Jules and Jim - Criterion Collection (1962)

Are We Bound By Ourselves?

This is one of the bonafide classics of cinema. Thus, I, a movie buff, feel obligated to love it. Alas, I can not force myself to love it but I do like it alot and it does impress me in many ways. The acting is superb. Jeanne Moreau effortlessly carries the movie. One of her great, iconic performances that has made her a living legend of the silver screen. Truffaut directs and writes with a fluidity that deftly compliments the sheer volume of dialogue. These characters (and the narrator) talk alot and it was necessary for me to be still and focus incessantly while watching. I don't mind the effort because I found it rewarding. The cinematography is beautiful and the editing is unconventional and inspired.

Jules, Jim & Catherine are free spirits. The men were the original couple and then she, the beguiling beauty, joins them. They are bohemians who pass themselves and each other around like old comfy sweaters as they discuss philosophers and novelists. The movie was condemned by The Legion of Decency when it came out and viewers today (particularly American viewers) may be offended or put off by the movie's refusal to hew to the comfortable, prissy, simplistic black/white, right/wrong morality that is traditional in film. Discussions center mostly on relationships and personalities and experiences. Dialogues about faith and morality are conspicuously few and far between. In their youth, Jules, Jim and Catherine were a perfect threesome running around after each other and being silly. Alas, love ruins everything and Catherine chooses Jules. The friendship is further ruptured by the war.

Jules & Jim are called to do their duty but on opposite sides of the war. They survive and come out of the war and Jim joins Jules and Catherine living on the Reine with their child. Predictable results ensue. Of course, Catherine and Jim fall in love but here with Jules' outward approval. Catherine is portrayed as selfish, flighty, mercurial, cruel and secretive. An enigma of a woman who doesn't know what she wants but knows she isn't happy unless she's being attended to. She is desperate for attention and equally desperate to keep the men in her life guessing. As far as rejection and disapproval, she can dish it out but she can't take it. Purhaps she never allows a man to fully claim her because she is already taken by herself. The men, particularly Jules, are portrayed as passive wimps wrapped around her finger. Enlightened, sensitive men of bohemian Europe. I think this is where my inability to fully embrace this movie comes in. I don't really like her. I see where she's coming from but I don't like how she seems to place her comforts over her child's welfare or bluntly ignore the needs and emotions of others. The men seem like warriors in war but vague and wimpy in real life.

During the war scenes, Truffaut begins to use newsreel footage and will do so near the end of the movie. Times are changing. War and its horrors followed by the rise of fascism. Set against this backdrop is the story of a doomed love triangle. Truffaut draws subtle parallels between Europe's unwillingness to accept the horrific changes taking place under its nose and Catherine's refusal to understand the passage of time. Postwar Jules, Jim & Catherine aren't kids anymore. Adults have responsibilities: spouses, children, jobs, bills, decisions that need to be made and held to. She is a woman now, in a man's world and bound by its conventions. What seems charming and spontaneous in a 20 year old girl, seems immature, unrealistic and selfish in a woman. Eventually, a woman of her time and place, particularly a mother, must choose betwen living selfishly or selflessly, giving up themselves to those who need them. Catherine chooses selfishness but does so in a way we can't blame her. Her final decision reminded me of Edna Pontellier's final decision in Kate Chopin's The Awakening. If she can't have herself, then noone can. She chooses her own destiny, no matter how destructive that may be. She makes the only decision her mind and personality allow her to make and I can admire that. I don't like her decision or her for it but I can admire both. I, too, would rather die free than live in captivity. June 23, 2008

Jules et Jim - magnifique!

Pleasantly surprising movie. This is a very well made French film. The movie was intriguing and you never knew what was happening next. The film explores mainly the friendship between two characters and how each other's lives are changed when they fall for the same woman. The film takes place around WW1.

The DVD from Citerion Collection, comes with 2 disc loaded with Special Features. February 23, 2008

a taste of the Belle Epoque for our time

This is one of my all-time favorite films, and my favorite Truffaut film--it was also reportedly Truffaut's favorite of his own works. Visually, it has a kind sepia-toned haze of one's remembrances of a lazy afternoon, or one's best childhood summer. The costumes, the bike rides, the delightful characters the protagonists (Jules, Jim & Catherine) encounter are a model for the bohemian life that many still aspire to--enjoying great food, drink, art and theater, and of course a very free attitude toward love/sex/romance. The film depicts what happens when the fun goes too far and becomes obsession.

The story is about obsession, two men's obsession with a woman who, in a very French style approach to femininity, does what she wants with whomever she wants to, when she wants to. It's a great story because the men don't know exactly why they can't let go of Catherine (the female object of their desire), but she seems totally assured and deems herself worthy of their subservience. When they pull away, she fights hard to reel them back in--to the point of risking everything.

It's really a delight visually and an intriguing and unusual take on how a woman's 'mystique' can hold a man in thrall. Don't see it if you're a misogynist or feel uncomfortable with the idea of a woman being the object of a man's desire. Also has a lot of interesting filming devices that were ahead of their time (Truffaut's genius)...those scenes will stick in your mind and haunt your dreams. A must-have for the library of any true film-lover. November 3, 2007

Essential cinema: Truffaut's 'Jules et Jim.'

Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Henri-Pierre Roché, French New Wave director, François Roland Truffaut's (1932-1984) third film, Jules and Jim (1962), has been called his masterpiece. Set in France and Germany during World War I, the film chronicles the turbulent, 25-year love-triangle involving an introverted Austrian biologist, Jules (Oskar Werner), an extroverted Parisian writer, Jim (Henri Serre), and the object of their mutual desire, the alluring, free-spirited Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), who initially begins a relationship with Jules. Jules and Catherine get married just days before the war and have a daughter, Sabine (Sabine Haudepin). However, no one man can hold enigmatic Catherine; she pursues numerous affairs, and even attempts to seduce Jim. Not wanting to lose Catherine, Jules encourages Jim to marry her so that he may continue to see her. The four of them then share the same residence in Austria until tensions develop between Jim and Catherine as a result of their inability to conceive a child. When Jim leaves Catherine and returns to Paris, Catherine impulsively ends their relationship. She later renews her pursuit of Jim, but he rebuffs her by saying he plans to marry an old flame, Gilberte (Vanna Urbino). Catherine threatens to shoot Jim with a gun, and then drives the two of them off a bridge, leaving Jules to bury his two best friends. Werner plays the emotionally-damaged Jules with brilliant talent, and Serre's performance as Jim is equally memorable. But Moreau clearly outshines both with her unforgettable performance as the equally radiant and unpredictable Catherine.

Criterion's two-disc edition of Truffaut's entrancing film features a restored high-definition digital transfer (supervised by director of photography, Raoul Coutard), and a wealth of extras: two audio commentaries; excerpts from the documentary on author Henri-Pierre Roché and the true stories on which the novel and film are based; video interviews with Coutard and Gruault; and an audio interview of Truffaut by Claude-Jean Philippe (1980)

G. Merritt August 2, 2007

Jules et Jim

A smash hit in 1961, Truffaut's lyrical story of friendship and unrequited love vividly captures the enigmatic nature of l'amour. Moreau is magnificent as the tempestuous object of love, a mercurial woman who won't be completely possessed by any man. Adapted from Henri-Pierre Roche's novel and shot by master lensman Raoul Coutard, Truffaut's gorgeous film captures the jubilance of youth with freeze frames, zoom-ins, and one iconic tracking shot of Moreau, dressed as a man, running across a footbridge with Jules and Jim. One of cinema's great achievements, "Jules et Jim" is a sweetly buoyant romantic saga with a tragic twist ending. June 27, 2007

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