Recently Viewed: Les Amants (The Lovers), directed by Louis Malle (1958). Okay, I'll get the first bit out of the way: Yes, I, Jim Finley, Europhile, Jeanne Moreau idolator, and general French film nut, had never seen Les Amants until two days ago. But let us not dwell on my inadequacies and instead revel in the glory that is this film. I don't give a hoot that it's "naive" (and I think that's arguable anyway), nor that it's "sentimental" nor that it's "dated". What film from 1958 isn't? What it is is an incredibly honest, even brave, portrayal of a woman's sexuality made in a day when many people still flinched at the thought of a woman's arousal. Though it's rather PG-13 by today's standards, it was scandalous in '58, and its presentation in American cities brought charges of obscenity to a couple of theater owners. This was the one that was fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court where it was declared not obscene and where Justice Potter Stewart wrote in a concurring opinion: "I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." Certainly not, but I can see how this film might have seriously upset the 1950's status quo: First, the film features a beautiful woman who has been cheating on her husband for some time before she falls head over heels in love with a complete stranger. Secondly, the film not only refuses to punish said woman for her indiscretions (as the American Hayes code would have required) but seems to reward her with a new love and a new life as she abandons her husband, her child, her other lover, and her bourgeois status altogether. And lastly, it treats this woman's sexual desire and fulfillment with utter candor: the camera doesn't pull away for once, and we see her undress her lover, embrace him, and enjoy his kisses on her breasts; we even see her face and hear her moans as she climaxes. It isn't prurient (but so what if it were?), it isn't gratuitous, it isn't immoral, and it sure as hell isn't obscene. I'm largely of the opinion that if a film or book or painting is scandalous, then it probably needs to be, and we all need to be scandalized occasionally. Great art, if it's doing its job honestly, will always be at some level subversive--for real honesty is almost never welcome. And as to charges of the film being naive, etc., I don't think it is. I know that Louis Malle in interviews looked back on the film and cringed a little bit at it's innocence, but I'm not sure he's the best judge of what he created. I saw that look Jeanne Moreau gave Jean-Marc Bory just after she kissed her sleeping child goodbye--it was a look that said, at once, "I'm scared to death. I don't know why I'm doing this, but I must. You are making me do this, and I might hate you one day for it." And I don't buy for a minute that the lovers are necessarily heading into a fairytale future--as the story ends I'm not at all certain that Jeanne Moreau has made the correct decision or that this love will last. Does the fact that she doesn't regret (for now) what she's done really mean anything? All I know is that something in her life compelled her to take this step, for better or worse. The film doesn't show us a fairytale or a tragedy: that's not its purpose. Its purpose, in my opinion, is to strip away the artifice that surrounds our perception of what a "fallen" woman is--a perception constructed by 18th-19th century novels and dramas and 20th century film melodramas--in order to give us a glimpse, for once, of an honest-to-God female human being. ****1/2.~
Charlie Wilson's War, directed by Mike Nichols (2007). Mike Nichols may have made The Graduate, but he also made Day of the Dolphin (Faaa love Paaa...!) which is right up there vying with Exorcist II, Star Trek V, and Tarzan, The Ape Man for worst movie I've ever paid to see. (Now that I think of it, perhaps I didn't pay to see it...hurrah!) Anyway, my point being that I really never know what to expect from a guy like this. As it turns out, the film is neither The Graduate nor Day of the Dolphin but somewhere between them--probably on the level of Carnal Knowledge or Wolf or Silkwood. The performances by Hanks and Roberts are solid enough, but lacking in depth of sincerity, I think. There's something about snappy dialogue and punchy pacing that strikes me as a cheap way of making a story seem more intelligent than it is. Maybe it's the work of script doctors. In any event, this film was merely entertaining when it could have been profoundly moving. I liked it for P.S. Hoffman's Oscar nominated performance, mostly. He is so damned watchable that he just dominates whenever he's on screen. Why is it that the camera can love this freckly, blonde chubster so? Something in the eyes, I think. There is a menace there--always--sometimes animal, sometimes intellectual, sometimes just flat psycho. I can't even think of a role he's played where it doesn't come through. He's never going to be the harmless, likable, fat guy who's everyone's friend and no one's lover. The guy's too dangerous. ***~
Five great roles of Philip Seymour Hoffman: (1) Brandt, in the Coens' The Big Lebowski. The nimble-thinking, toady, yes-man of Jeffrey Lebowski (not to be mistaken with "The Dude"). Watch as he anxiously wrings his hands while The Dude fiddles with various plaques and pictures on Lebowski's wall of memorabilia. Priceless. (2) Freddie Miles in Anthony Minghella's Talented Mr. Ripley. A marvelous snob--played pitch-perfectly. The true snob is never actively concerned with dominating the inferior classes--he does so passively and with a dismissive bemusement. In this case, of course, he has no idea who he's dealing with! (3) That poor slob in Boogie Nights. Again the menace is there despite the character's dimwittedness--it's in his dull, flat glaring eyes. (4)That other poor slob in Cold Mountain. The only thing I really liked in the film. (5) Capote. Well, of course.
Adios,
JBF
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