Georges Franju

Eyes Without a Face

Eyes Without a Face

At his secluded château in the French countryside, a brilliant, obsessive doctor (Pierre Brasseur) attempts a radical plastic surgery to restore the beauty of his daughter’s disfigured countenance—at a horrifying price. Eyes Without a Face, directed by the supremely talented Georges Franju, is rare in horror cinema for its odd mixture of the ghastly and the lyrical, and it has been a major influence on the genre in the decades since its release. There are images here—of terror, of gore, of inexplicable beauty—that once seen are never forgotten.

Film Info

  • France
  • 1960
  • 90 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.66:1
  • French
  • Spine #260

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
  • Blood of the Beasts, Georges Franju’s 1949 documentary about the slaughterhouses of Paris
  • Archival interviews with Franju on the horror genre, cinema, and the making of Blood of the Beasts
  • Interview with actor Edith Scob
  • Excerpts from Les grand-pères du crime, a 1985 documentary about screenwriters Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac
  • Trailers
  • PLUS: Essays by novelist Patrick McGrath and film historian David Kalat

    Cover by Aesthetic Apparatus

Purchase Options

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
  • Blood of the Beasts, Georges Franju’s 1949 documentary about the slaughterhouses of Paris
  • Archival interviews with Franju on the horror genre, cinema, and the making of Blood of the Beasts
  • Interview with actor Edith Scob
  • Excerpts from Les grand-pères du crime, a 1985 documentary about screenwriters Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac
  • Trailers
  • PLUS: Essays by novelist Patrick McGrath and film historian David Kalat

    Cover by Aesthetic Apparatus
Eyes Without a Face
Cast
Pierre Brasseur
Dr. Génessier
Alida Valli
Louise
François Guérin
Jacques Vernon
Edith Scob
Christiane Génessier
Juliette Mayniel
Edna Grüberg
Alexandre Rignault
Detective Parot
Béatrice Altariba
Paulette Mérodon
Charles Blavette
Dog-pound employee
Claude Brasseur
Second police detective
Credits
Director
Georges Franju
Producer
Jules Borkon
Based on the novel by
Jean Redon
Screenplay adaptation by
Pierre Boileau
Screenplay adaptation by
Thomas Narcejac
Screenplay adaptation by
Jean Redon
Screenplay adaptation by
Claude Sautet
Dialogue by
Pierre Gascar
Music
Maurice Jarre
Production manager
Pierre Laurent
Director of photography
Eugen Schüfftan
Sets
Auguste Capelier
Assistant director
Claude Sautet
Cameraman
Robert Schneider
Makeup
Georges Klein
Special effects
Henri Assola
Editor
Gilbert Natot
Sound engineer
Antoine Archimbaud

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The Woman Behind the Mask
The Woman Behind the Mask
Christiane’s countenance is one of the most memorable in all of horror cinema—yet you barely get to see the real face of the actor playing her. Edith Scob is an ethereal force in Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face as the horribly disfigured d…
Eyes Without a Face: The Unreal Reality
Eyes Without a Face: The Unreal Reality

Georges Franju deftly balances fantasy and realism, clinical detachment and operatic emotion, beauty and pain, all presided over by Edith Scob’s haunting, haunted eyes.

By David Kalat

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