Monday, July 23, 2007

franco flick


I recently watched a movie version of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" that I'd been seeking for a while. This French version starred Jeanne Moreau (the allure for me) and GĂ©rard Philipe, and set it in the 1950s, featuring music from Thelonious Monk.

It was a fine, but not great, adaptation (unlike the fabulous '88 version with Glenn Close), but it worked with an interesting premise: Juliette de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont were a married couple with political aspirations, and they tolerated affairs and intrigues to keep their love "fresh." In a way it worked, opening a lot of freedom for each partner under the protection of marriage to explore their sexual proclivities. It was the kind of arrangement the book's characters would have thrived under, if only the time and circumstances wouldn't have threatened the marquise's independence. Compare that to Juliette de Merteuil musing to her husband that they were the only couple amongst their friends not to divorce. Maybe some of the tension didn't work in this movie version, though, because society's mores were sufficiently relaxed that neither Juliette nor the film's de Tourvel really faced scandal and ruin if their sexual exploits were exposed.

2 comments:

Ben said...

Wow! That sounds like a very interesting take on the story.

kc said...

"under the protection of marriage"... hehe

"Sexual proclivities" sounds sooooo perverse.

And this movie sounds unbearably French. Hehe

There'a cartoon in my current New Yorker in which a couple is getting dressed to go out for the evening, and the woman says, "Don't worry, it's a French movie; we don't have to shower." (That is especially funny if you've ever been around French people, who aren't big on bathing and deodorant).