- Actors: Deborah Kerr, David Farrar, Flora Robson, Jenny Laird, Judith Furse
- Directors: Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell
- Writers: Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell, Rumer Godden
- Producers: Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell, George R. Busby
- Format: Colour, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
- Language English
- Region: Region 1 (US and Canada DVD formats.)
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3 - 1.33:1
- Number of discs: 1
- Classification: Unrated (US MPAA rating. See details.)
- Studio: Criterion
- DVD Release Date: 20 July 2010
- Run Time: 100 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B003ICZW7I
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 17,986 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
In spite of their patriotism and love of Britain, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger remain the most "un-British" of movie makers. Much of this has to do with the almost hyper-real, super-intensity of their films, in terms of their editing, the soundtracks and their peculiar colour schemes. This is especially the case with Black Narcissus. A group of Catholic British nuns invited by an Indian ruler to open a hospital in the Himalayas. However, the strain of exposure to the elements, to the native culture and to the broody, handsome presence of British agent David Ferrar, tell on the sisters. It's all Deborah Kerr can do to hold on to her vows, as she she is tormented by memories of a lost love in Ireland. Kathleen Byron's more hysterical nun is made of less stern stuff and succumbs, leaving the order and going mad with lust for Ferrar. The final confrontation between the two, maroon Byron versus white Kerr atop a belltower, is reminiscent of Eisenstein and also prefigures the climax to Hitchcock's Vertigo. The (award-winning) cinematography is the true star of this film. --David Stubbs
Amazon.co.uk Review
When Bernardo Bertolucci went to the Himalayas to film Little Buddha, so the anecdote runs, he was disappointed by the scenery. Somehow, the real thing didn't quite live up to what he'd been led to expect by Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus. It's not hard to see why he felt let down. Their film is almost ridiculously gorgeous--a procession of saturated Technicolor, Expressionist angles, theatrical lighting and overwrought design. It has a good claim to being the high watermark of lushness in the British cinema (and, incidentally, every original foot of it was actually shot in Britain). No wonder it took the Oscar for colour cinematography (shot by Jack Cardiff) as well as for art direction and set decoration (created by Alfred Junge).
Audiences loved it on its first release, but the critics were cooler: hadn't the story been upstaged by the baroque images? Well, probably, but that's not altogether a bad thing, since the plot--quite faithful to Rumer Godden's popular novel --isn't wholly free of corn. A group of five Anglican nuns, led by Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) establish a school and hospital in a former harem among the Himalayan peaks. The wind blows, the drums pound, the Old Gods stir, and one by one the celibate sisters succumb to unchaste thoughts, above all Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron, terrific in the role), so consumed by erotic yearning for the one Englishman in sight (David Farraar) she puts on crimson lipstick, wears her wimple-free tresses like an early Goth and takes a downward turn. (Black Narcissus features the greatest scene involving a nun and a high place this side of Hitchcock's Vertigo and Jacques Rivette's La Religieuse.) Silly, to be sure, but also sublime at times and as curiously entertaining as it is picturesque. --Kevin Jackson
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
The film covers the time that a small group of nuns occupy an old house at the top of a chasm in the "east" (I'd guess Tibet). The new convent is to be called "St Faith". The rarified air and stupendous views cause crises for many of the nuns (you knew it would, really) and the film covers their conflicts, internal and external.
Powell & Pressburger have made every image a photograph worth printing - they won an oscar for best Cinematography. The view from the convent is as stunning for us viewers as it for Sister Clodagh (et al). The crises aren't stock ones - they vary from madness (chillingly portrayed) to the gardening nun planting flowers, instead of vegetables.
My favourite scene would be the flashbacks of Sister Clodagh, reliving her life with her fiancé prior to the order. One scene has her calling out his name as she leaves the house and stepping into absolute blackness...
Come back, Powell & Pressburger! We need you
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Deberah Kerr is placed in charge of a crumbling abbey and a handful of difficult nuns on a terribly remote mountain in India. Staunch Christianity and Eastern Mysticism smack reverberatingly against each other, as these supposedly pious and pure nuns struggle against human desires and the pegan seductivesness around them. Deberah Kerr is magnificent and watch for the small supporting role by jean simmons who sparkles as a fallen but temptingly beautiful waif they take in.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This movie deserves it's high reputation, but the film is badly let down by the quality of the transfer. It appears to have been made from a copy which predates the BFI/NFTA restoration of the mid-eighties - which did the film full justice - the colour often looks washed out and the image appears less sharp than one would expect. Best to wait for a new edition, or a Television screening.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Ideal restoration
This 2010 Criterion edition NTSC Region 1 DVD is from a restored high definition transfer. Both the picture and the sound are superb. The picture is pristine. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Julian Hughes
Visually Stunning
I recall an interview with Deborah Kerr shortly before she died when the interviewer put to her that Black Narcissus was "an erotic film". "Do you think so?", she said. Read more
Published on 13 Feb 2006 by "keefmc"
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