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com Franois Truffaut's third feature, though it's named for the two best fri ends who become virtually inseparable in pre-World War I Paris, is cente red on Jeanne Moreau's Catherine, the most mysterious, enigmatic woman i n his career-long gallery of rich female portraits. Adapted from the nov el by Henri-Pierre Roch, Truffaut's picture explores the 30-year friend ship between Austrian biologist Jules (Oskar Werner) and Parisian writer Jim (Henri Serre) and the love triangle formed when the alluring Cather ine makes the duo a trio. Spontaneous and lively, a woman of intense but dynamic emotions, she becomes the axle on which their friendship turns as Jules woos her and they marry, only to find that no one man can hold her. Directed in bursts of concentrated scenes interspersed with montage sequences and pulled together by the commentary of an omniscient narrat or, Truffaut layers his tragic drama with a wealth of detail. He draws o n his bag of New Wave tricks for the carefree days of youth--zooms, flas h cuts, freeze frames--that disappear as the marriage disintegrates duri ng the gloom of the postwar years. Werner is excellent as Jules, a vibra nt young man whose slow, melancholy slide into emotional compromise is c harted in his increasingly sad eyes and resigned face, while Serre plays Jim as more of an enigma, guarded and introspective. But both are eclip sed in the glare of Moreau's radiant Catherine: impulsive, demanding, se nsual, passionate, destructive, and ultimately unknowable. A masterpiece of the French New Wave and one of Truffaut's most confident and accompl ished films.
Other than seeing him in Steven Spielberg's CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, I have never been much acquainted with the films of much-acclaime d French New Wave filmmaker Francois Truffaut. Recently, though, I decid ed to try one of his most famous films, JULES AND JIM, and, for the most part, I was not disappointed by it. Having seen Jean-Luc Godard's semin al BREATHLESS just recently on DVD, I was able to appreciate some of the similarities in style between the two films. The first half of JULES AN D JIM, especially, is full of technical wizardry: Truffaut not only uses Godard's pioneering jump-cut technique, but also uses the occasional fr eeze fame to emphasize particular small moments (like Jeanne Moreau's fa cial expressions at one point), plays with his film's aspect ratio (film ed in 235:1 widescreen Franscope by Raoul Coutard, who also did similar ly distinguished work in BREATHLESS) and even interspersing WWI newsreel footage into the film, in the manner of Orson Welles in CITIZEN KANE an d THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. But, as with all great filmmakers, all of t his technique is not merely the empty stylings of a virtuoso visual arti st. Not only does the technique bring a fascinating alive-ness to the pi cture; it emphasizes the joy in the lives of the three main characters b efore WWI and its sad aftermath set in. Truffaut's characters are also fascinating to watch, their situations equ ally so. Here is a romantic triangle like no other I've ever seen, but t he focus isn't necessarily on the two men who love the same woman. com editorial review suggests, the film may be named after its two main male characters, but it really belongs to Catherine, the self-p roclaimed "free spirit" female who is loved by almost every man she meet s and yet never feels the need to settle with just one. She is a powerfu l and fascinatingly enigmatic character, indeed "ultimately unknowable." Yet what spirit we notice when we first see her onscreen! Who wouldn't be resisted by her adventurousness and sheer energy at first, especially the way Jeanne Moreau irresistibly plays her? And then we see how manip ulative and restless she can really be, and we start to feel a little sy mpathy toward the gentle man who married her, Jules: this is perhaps the first woman he has truly admired and loved, and now that he has gotten her, he desperately wants to hold on to her, even going so far as to put up with her cheating ways. Jim, of course, feels a bit of jealousy when Jules marries her, but he keeps it to himself, as a good friend must... Even then, though , she becomes unhappy with Jim when she cannot conceive of a child. All of these threads converge into an ending that is both shockingly sudden and lyrically poetic; you'll understand Jules' feeling of "relief" after the film is over, and perhaps you'll likely echo it yourself, after hav ing watched these characters live the way they have. Oskar Werner and Henri Serre as Jules and Jim both exhibit convincing chemistry at the beginning of the film: you can tell they've been good friends for a long time. As the film progresses, though, Werner truly stands out as the long-suffering Jules: he draws you into his ambivalent, complicated feelings toward Cat herine, and easily earns some audience sympathy. And Jeanne Moreau truly brings Catherine, the real protagonist of the film, to vivid life. She is always convincingly in character, and never makes Catherine's actions feel lightweight or inconsequential, like some other less-skilled movie stars might do. I found the narration of the movie kind of a distraction at times. Voice- over narration can be convincing in some movies (the recent SEABISCUIT u sed it quite effectively, I think), but in JULES AND JIM I find it a bit too explanatory of characters' emotions, too much of a narrative shortc ut---in short, perhaps a bit of laziness on Truffaut's part. If less was merely explained and more was suggested by visual means, the film might seem more like a real film, less like a filmed novel, with passages bei ng quoted from it verbatim. In the end, though, that blemish is a comparatively small one, one that d oesn't diminish the lyricism and beauty of this film significantly. JULE S AND JIM remains a magnificent achievement from the French New Wave, a fascinating, emotionally complex, and above all human film about a woman whose attempts at being in control of her life slowly takes its toll on the lives of the two others who love her so.
Francois Truffaut's Jules et Jim was a very popular art-house movie in th e early sixties. The black and white French (English subtitled) film fol lows the friendship of two college students in bohemian Paris beginning in 1912. They meet Catherine, a free spirit who loves to shock people as much as she enjoys both men's love. Jeanne Moreau's Catherine is eternally alluring, selfish, manipulating, a nd cruel. She is perfect as the siren who plays with men as a cat plays with a mouse. Oscar Werner gives a sympathetic performance as the ideali stic and vulnerable Jules, who goes from carefree youth to melancholy mi ddle-age. Henri Serre is well-cast as Jim, more quiet and introspective, yet still helplessly drawn to the enigmatic Catherine. This is the kind of movie one admires more each time you see it. later you just enjoy the flow of s cenes, the gradual change in mood from youthful exuberance to subdued ac ceptance, and then the stark and tragic, yet inevitable, conclusion. If you like character-driven stories about unconventional people, you'll en joy Jules and Jim.
My collection con sists mainly with the works of directors like Bergman, Tarkovsky, Kurasa wa, Angelopoulos, Antonioni, Rosellini and Egoyan. Wishing to broaden my appreciation of great cinema I decided to read the reviews written by c ritics and viewers in the hope of tracking down more great films. "Jules and Jim" had excellent reviews so I decided to buy it. To give the film a chance I decid ed to view the film again the next day before writing this review. The o nly part of the film that was brilliant was the great acting performance of the lead actress. I found the camera style amateurish, performances by the two male acto rs boring and the story disjointed. I am sure that at the time the movie was released it received rave reviews but seen today it qualifies as a B grade movie. The only reason the film has...
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