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At the end of the 1950s, celebrated French documentarian François Reichenbach (F for Fake, Portrait: Orson Welles), whose lens captured the likes of Brigitte Bardot and Johnny Hallyday, spent eighteen months traveling the United States, documenting its diverse regions, their inhabitants and their pastimes. The result, America is Seen by a Frenchman, is a wide-eyed - perhaps even naïve - journey through a multitude of different Americas, filtered through a French sensibility and serving as a fascinating exploration of a culture that is both immediately familiar and thoroughly alien. Prison rodeos; Miss America pageants; visits to Disneyland and a school for striptease; a town inhabited solely by twins; rows of newborns in incubators, like products on an assembly line - all these weird and wondrous sights, and more, are captured, sans jugement, by Reichenbach's camera, aided by whimsical narration (provided by, among others, Jean Cocteau) and a jaunty musical score by the late, great Michel Legrand (Une femme est une femme). Titled L'Amérique insolite - literally "unusual America" - in its native tongue, America as Seen by a Frenchman lovingly renders the various eccentricities of Americana circa the mid-twentieth century, and proves the old adage that reality really is stranger than fiction.

Bonus Materials

• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray™ presentation
• Original uncompressed mono audio
• Newly translated English subtitles
• New video appreciation of the film by author and critic Philip Kemp
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Ignatius Fitzpatrick
• FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Caspar Salmon

Press Quotes

Reichenbach offers shows large groups of people enjoying themselves and each other, even if some of their ostensible activities are on the slightly weird side. Some of the more gonzo activities include a bucking bronco rodeo where the contestants are convicts vying for a chance to get their sentence reduced, a woman and her horse jumping into a pool, and what is kind of a fun and funny convention of twins. Recommended.

     —Blu-ray.com