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Léon Morin, Priest
Léon Morin, prêtre

Jean-Pierre Melville  •   France  • ​  1961
130 mins  •  HD  •  B&W •  PG sexual references
In French with English subtitles


​Icons of the French New Wave, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Emmanuelle Riva, star as a cleric and a Communist drawn together through love.

“A triumph of mood, setting, and innuendo”
–
Criterion Collection

DIRECTOR: Jean-Pierre Melville 
PRODUCERS: Georges de Beauregard, Carlo Ponti
SCREENPLAY: Jean-Pierre Melville. Based on novel by Béatrice Beck.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Henri Decaë
EDITOR: Jacqueline Meppiel
PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Daniel Guéret
COSTUME DESIGNER: Paulette Breil
MUSIC: Martial Solal
WITH: Jean-Paul Belmondo (Léon Morin), Emmanuelle Riva (Barny), Irène Tunc (Christine Sangredin), Nicole Mirel (Sabine Levy), Gisèle Grimm (Lucienne)


REVIEW

Jean-Paul Belmondo delivers a subtly sensual performance in the hot-under-the-collar Léon Morin, Priest… The French superstar plays a devoted man of the cloth who is desired by all the women of a small village in Nazi-occupied France… A triumph of mood, setting, and innuendo, Léon Morin, Priest is an irreverent pleasure from one of French cinema’s towering virtuosos.

“Melville was one of cinema’s great modernists, a true French independent and forerunner to the New Wave. In Léon Morin, Priest, he took two actors associated with the New Wave – Jean-Paul Belmondo of Breathless and Emmanuelle Riva of Hiroshima, mon amour – and, paradoxically, created a film that has more ties to Robert Bresson than to Bob le flambeur. Casting the boyish Belmondo as a priest with a missionary bent is one of the intriguing ambiguities of this film. Riva is a Communist drawn to the cleric and, through desire, into an attempt at religious conversion. The spiritual desolation wrought by the Occupation has rarely been so sensitively delineated as in this portrait of a town suddenly exposed to its underlying social disarray. The vigor of Melville’s filmmaking, from crane shots and quick pans to caressing close-ups of obscure objects of desire, gives this contemplative film a thrilling beauty.”

— Judy Bloch, Pacific Film Archive



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  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • SOCIETIES
    • AUCKLAND
    • HAMILTON
    • TAURANGA
    • NEW PLYMOUTH
    • WHANGANUI
    • PALMERSTON NORTH
    • CARTERTON
    • WELLINGTON
    • NELSON
    • CANTERBURY
    • TIMARU
    • OAMARU
    • QUEENSTOWN
    • DUNEDIN
    • WESTPORT
  • 2025 SEASON
    • SWEDISH CINEMA
    • KUROSAWA
    • PECKINPAH'S WEST
    • COMEDY CORNER
    • GHOST STORIES
    • NZ FILM
    • RETRO CLASSICS
    • FRENCH CONNECTIONS
    • GERMAN CINEMA
    • WORLD CINEMA