Jacques Deray

La piscine

La piscine

The bright sun of the French Riviera is deceptive in this alluring work of slow-burn suspense from thriller specialist Jacques Deray and legendary screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. Formerly one of European cinema’s most iconic real-life couples, Alain Delon and Romy Schneider reunited for this film, bringing a palpable erotic chemistry to their performances as the bronzed and beautiful vacationers whose summer holiday on the Côte d’Azur is interrupted by the arrival of an old acquaintance (Maurice Ronet) and his eighteen-year-old daughter (Jane Birkin)—unleashing a gathering wave of sexual tension, jealousy, and sudden violence. A paragon of 1960s modernist cool thanks to effortlessly chic clothes and a loungy Michel Legrand score, La piscine dives deep to reveal sinister undercurrents roiling beneath its seductive surfaces.

Film Info

  • France
  • 1969
  • 122 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.66:1
  • French
  • Spine #1088

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • The Swimming Pool: “First Love Never Dies,” the English-language version of the film
  • Fifty Years Later, a 2019 documentary by Agnès Vincent-Deray featuring actors Alain Delon and Jane Birkin, screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, and novelist Jean-Emmanuel Conil
  • New interview with scholar Nick Rees-Roberts on the film’s cinematic and aesthetic legacy
  • Archival footage featuring Delon, Birkin, actors Romy Schneider and Maurice Ronet, and director Jacques Deray
  • Alternate ending
  • Trailers
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by film critic Jessica Kiang

New cover design by Michael Boland

Purchase Options

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • The Swimming Pool: “First Love Never Dies,” the English-language version of the film
  • Fifty Years Later, a 2019 documentary by Agnès Vincent-Deray featuring actors Alain Delon and Jane Birkin, screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, and novelist Jean-Emmanuel Conil
  • New interview with scholar Nick Rees-Roberts on the film’s cinematic and aesthetic legacy
  • Archival footage featuring Delon, Birkin, actors Romy Schneider and Maurice Ronet, and director Jacques Deray
  • Alternate ending
  • Trailers
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by film critic Jessica Kiang

New cover design by Michael Boland

La piscine
Cast
Alain Delon
Jean-Paul
Romy Schneider
Marianne
Maurice Ronet
Harry
Jane Birkin
Pénélope
Paul Crauchet
Inspector Lévêque
Suzie Jaspard
Émilie
Credits
Director
Jacques Deray
Original scenario by
Jean-Emmanuel Conil
Adaptation and dialogue by
Jean-Claude Carrière
Jacques Deray
Produced by
Gérard Beytout
Production manager
Paul Laffargue
Director of photography
Jean-Jacques Tarbès
Edited by
Paul Cayatte
Sound by
René Longuet
Production designer
Agostino Pace
Original music by
Michel Legrand

Current

La piscine: Savage Water
La piscine: Savage Water

Dismissed as gossip-column fodder in its time, Jacques Deray’s cooly enigmatic villa thriller is an exploration of masculine vanity and feminine disillusion.

By Jessica Kiang