I have put this carefully as I don’t want to give the wrong impression. I’ve been on my knees about Jean-Luc Godard‘s Weekend since…I forget when but probably at the Bleecker or the Carnegie Hall Cinema in the late ’70s or early ’80s. And then I saw it again on laser disc in the ’90s. And then two days ago the Criterion Bluray arrived and I went “yes!…another meticulously mastered Bluray in 1.66!” And yet I haven’t popped it in. And I’ve been wondering why,
I’m really busy these days, of course, but it’s not just that. I think it’s past-posted. I don’t think it matters the way it used to . I used to think Weekend was the Great Universal Story of the Cancer of Middle-Class Consumerism but now…I don’t know. There’s something about Weekend that’s a little bit over. But I’m very, very glad and proud to have it in my library. I’ll probably settle into it on Saturday or Sunday.
An anonymous Bluray.com reviewer has written that he “can categorically state that the film has never looked as healthy as it does on this Blu-ray release. Detail and especially depth are very impressive. Contrast levels are stable and clarity, particularly when there is plenty of natural light, is simply terrific. There are no traces of problematic lab corrections. Unsurprisingly, the film has a very consistent, very strong organic look. Some of the longer sequences from the first half — such as the notorious sequence where the camera follows closely Corinne and Roland’s car as it passes by the long line of angry drivers on their way to the countryside — look especially good, allowing the viewer to get a terrific sense of what Godard and Raoul Coutard were trying to accomplish in a single continuous shot.”