This week Lion’s Gate is releasing their Alain Delon - Five Film Collection, which features the incredibly handsome and talented French actor starring in Diaboliquement vôtre (aka Diabolically Yours, 1967), La Piscine (aka The Swimming Pool, 1970), La Veuve Couderc (aka The Widow Couderc, 1974), Le Gitan (aka The Gypsy, 1975) and Notre Histoire (aka Separate Rooms, 1984). I haven’t had the chance to pick up the collection myself so I can’t personally comment on the quality of the new Lion’s Gate set, but according to other sources this 3 Disc DVD collection presents all 5 films in widescreen with English subtitles.
I’ve only previously had the opportunity to see Julien Duvivier’s Diaboliquement vôtre, which I reviewed last year and Jacques Deray’s La Piscine, which features Delon along with the lovely actress Romy Schinder who he had a longtime relationship with off screen, as well as the British actress and pop icon Jane Birkin and the talented actor Maurice Ronet who had previously starred with Alain Delon in René Clément’s brilliant 1960 thriller Purple Noon. Both Diaboliquement vôtre and La Piscine are highly recommended if you enjoy suspenseful French thrillers.
From the films that I haven’t seen, I’m most looking forward to watching La Veuve Couderc, which was directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre and costars the wonderful French actress Simone Signoret. Once I get the opportunity to see the film I hope to share my thoughts about it here.
The Alain Delon - Five Film Collection can currently be purchased at Amazon for $29.99 and that’s only about $6 per movies. You can also find the films available for rent at Greencine and Netflix.
Elke Sommer and her bunny want to wish everyone
a happy holiday weekend!
Real world responsibilities, job hunting and a bad cold have been interfering with my writing and blog updates lately. I’m also going on a brief vacation tomorrow and I won’t return until Tuesday next week, but by then I should be feeling a lot better and you can expect me to start regularly updating Cinebeats again.
During my downtime I have been catching up on some reading. I got some interesting books for Christmas last year including Geoffrey Nowell-Smith’s Making Waves: New Cinemas of the 1960s and Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art, which have been keeping me busy. Both books make for some fast, fun and fascinating reading.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about how I write about film and the way I approach viewing and analyzing the movies I watch after the film critic Adrian Martin was kind enough to consider my blog in a brief piece he wrote for de Filmkrant which you can read here:
I’ve admired Adrian Martin for awhile and I find his writing and interviews very inspiring so I was extremely surprised and deeply flattered when Girish kindly pointed out Adrian’s piece in his own blog, which led to an interesting conversation there. I tend to get a little intimidated by all the wonderful and extremely thoughtful conversations that take place at Girish’s blog and I get nervous about jumping into the fray, but Girish has always made me feel very welcome there even when the other commentators occasionally seem to be twisting themselves up in small knots trying to talk around me and over me
I must also say that I’m really happy to be considered an ‘enthusiast’ by Adrian since it was really my love, appreciation and interest in unusual films that have often been maligned in the past or overlooked such as Boom! and Blood and Roses, which really motivated me to start writing about cinema and I find the original Cahiers du cinéma writers extremely inspirational.
Before I disappear for a few days, I thought I’d share a few links to various things of possible interest…
My buddy Kate has started her own film blog called Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire. If you enjoy horror films and unusual subgenres like nunsploitation, please stop by Kate’s blog and tell her I sent ya!
- Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire
Ferdy on Films is putting together a blogathon May 4th - 10th called Invitation to the Dance that will focus on various forms of dance found in films. I have a serious weakness for musicals that makes me drop everything I’m doing and watch them if I ever come across one playing on TV so naturally I plan on excepting Marilyn’s invitation and I hope other film bloggers will as well!
- Invitation to the Dance Movie Blogathon
And last but not least, Tim Lucas recently offered up a sneak peek at the upcoming Criterion - Eclipse 3 Disc DVD Box Set of The Delirious Fictions of William Klein, which has me super excited since it promises to be one of this years most interesting DVD releases. I’ve only seen Klein’s wonderfully surreal and fantastic film Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo?, 1966) myself, but the print I saw many years ago was from a horrible multi-generation VHS tape that was barely watchable so I’m really looking forward to this release. Now I’ll finally be able to enjoy Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? in all its glorious widescreen splendor, along with many of Klein’s other films that I haven’t had the opportunity to see yet.
- The Delirious Fictions of William Klein
You can experience a little bit of William’s Klein’s magic in the following clip from his film Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (1966)
I’ve been trying to write out my thoughts about Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le fou (1965) for days, but even after watching the film twice and enjoying all the wonderful extras included with the fantastic new Criterion DVD, I’m finding words inadequate to describe how much I’ve fallen in love with this wonderful movie in so short a time. My love for Pierrot le fou is so fresh, so passionate, so alive and so completely unabashed that I feel a little like a silly schoolgirl with a terrible crush on the cute new boy in class.
I’ve been curious about seeing Pierrot le fou for about 15 years after I came across still shots from the film featuring Jean-Paul Belmondo with his face painted bright blue. I also saw brief clips of the party scene from Pierrot le fou a few years ago in the fascinating Samuel Fuller documentary The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera (Adam Simon; 1996) and became even more intrigued, but for one reason or another I never got around to watching it. I had hoped to attend the theatrical revival of the film last year, but sadly I wasn’t able to. As far as I know Pierrot le fou was never shown in the San Francisco Bay Area last year and the official Janus site seems to confirm this.
Thanks to Criterion’s recent DVD release of Pierrot le fou I was finally able to experience this amazing film for the first time and now I deeply regret not seeing it sooner. Pierrot le fou manages to combine everything I love about my two favorite Godard films (Contempt, 1963 and Weekend, 1967) into one brilliant piece of work, while referencing every film the director had made before and predicting many of the more radical films he would make afterward. The basic plot of Pierrot le fou involves an unhappily married man named Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) who meets up with an old flame named Marianne (Anna Karina) and the two abandon their old lives and begin a life of violent crime together. Unfortunately their combustible relationship begins to unravel under the stress of life on the run, but between their verbal sparing and love-making the audience is treated to a smart political and social satire with slapstick style comedy and an occasional musical number.
Pierrot le fou borrows elements from classic crime films such as Nicholas Ray’s They Live by Night (1948) and Joseph H. Lewis’ Gun Crazy (1950), but the film also takes a lot of inspiration from Jean-Luc Godard’s own Breathless (1960). It’s also worth noting that Pierrot le fou pre-dates Arthur Penn and Warren Beatty’s less interesting and more conventional Bonnie and Clyde (1967) by two years. For my money, none of the previously mentioned films come close to matching the offbeat magic conjured up in Pierrot Le fou by Godard and his two incredibly charming stars, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina.
Pierrot le fou combines some of Jean-Luc Godard’s best writing and directing with stunning color photography by Godard’s longtime collaborator Raoul Coutard. The film manages to effortlessly mix comic-book style aesthetics with a painterly eye and the outcome is so wonderfully modern that Pierrot le fou still feels fresh and alive some 45 years after it was made.
Criterion’s magnificent two-disc restored widescreen DVD presentation of Pierrot le fou looks absolutely stunning and it’s loaded with fantastic extras, including a new video interview with actress Anna Karina who’s now 68 years old, and she offers some wonderful insights into the making of the film. The DVD also includes a new video program with audio commentary by filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin called A Pierrot Primer, a fascinating fifty-minute French documentary about director Jean-Luc Godard and his personal & working relationship with Anna Karina called Godard, L’Amour, La Poesie, a wonderful archival interview with the young and extremely adorable Jean-Paul Belmondo conducted while he was shooting Pierrot le fou and a brief archival piece about the Venice Film festival in 1965 that features interviews with Godard and Anna Karina. The DVD also contains the original theatrical trailer and a nice booklet with a new essay by critic Richard Brody, a 1969 review by Andrew Sarris and a 1965 interview with Godard. Pierrot le fou retails for $39.95 and it’s currently available from Amazon for $29.95. Criterion has really kicked-started 2008 by releasing some truly wonderful films on NTSC Region 1 DVD in recent weeks and I applaud them for it.
If you would like to see more screen shots from the film please see my Pierrot le fou Flickr gallery. I’ve also uploaded the wonderful song Ma ligne de chance that was sung by Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Pierrot le fou for anyone who would like to hear it.
There is sad news today of the death of Alain Robbe-Grillet who has left this world at the ripe old age of 85. GreenCine Daily has collected some links to news stories and various articles about this talented writer and director. I also recommend Robert Monell’s brief piece The Films of Alain Robbe-Grillet and the Alain Robbe-Grillet Bibliography.
On Monday I finally got hooked up with Cable TV after years of avoiding it due to the high cost and my tight budget. It’s been well worth it thanks to all the great channels I now get like TCM, which is currently hosting a fabulous Louis Malle birthday bash and playing lots of his films.
Last night I watched Murmur of the Heart, which is one of my favorite Malle movies, along with the director’s impressive Black Moon. Black Moon is a beautiful experimental film that I had never seen before and I really enjoyed it. It was categorized as a horror movie on TCM, but I personally thought it was more of an adult dark fantasy that really defies categorization.
Black Moon follows the misadventures of a pretty young girl named Lily (Cathryn Harrison) who is caught up in a violent civil war between men and women, which seems to take place in a sort of dystopian future. She finds herself at a mysterious house that belongs to a strange old woman and a beautiful sister and brother played by Alexandra Stewart and Joe Dallesandro. The film has no clear narrative structure and Malle’s uses his own kind of dream logic to tell his mesmerizing tale. As I mentioned way back in February, I love the way that Malle explores the complex and often conflicting emotions of young people in his films and Black Moon is no exception. Malle delves deeply into Lily’s subconscious without reservation and we’re offered an intimate look at the inner workings of her young mind. The film plays out like a somewhat more adult version of Louis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland where talking unicorns appear and flowers weep when they are stepped on. Cathryn Harrison is very good as Lily and as usual, it was impossible to take my eyes off of Joe Dallesandro every time he appeared. Dallesandro really looks amazing in Black Moon and I only wish he got a little more screen time in the film.
Black Moon was shot at Louis Malle’s French estate and the grounds are rather rural and wild, but extremely lush and lovely. There’s an intimacy to the film and an almost claustrophobic feel at times, which is probably somewhat due to Malle’s closeness with the location. It’s a really fascinating movie from one of France’s greatest filmmakers and it is a shame that Black Moon is currently only available on PAL Region-2 DVD at the moment.
One of the my favorite vampire films is Roger Vadim’s haunting and surreal Blood and Roses (Et mourir de plaisir, 1960), which recently made my list of “31 films that give me the willies.” I truly think that Vadim’s impressive horror film is equal to other revered classics made at the same time such as Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960), which have both had a lot of ink spilled on their behalves and can easily be found available in high-quality DVD presentations at the moment. Unfortunately, Vadim’s Blood and Roses is often forgotten even though it definitely deserves a wider audience.
Like many of Vadim’s films, Blood and Roses has suffered from unusually harsh reviews over the years, which often seem written by critics who have a personal vendetta against Vadim or they just aren’t capable of appreciating the film’s incredible cinematography, gothic atmosphere and thoughtful script. I personally find Blood and Roses to be one of the most influential and important horror films ever made, and possibly Roger Vadim’s best movie.
Blood and Roses was Vadim’s creative attempt to retell the classic Sheridan Le Fanu vampire tale Carmilla (1871-72). The story had previously been adapted by Carl Dreyer for his film Vampyr - Der Traum des Allan Grey (1932), but Vadim was the first director to attempt a somewhat more literal adaptation of the story set in modern times. The film’s impressive cinematography by Claude Renoir and creative directing by Vadim are years ahead of their time, and have undoubtedly inspired many other filmmakers. While I hesitate to name names, I’ve always had the impression that directors like Mario Bava, Roger Corman, Jean Rollin and even Alain Resnais may have all been fans of Roger Vadim’s Blood and Roses.
Vadim infused Blood and Roses with a high-level of eroticism that had rarely, if ever, been present in previous horror films made earlier and his personal retelling of Le Fanu’s Carmilla would go on to spawn a legion of similar films such as Hammer’s wonderful Karnstein Trilogy, Harry Kümel’s Daughters of Darkness (1971), Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos (1971), José Ramón Larraz’s Vampyres (1974), etc. As much as I love all of the films that followed in the footsteps of Blood and Roses, Vadim’s original movie remains one of my favorites and it’s a film that I love to return to again and again due to the incredibly intoxicating atmosphere and the beautiful imagery conjured up by Roger Vadim and Claude Renoir. The film also benefits from a beautiful score composed by Jean Prodromidès.
Blood and Roses opens with a plane rising into the sky and the audience is offered a birds-eye (or bat’s eye) view of the European countryside as seen from a plane window. A female narrator named Malenka (the spelling of her name varies) tells us that she is part of the past and the present. She is a spirit, but she has form. As the story progresses you discover how and why Malenka is flying in a plane and telling us her story.
The film stars Annette Vadim (or Annette Stroyberg) as the beautiful Carmilla Karnstein, who is obsessed with her family’s history of vampirism and suffering from extreme melancholy after discovering that her beloved cousin Leopoldo (Mel Ferrer) is going to marry another woman named Georgia (Elsa Martinelli). Carmilla is inconsolable, and during an engagement party for the two lovers she wanders off into the family cemetery, while firework explode overhead and light up the night sky with a rainbow of colors in one of the films most visually stunning moments. The fireworks also mange to ignite some explosives left over from the war that are hidden in the graveyard. All this activity seems to wake the sleeping dead and when Carmilla ventures into the family tomb she becomes the victim of the vampire Malenka.
Afterward Carmilla roams the family estate wearing a beautiful white wedding dress that belonged to her dead relative, while surviving on the innocent blood of servant girls. Carmilla appears extremely ghost-like and her passions now seem somewhat torn between her cousin and the woman he loves. Is Carmilla truly a vampire or just a victim of her own selfish desires and depression? Vadim lets his audience decide.
Top: Annette Vadim, Bottom: Elsa Martinelli
Annette Vadim is a stunning woman, but she’s also a talented actress who is often overlooked due to being Vadim’s second wife between his marriages to the much better-known and celebrated beauties Brigitte Bardot and Jane Fonda. Before starring in Blood and Roses Annette appeared in Vadim’s Dangerous Liaisons (1960) and Jean Cocteau’s surreal masterpiece The Testament of Orpheus (1960). She brings a vulnerability and sadness to her role of Carmilla that is hard to forget. She also shares a fascinating chemistry with her lovely co-star Elsa Martinelli. Unfortunately Annette Vadim only made a few more films after Blood and Roses before retiring from acting in 1965. Elsa Martinelli on the other hand went on to become a mildly popular international star after appearing in films such as Hatari! (1962), The V.I.P.s (1963), etc. and she later had roles in lots of interesting films including The 10th Victim (1965), Candy (1968) and Perversion Story (1969).
Much like Le Fanu’s original tale, Roger Vadim’s Blood and Roses is slow-moving and it contains very little blood. Most of the action takes place off-screen and is only suggested. The film has often been criticized for this, which I personally find rather absurd. If you’re familiar with the original story as well as other classic gothic literature, you’re well aware that the original stories were often very suggestive and that left many of the events they portrayed open to interpretation. Writers expected their readers to use their imaginations and become a part of the story instead of just passive readers. Oddly enough, Blood and Roses has also been criticized for being too “exploitive,” but nothing could be further from the truth. Vadim smartly hints at the erotic lesbian undercurrent running throughout Le Fanu’s Carmilla, but there is nothing exploitive in the subtle nudity and romanticized eroticism found within his film.
My favorite moment in Blood and Roses is the amazing dream sequence that’s reminiscent of Jean Cocteau’s best work. As I mentioned above, Vadim’s wife Annette had worked with Cocteau earlier on his film The Testament of Orpheus and I’m sure that Vadim and cinematographer Claude Renoir probably found inspiration within Cocteau’s films while making Blood and Roses. This memorable sequence begins when Carmilla seduces Georgia while she slumbers, and both women are suddenly plunged into the dark dream world of Georgia’s unconscious that is inhabited by ghosts, shadows and untapped desires. Vadim’s directorial skills are on full display here and have rarely, if ever, been surpassed. The director shows a clear mastery of the fantastique in Blood and Roses that always manages to impress me.
Vadim’s horror masterpiece Blood and Roses is currently only available on video in a lackluster presentation from Paramount. The film’s original running time is supposedly 87 minutes, but the Paramount video is only 74 minutes long and dubbed. I really hope that some DVD company like Criterion, Blue Underground or Mondo Macabro will get their hands on the rights to this film and restore it to its original Technicolor splendor. If there is one neglected horror film that really deserves a nice widescreen, subtitled DVD release, Blood and Roses is it.
“He had a legend, the aura of genius, a friend to the mysterious and the strange. I arrived full of holy terror and mad hope all at the same time. I was struck immediately by one thing, only one: he’s a man of whom you only see the face. The fabulous mouth, worked by life, heavily wrinkled skin, the driven eyes, but in their black ring, a sparkling light. I was incapable of saying a word, I don’t even remember if it was a production office, an apartment, a hotel room. I looked at the deep earth of his face, the clear water of his regard. They told me ‘Speak loudly, we don’t know if he’s deaf or if he pretends to be . . .’ But how to speak? I repeated to myself ‘Come on. You have to speak.’ I thought that my silence and my insistence on staring would become intolerable. Someone else would surely have addressed me, would have started to speak, if only to reduce the tension a little. He was content to just look at me. Simply, directly, as if we had met there for a mutual exam and that words weren’t necessary. A guy walked in, perhaps an assistant, I can’t remember. Buñuel turned towards me. ‘This is Clémenti. Show him the script.’ If I understood properly, I had just been hired for Belle de Jour…With no other director did I have such a feeling of confidence.”
- Pierre Clémenti on Luis Buñuel and his role in Belle de Jour from his book Quelques Messages Personnels
My favorite character in Louis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour is Pierre Clémenti’s wonderful turn as the sexy thug Marcel. Pierre Clémenti was a beautiful and talented actor who appeared in many great films before his untimely death in 1999 including The Leopard (1963), Benjamin (1968), Les Idoles (1968), Partner (1968), The Conformist (1970), Sweet Movie (1974), La Cicatrice intérieure (1972) , Steppenwolf (1974), Quartet (1981) and Belle de Jour (1967).
I haven’t written anything substantial about Pierre Clémenti yet, so I thought I’d take the opportunity provided by Flickhead’s Buñuel Blog-a-thon to post a photographic tribute to Pierre Clémenti’s character Marcel in Belle de Jour, which was haphazardly put together from various screen shots I recently took from the film.
Critics and film scholars have spent countless hours analyzing Luis Buñuel’s film Belle de Jour (1967) and the mysterious Asian box that appears in one of the movies most memorable and erotic scenes. As someone who has read a lot of Marquis de Sade’s work, I’ve personally never seen the box as being very mysterious or profound, so I thought I would share my own thoughts about the buzzing box for the Luis Buñuel Blog-a-thon currently being hosted by Flickhead.
Many reviews of Belle de Jour seem written by rather chaste critics who often insist on weighing Buñuel’s film down with its clear social implications and debatable morality, instead of fully embracing it for the erotic masterpiece that it is. Like most of the surrealists, Luis Buñuel was clearly inspired and fascinated with the work of authors like Marquis de Sade, Octave Mirbeau and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, and traces of Buñuel’s obsession with their work can be found throughout Belle de Jour. From its emotionally distant characters, to its masochistic ideas and brothel setting, the film could be read as a checklist of erotic themes found in early French literature.
When I saw Belle de Jour for the first time and watched the scene with the infamous buzzing box, I was immediately reminded of the sounds of insects and a brief passage in Marquis de Sade’s erotic classic Philosophy in the Boudoir, where he referenced a tale told by the 15th century Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. This titillating tale involves native women in Florida who supposedly made their men place “small poisonous insects in their male members until they swelled up tremendously and caused an insatiable libido.” It also explains that these insects could cause a man “dreadful pain” and “ulcers, ” but the negative implications aren’t as interesting as the erotic ones. With this odd tale lingering somewhere in the back of my mind, my first assumption about the buzzing box was that it contained insects that the box’s owner planned to use on himself as a sort of aphrodisiac to pleasure Catherine Deneuve’s character Séverine with.
This somewhat unusual assumption on my part is also fueled by Luis Buñuel’s own personal fascination with insects which appeared in many of his films, but at first glance could seem notably absent from Belle de Jour. Buñuel’s fascination with insects was first shown in An Andalusian Dog (Un chien andalou, 1929), but you can also find insects in his other films such as the scorpions in The Golden Age (L’ Âge d’or, 1930) and the cockroaches in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, 1972). According to Buñuel scholar Julie Jones who also provides the commentary for the Belle de Jour DVD and seems to agree with me about the insect quality of the sounds emanating from the mysterious box, Luis Buñuel associated insects with “the life of the instincts” and even wanted to make a film about insects.
If my casual assumptions are true and Buñuel is referencing the Amerigo Vespucci/Marquis De Sade tale in Belle de Jour, it could also easily explain Séverine’s sudden joy in participating in a sexual act with that particular client at the brothel. Séverine is clearly a submissive woman who the Madame Anais has insisted needs a “strong hand.” Her desires seem unquenchable and a long session of intense lovemaking with a sort of “super man” would undoubtedly excite and please her. The untranslated conversation between Séverine and the man seems to indicate to me that he will be the one using whatever is in the box during their sexual encounter, which is why he clearly tells her “Don’t be afraid.” It’s also important to notice how the man guards the box and holds it closely to his body in the film. It’s his secret and his possession, which could indicate that whatever it contains directly affects him even more than those around him.
Buñuel never fully explained the contents of the box within the film himself and seemed to enjoy the confusion it caused among critics and audiences, but I think the influence of de Sade’s writing on Belle de Jour and Buñuel in general might betray him here. As I mentioned above, the work of Marquis de Sade greatly inspired the Surrealist movement and Belle de Jour is ripe with references to Marquis de Sade’s novels, including Philosophy in the Boudoir where the tale of strange insects and their effects on the male anatomy are alluded to. It is a book that Buñuel read and must have known well, and I’m sure his own personal interest in insects would have made the Amerigo Vespucci/Marquis de Sade tale incredibly fascinating and appealing to him. Especially because it so deeply and directly links insects to “the life of the instincts” which Buñuel clearly obsessed over.
Renowned Surrealist Margritte’s artistic interpretations
of Marquis de Sade’s Philosophy in the Boudoir
Since I’ve never read Joseph Kessel’s original novel Belle de Jour which Buñuel based his film on, I can’t elaborate on my assumptions as much as I would like to, but the inspirations for Kessel’s book seem very clear. It’s obvious that Kessel based his fictitious female character of Séverine on the male character of Severin found in Sacher-Masoch’s book Venus in Furs and he probably found inspiration in the erotic writings of Anais Nin, who I assume inspired the name of the brothel in Belle de Jour and its Madame. With all of these erotic literary references littered throughout Belle de Jour, I think it’s natural to assume that Buñuel’s mysterious buzzing box could possibly be linked to the insects briefly referenced in Marquis de Sade’s Philosophy of the Boudoir.
So the next time you find yourself wondering what’s in the box, I can only suggest considering insects and their erotic implications, as well as their symbolic importance in Buñuel’s own work.
Filmmaker Julien Duvivier is undoubtedly one of France’s most important and influential directors. Unfortunately unlike many of his contemporaries, such as Jean Renoir and René Clair, Duvivier’s cinematic contributions are sometimes forgotten. He was often dismissed by the Nouvelle Vague and his real talents were in re-imagining crime thrillers and fantasy films, which are genres generally overlooked by most critics. The director’s ability to produce worthwhile films in multiple genres may have not won him much critical praise during his lifetime, but in recent years Duvivier’s contributions to French noir and fantasy cinema have begun to be fully appreciated.
Duvivier found some success in Hollywood during the late 1930s and early 1940s with the lavish musical The Great Waltz (1938), a the star-filled comedy called Tales of Manhattan (1942) and the interesting dark fantasy anthology Flesh and Fantasy (1943), but he’s mainly remembered for the films he made with the great French actor Jean Gabin such as Pépé le Moko (1937) and Voici le temps des assassins… (1956). Unfortunately many critics still dismiss his later films and that’s a shame. I think some of Julien Duvivier’s most interesting movies were made in the sixties, including his last film Diaboliquement Vôtre (a.k.a. Diabolically Yours, 1967) which I just watched for a second time recently.
Diaboliquement Vôtre is a dark psychological thriller starring Alain Delon, Senta Berger, Sergio Fantoni and Peter Mosbacher. The movie opens with Georges Campo (Alain Delon) taking a long drive at high speeds down a seemingly deserted road in the French countryside. The drive is powered by a great soundtrack from composer François de Roubaix and it’s beautifully shot from the perspective of the driver. This perspective never really changes throughout the film since most of the events that follow are seen through the eyes of Delon’s character Georges. When the drive ends with a violent crash Georges finds himself waking up inside a hospital with amnesia. He quickly notices a wedding band on his finger but he can’t seem to recall his wife Christiane once she arrives at the hospital. Georges’ wife Christiane is played by the beautiful actress Senta Berger so he has no problem following her home even if he can’t remember marrying her.
When Georges arrives at his country estate he is overwhelmed by his luxurious surroundings. He can’t remember previously living there, but he’s more than happy to move in and make himself comfortable. Georges’ complacency seems a little odd at first but with a partner as lovely as Senta Berger and a home fit for a king, it’s understandable why someone might not ask too many questions and just accept their fate with a smile.
Things begin to get complicated when a family friend and doctor named Freddie (Sergio Fantoni) arrives for a visit and Georges seems to recognize him. Georges’ memories of Freddie don’t appear to coincide with reality but it’s clear that Georges’ reality has become more than a little clouded after his accident. Georges expresses his doubts about his new home and current wife, but Freddie manages to convince him that his injuries from the car crash are the reason for his confusion. The two men share a few laughs and Georges soon falls comfortably into the role of loving husband and Master of the manor again.
We’re also introduced to a Chinese servant named Kim (played rather stereotypically by German actor Peter Mosbacher) who devotes himself to Georges’ wife Christiane. The servant Kim not only cooks and cleans, but he also sews all of Christine’s cloths, offers her massages, styles her hair and satisfies numerous other desires. Georges seems to sense something strange about the relationship between his wife and the servant so he becomes increasingly rude and aggressive towards Kim as the movie progresses. Georges’ anger seems to increase as every sexual advance he makes towards his wife Christiane is refused.
As the film unfolds Georges becomes more and more suspicious of everyone around him and the situation he has found himself in. He even begins to question his own sanity after he starts hearing voices and having disturbing nightmares. Georges is also continually given drugs which are supposed to be helping him recall his memories, but they only seem to be adding to his muddled state of mind.
One of the most interesting things about Duvivier’s Diaboliquement Vôtre is the way the director plays with ideas about human identity and memory, as well as destiny and fate which were common themes that Duvivier seemed to enjoy exploring in his films. Alain Delon’s character Georges is perpetually torn between discovering the truth about his identity and succumbing to the pleasures that his current life offers him. He could easily answer many of the questions he continually raises about his past by asking to see family photos and talk to other family members or friends, but instead he engages in an ongoing conversation about his existence with himself and anyone who will listen. These conversations seem to take place in a void or echo chamber where Georges’ thoughts are continually thrown back at him.
The film’s stylish modern look also adds a lot to the production. Diaboliquement Vôtre was shot by the great French cinematographer Henri Decaë who was behind the camera for many of Alain Delon’s most important films such as Plein Soleil (1960), Le Samourai (1967), Le Cercle Rouge (1970), Les Félins (1964) and Le Clan des Siciliens (1969). Decaë’s camera was clearly in love with Delon because he shot the actor beautifully and manages to continually imbued him with an aura of charm and mystery that is undeniably appealing. Henri Decaë’s skillful camera work also flatters the lovely actress Senta Berger who has rarely looked more beautiful than she does in Diaboliquement Vôtre.
The movie ends with a few minor twists and turns which may or may not surprise viewers, but in the end we still know very little about Georges and the rest of the characters in the film. Their future is also a bit of a mystery since Duvivier’s conclusion to Diaboliquement Vôtre is somewhat open to interpretation and in turn lets us imagine multiple outcomes. Like many other European thrillers from the period, Diaboliquement Vôtre shrouds it’s rather conventional plot in metaphors and existential ideas that will probably only appeal to a handful of viewers. At first glance it’s easy to miss a lot of the movies’ underlying themes, but if you’re willing to suspend disbelief and follow Georges down his path to self discovery I think some viewers might find the film as rewarding as I did.
In an ironic twist, director Julien Duvivier was killed in an auto accident on October 30th just a few days after completing production on Diaboliquement Vôtre in 1967. It’s impossible to watch this film without considering the director’s final moments. There is something telling in Duvivier’s existential world view that seems to seep into the film’s every frame and shape its somewhat ambiguous end. If Diaboliquement Vôtre is any indication, the director would have continued to make interesting films if he had lived a bit longer and that is a real tragedy. As pessimistic and conventional as the film might appear to some, I think it has a kinetic energy and progressive style that’s incredibly modern and appealing. Diaboliquement Vôtre is an important final addition to Julien Duvivier’s extensive filmography.
Diaboliquement Vôtre is currently available on DVD as Diabolically Yours from Telavista but the quality of the DVD is rather awful. Hopefully another company will restore the film and give it the quality widescreen release that it deserves.
This is all very funny. Today I am a star - and tomorrow?
- Isabelle Adjani, 1977
One of my favorite actresses is the stunningly beautiful and incredibly talented Isabelle Adjani. Like many lovely actresses, it would have been easy for Adjani to take glamourous roles during her lifetime that accentuated her beauty and relied on her batting her big blue eyes, but instead she has chosen to appear in challenging films that give her the chance to show off her amazing acting skills. Isabelle Adjani is forever battling madness in her movies while trying to make sense of the world around her. Her characters effortlessly glide through centuries and costume changes, but all of them seem to posses a ferociously independent spirit and passionate heart.
When she was only twenty years old Isabelle Adjani appeared in François Truffaut’s masterful The Story of Adele H (a.k.a. L’ Histoire d’Adèle H., 1975) playing the daughter of the great French writer Victor Hugo, who becomes obsessed with a British lieutenant named Albert Pinson and is determined to make him love her. Adjani turns Truffaut’s beautiful historical drama into a horror film when her obsession leads to madness. She seems incapable of holding anything back while losing her mind to love.
The role of Adele Hugo would set the stage for the rest of Adjani’s amazing career playing women who often suffered for love and were tormented by the men in their lives as well as their own inner demons. She has appeared in occasional comedies and more lightweight fare, but her dramatic roles in dark dramas and thrillers have always impressed me the most.
Adjani on the set of The Story of Adele H. (1975) with François Truffaut
and with Roman Polanski on the set of The Tenant (1976)
During the 1970s and 80s she appeared in many of the decades best horror films and crime thrillers including Roman Polanski’s chilling The Tenant (a.k.a. Le Locataire, 1976), Walter Hill’s entertaining crime film The Driver (1978), Herzog’s fantastic remake of Nosferatu with Klaus Kinski called Nosferatu: The Vampyre (a.k.a. Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, 1979), Andrzej Zulawsk’s thoughtful and incredibly creepy Possession (1981), the fascinating thrillers Deadly Circuit, (a.k.a. Mortelle randonnée, 1983) and One Deadly Summer (a.k.a. L’ Été meurtrier, 1983), plus Luc Besson’s Subway (1985).
During this period she also continued to appear in critically acclaimed dark and disturbing historical dramas such as James Ivory’s Quartet (1981) and Bruno Nuytten’s remarkable Camille Claudel (1988). She should have easily walked away with the Oscar in 1990 for Best Actress for her role in Camille Claudel which she was nominated, but she lost to Jessica Tandy in the rather dull, dreadful and terribly overrated Driving Miss Daisy (1989).
In the 90s Adjani started acting less and less and chose to spend much of her time raising her two sons by director Bruno Nuytten and actor Daniel Day-Lewis. She would triumphantly return to the screen again in Patrice Chéreau’s excellent bloody historical epic Queen Margot (La Reine Margot, 1994), but she has only made a handful of films since then. Unfortunately most of her recent films are not easily available to American audiences which is a shame.
Besides making movies, she also recorded an album in 1983 with help from songwriter and producer Serge Gainsbourg which included the hit song “Pull Marine.” The song was made into a fascinating music video by director Luc Besson which you can listen to and watch on YouTube.
Today Isabelle Adjani is celebrating her 52th birthday. I wish her well and hope that she’ll continue to appear in films for another 30 years. I also hope that she will continue to take on roles that showcase her incredible acting talents and challenge her audiences.
I’ve only previously had the opportunity to see Julien Duvivier’s Diaboliquement vôtre, which I reviewed last year and Jacques Deray’s La Piscine, which features Delon along with the lovely actress Romy Schinder who he had a longtime relationship with off screen, as well as the British actress and pop icon Jane Birkin and the talented actor Maurice Ronet who had previously starred with Alain Delon in René Clément’s brilliant 1960 thriller Purple Noon. Both Diaboliquement vôtre and La Piscine are highly recommended if you enjoy suspenseful French thrillers.
I’ve been trying to write out my thoughts about Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le fou (1965) for days, but even after watching the film twice and enjoying all the wonderful extras included with the fantastic new Criterion DVD, I’m finding words inadequate to describe how much I’ve fallen in love with this wonderful movie in so short a time. My love for Pierrot le fou is so fresh, so passionate, so alive and so completely unabashed that I feel a little like a silly schoolgirl with a terrible crush on the cute new boy in class.
. Criterion has really kicked-started 2008 by releasing some truly wonderful films on NTSC Region 1 DVD in recent weeks and I applaud them for it.
One of the my favorite vampire films is Roger Vadim’s haunting and surreal Blood and Roses (Et mourir de plaisir, 1960), which recently made my list of “
My favorite moment in Blood and Roses is the amazing dream sequence that’s reminiscent of Jean Cocteau’s best work. As I mentioned above, Vadim’s wife Annette had worked with Cocteau earlier on his film The Testament of Orpheus and I’m sure that Vadim and cinematographer Claude Renoir probably found inspiration within Cocteau’s films while making Blood and Roses. This memorable sequence begins when Carmilla seduces Georgia while she slumbers, and both women are suddenly plunged into the dark dream world of Georgia’s unconscious that is inhabited by ghosts, shadows and untapped desires. Vadim’s directorial skills are on full display here and have rarely, if ever, been surpassed. The director shows a clear mastery of the fantastique in Blood and Roses that always manages to impress me. 
in a lackluster presentation from Paramount. The film’s original running time is supposedly 87 minutes, but the Paramount video is only 74 minutes long and dubbed. I really hope that some DVD company like Criterion, Blue Underground or Mondo Macabro will get their hands on the rights to this film and restore it to its original Technicolor splendor. If there is one neglected horror film that really deserves a nice widescreen, subtitled DVD release, Blood and Roses is it.
So the next time you find yourself wondering what’s in the box, I can only suggest considering insects and their erotic implications, as well as their symbolic importance in Buñuel’s own work.
by Marquis de Sade
by Iwan Bloch
by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
by Octave Mirbeau
by Anais Nin
by Anais Nin
by Anonymous
(1967)
(1929)
(1930)
(Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, 1972)
from Telavista but the quality of the DVD is rather awful. Hopefully another company will restore the film and give it the quality widescreen release that it deserves.
(a.k.a. L’ Histoire d’Adèle H., 1975) playing the daughter of the great French writer Victor Hugo, who becomes obsessed with a British lieutenant named Albert Pinson and is determined to make him love her. Adjani turns Truffaut’s beautiful historical drama into a horror film when her obsession leads to madness. She seems incapable of holding anything back while losing her mind to love.
(a.k.a. Le Locataire, 1976), Walter Hill’s entertaining crime film 
(1978), Herzog’s fantastic remake of Nosferatu with Klaus Kinski called 
(a.k.a. Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, 1979), Andrzej Zulawsk’s thoughtful and incredibly creepy 
(1981), the fascinating thrillers 
, (a.k.a. Mortelle randonnée, 1983) and 
(a.k.a. L’ Été meurtrier, 1983), plus Luc Besson’s 
(1985).
(1981) and Bruno Nuytten’s remarkable 
(1988). She should have easily walked away with the Oscar in 1990 for Best Actress for her role in Camille Claudel which she was nominated, but she lost to Jessica Tandy in the rather dull, dreadful and terribly overrated Driving Miss Daisy (1989).
(La Reine Margot, 1994), but she has only made a handful of films since then. Unfortunately most of her recent films are not easily available to American audiences which is a shame.
in 1983 with help from songwriter and producer Serge Gainsbourg which included the hit song “Pull Marine.” The song was made into a fascinating music video by director Luc Besson which you can listen to and