughout the second half of the twentieth century and beyond, screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière (also an author, actor, opera librettist, and occasional director) has collaborated with such important screen artists as Luis Buñuel, Milos Forman, Jean-Luc Godard, Philip Kaufman, Louis Malle, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, and Andrzej Wajda. He got his start working with the comic filmmaker Pierre Etaix on the Oscar-winning slapstick short Happy Anniversary (1962), which the two codirected; Carrière would go on to cowrite all of Etaix’s 1960s features. Meanwhile, Buñuel enlisted Carrière to cowrite 1964’s Diary of a Chambermaid, the beginning of a grand partnership that would also result in increasingly surreal visions like Belle de jour (1967), The Milky Way (1969), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), The Phantom of Liberty (1974), and That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). (In 2012, Carrière said of working with Buñuel, “How we mixed together is impossible to say. One started an idea, the other finished it.”) As is clear from those productions, he has a way with the absurd, but the versatile and erudite Carrière is also a keen literary adapter, translating such daunting novels as The Tin Drum and The Unbearable Lightness of Being into formidable films. Carrière’s career continues to take surprising turns: he has a small but crucial role in Abbas Kiarostami’s 2010 Certified Copy, for example.