PCP Vol. 2, No. 1B: The Films Of Jeanne Moreau
Hello all,
Welcome to part 2 of the new Pop Culture Picnic! In this half, I will be examining things centred around a specific theme. This week's theme: the films of Jean Moreau! But first a little background.
I've been watching and loving films for most of my life. They are a real passion for me, and I love seeing how a story can be told in such a short window of time, but which has the ability to profoundly affect a viewer. Since 2012, I've kept track of every film I've seen and as of this Thursday, I've seen 1,551 films. I have no particular love of any one genre, time or country's cinema, but have an equal love of it all. That is the unifying power of the movies.
As I've been an avid movie lover for some time, I had stumbled upon the Melbourne Cinematheque. This local institution screens classic, rare and unique cinema from around the globe every Wednesday for most nights of the year. It's always something I've wanted to do, but this is the first year my schedule and money has worked out for me to be able to take part, and it's wonderful. This column will (hopefully) appear at the end of every season, with reviews of all of the films, as well as How About This notes. These annotations appear after the review and rating and are basically me just thinking about this movie's place within cinema and within my own viewing. This may include thoughts on films that are related, or how it fits into a specific movement or just recommendations of great cinema that I thought of while watching. I think this is a good way to demonstrate both my cinematic knowledge and to provide a deeper understanding of the film at hand. I really hope you enjoy these annotations, and I'm really looking forward to putting it all together for you!
Corresponding Cinematheque Schedule:
Jeanne Moreau: The Face Of The Nouvelle Vague
Week 1: Jules and Jim/Diary Of A Chambermaid
Week 2: Les Amants/Bay Of Angels
Week 3: Eva/L'Adolescente
(1962, France, directed by Francois Truffaut)
An
exciting, vibrant breath of fresh air that manages to feel both youthful and
melancholic. It creates a heady cocktail of lust, joy and tragedy with so many
iconic scenes, both famous (the run along the bridge, Catherine jumping into
the river) and surprising (a kiss illuminated against the dark), and a glorious
performance from Moreau. It’s infectious joy and cleverly composed, memorable
shots make this a much better entry point into French New Wave than Godard’s
more famous Breathless.
Rating: A
 |
| Breathless (1960) |
How About This?: Jules
and Jim is one of the key films as part
of the French New Wave movement, a cinematic movement that I have never really
been able to get a handle on. Breathless (1960) was my first experience and I despised it, finding it too clever for its own
good. The movement further became tangled with elitism due to one student in my
film class arguing that French New Wave was a genre of film-making (it’s not,
it’s a specific cinematic movement or a style of film-making, not a genre).
Truffaut’s Jules and Jim feels more
fresh and alive than anything I’ve seen in months, so maybe it’s time for me to
rethink French New Wave. The upcoming Cinematheque season of Francois Truffaut
should be very interesting.
(1962, France/Italy, directed by Luis Bunuel)
Bunuel’s
psychosexual drama has the occasional great moment (a normal conversation turns
unexpectedly surreal and kinky or the depiction of a murder via three seemingly
unrelated metaphorical images which tells us all we need to know) but it never
really comes together. It’s critiques of facism and materialism never hit their targets, especially when compared to
Bunuel’s other works (The Exterminating Angel, The Discreet Charm), and it ends
abruptly, without resolution. In the end, it feels a bit slight.
Rating: B
 |
| Un Chien Andalou (1929) |
How About This?: Mexican director Luis Bunuel is one of my favourite filmmakers whose
works have a surreal, deeply political quality that I find fascinating. His
first film, the impenetrable Un Chien Andalou (1929) is a short subject with many strange and disorientating images, all of which
are designed to leave you in a state of dreamlike confusion. Bunuel stated that
even he doesn’t know what it’s all about, so imagine my joy having to write an
essay on trying to figure out what it meant. Far from a fun experience, but my
enjoyment of the film has remained.
 |
| The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeiosie (1972) |
His other films include The Exterminating Angel (1962, members of the French high society, known
as the Bourgeoisie, find themselves inextricably unable to leave a room, it
exudes an eerie aura that is impossible to forget), Belle De Jour (1967, Catherine Deneuve is a prostitute,
much-loved, but I don’t remember much about it to be honest), Tristana (1970, with Deneuve again, but nothing really
sticks out despite having watched it only a year or two ago, has a memorable
central image), The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie (1972, French high society members find themselves unable to sit down and
enjoy a meal, constantly getting distracted by increasingly bonkers things, one
of the most entertaining and politically barbed films you’ll ever see) and The
Phantom Of The Liberty (1974, much-less famous
than the others I’ve listed, this takes the form of skits which point out
hypocrisies and the strange ways we exist. Along with Exterminating Angel, it’s the Bunuel that I find comes up most
in conversation).
(1958, France, directed by Louis Malle)
Moreau
is excellent as a conflicted woman whose various romantic affairs collide at a
hilariously awkward dinner party, but it may be neither her husband nor her
lover that captures her heart. This is a light, often hysterically funny and
unexpected romance, filled with great moments (an effervescent Moreau in a fit
of giggles, a dreamlike night walk through a garden that owes more than a
little to Cocteau’s La Belle Et La Bete and a sexually frank love scene) and
stellar performances. Exceptionally lovely.
Rating: A-
How About This?: This is my first film by noted French director Louis Malle, whose
best
 |
| La Belle Et La Bete (1946) |
Also notable about Les Amants is its honesty about sex, which led to it
facing an obscenity charge in America in 1964. The judge ruled in the film’s
favour, noting about hardcore pornography, ‘I know it when I see it’. However,
America’s strange view of censorship and the question of public obscenity (namely, when does a
work become obscene?) was and remains a complicated affair.
(1963, France, directed by Jacques Demy)
Jacques
Demy’s portrayal of gambling addiction is flawed, yet entertaining. Moreau
lights up the screen with a shock of white hair and a selection of fabulous
outfits, but she is at her character is toxic. Her relationship with the film’s
male lead (Claude Mann), the way they feed one another’s roulette addiction,
only holds the attention for so long before the constant cycles of winning and
losing grow not only sad, but repetitive. I know that’s kind of the point, but
the film meanders and ultimately feels just a touch too long, especially with
it’s strange, abrupt ending. Nevertheless, the film is helped immensely by some
gorgeous black-and-white cinematography by Jean Rabier and Michel Le Grande’s
memorable, strangely-ABBA esque score.
Rating: B+
 |
| The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (1964) |
How About This?: Bay
Of Angels is the one film of this season
that time has been the most kind to. While I was initially put off by its
repetitive structure, I’ve found that’s faded slightly and I’m left with the
gorgeous imagery, wonderful music and sad story. I think this is true of much of
Demy’s work. He’s one of my favourite French filmmakers, and this was the third
film of his I’ve done. His most famous work is probably the 1964 film The Umbrellas Of
Cherbourg, which stars another iconic
actress Catherine Deneuve in a musical with a difference. While many musicals
stop for the occasional song-and-dance number, Cherbourg features wall-to-wall dialogue sung to
music, and beautiful jaw-dropping technicolour imagery. This contrasts strongly
with the film’s story about regret and romance lost (combined most memorably in
the film’s concluding moments) to create a powerful, unforgettable slice of
cinema. Demy followed this up with The Young Girls Of Rochefort (1967) which is
apparently a joyful contrast to Cherbourg’s darkness, but I have yet to see it, so cannot make a judgement.
The
other Demy film I’ve seen is 1970's Donkey Skin;
a bonkers incestuous fairytale that features the beautiful Catherine Deneueve
putting on the titular object to hide from her father who wants to marry her
(played by Jean Marais, the beast from Cocteau’s La Belle Et La Bete). Again, it’s a film of ravishing visual
beauty and strange touches (at one point a helicopter appears, deeply
incongruous to its otherwise overtly fantasy setting). While it’s a flawed
film, it’s nevertheless very entertaining.
(1962, Italy/France, directed by Joseph Losey)
The
film where you realise Jean Moreau really was typecast a lot. Here she plays a
vivacious, fun woman who uses this to trap and manipulate men drawn to her
beauty (unlike, say, Jules and Jim or
Bay Of Angels). The man in this film,
Tyvian, (played by Stanley Baker) comes across as a cheating pathetic bastard
so it’s harder to sympathise with his plight, always going to Eva despite
having a loving wife of his own. Yes, Eva may be manipulative but it’s the man
who’s married. It makes for a frustrating, circular cinematic experience, never
getting deeper into the characters complexities. Worse, it’s just dull, never really seeming to take
advantage of some lovely Venice backdrops. My favourite scene is also perhaps
the cruellest. Tyvian pours his heart out to Eva, revealing his entire life is
a lie, that he’s cheated his way into his fortune and that he’s selfish, before
sobbing into Eva’s chest. The camera pans up to her face, and Moreau looks
absolutely bored, like she is so sick
of his bull. It’s fantastic. Shame about the film though.
Rating: C+
 |
| Summertime (1955) |
How About This?: Director Joseph Losey is perhaps best-known for his 1963 film The Servant and an adaptation of L.P. Hartley’s The
Go-Between in 1971. While both are very
high on my want-to-watch list, I haven’t seen either. Meanwhile, the Venice
setting belongs to a long line of using the city of canals as a cinematic
backdrop to mean a variety of different things. Summertime, David Lean’s lovely
1955 film, uses the city as a deeply romantic backdrop as Katherine Hepburn
falls in love. It’s a charmingly old-fashioned love story that is sorely
underrated. The same cannot be said for Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 horror masterpiece Don’t
Look Now, which uses Venice in a very
different, altogether more unsettling way. It’s one of my favourite films, but
I’ll be covering it in more detail in the coming weeks as it is part of the
Cinematheque’s British Psychological Horror season.
This is
the last film of the Jean Moreau season in which she starred in. It’s been an
excellent, altogether wonderful introduction to the effervescent, wonderful
star. This isn’t the last time we’ll see her as part of my Cinematheque
Thoughts, as she appears in some of the Truffaut season in April. Moreau also
made a memorable appearance in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s last film, the
hyper-stylised, horny and homerotic Querelle,
which is such a strange film, but an altogether unforgettable one.
L'Adolescente
(1979, France, directed by Jean Moreau)
Moreau’s
solo-directorial debut is a disarming, gentle portrait of a country town and
its innocence before war erupts and everything changes. It’s a gorgeous film to
look at, all autumnal colours and beautiful landscapes, but it lacks substance
and tends to go on. When the conclusion comes and the themes are spelled out
via narration, it comes as more of a blip then anything all too memorable.
Still, the stunning cinematography and a wonderful performance by French icon
Simone Signoret as an idealised, perfect grandma makes for a lovely film.
Rating: B
How About This?: Portraits of country towns admittedly don’t do a lot for me. I prefer
a film to have a narrative through-line, rather than a series of day in the
life style vignettes. It’s for that reason I also am not a big fan of the two
films this reminded me of; John Huston’s 1941 film How Green Was My Valley and Jacques Tati’s 1949 debut Jour de
Fete. My dislike for the latter of these
is a little sad as Tati is one of the greatest directors of all-time (and his
films M. Hulot’s Holiday and Mon
Oncle are absolute masterpieces). Simone
Signoret is one of the most recognisable faces of French cinema, but I know her
mainly as one of the two lead characters in the creepy French flick Les
Diaboliques. This 1955 psychological
thriller is a great, twisty chiller, which ends in an incredible, deeply
unexpected way, and served as inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho. Signoret’s character also reminded me of
Angela Lansbury’s memorable portrayal as another uber-grandma in the underseen
masterpiece The Company Of Wolves.
 |
| Les Diaboliques (1955) |
Moreau is not the only actor/actress to get
behind the camera, as many other notable stars have tried a hand at directing
including Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, 2017), Rainer Werner
Fassbinder, Kenneth Branagh (watch Dead Again!), Xavier Dolan, Terry Gilliam,
Charles Laughton (The Night Of The Hunter) and Clint Eastwood. However, perhaps the most famous director/actor
is John Cassavetes, whose films coincidentally I’ll be doing at Cinematheque
next! See you for some more thoughts then!
Next Cinematheque Schedule:
The Free-Form Filmmaking of John Cassavetes
Week 4: Shadows/Love Streams
Week 5: Faces/Minnie and Moskowitz
Week 6: Gloria/Husbands
What classic films have you been watching? Are you a Cinematheque Member? Let me know in the comments!
Regards,
David Gumball-Watson
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