Themes: Love Triangles, Self-Destructive Romance, Faltering Friendships
Main Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre, Marie Dubois, Vanna Urbino
Release Year: 1962
Country: FR
Run Time: 104 minutes
Plot
Acclaimed French director François Truffaut's third and, for many viewers, best film is an adaptation of a semi-autobiographical novel by Henri-Pierre Roché. Set between 1912 and 1933, it stars Oskar Werner as the German Jules and Henri Serre as the Frenchman Jim, kindred spirits who, while on holiday in Greece, fall in love with the smile on the face of a sculpture. Back in Paris, the smile comes to life in the person of Catherine (Jeanne Moreau); the three individuals become constant companions, determined to live their lives to the fullest despite the world war around them. When Jules declares his love for Catherine, Jim agrees to let Jules pursue her, despite his own similar feelings; Jules and Catherine marry and have a child (Sabine Haudepin), but Catherine still loves Jim as well. An influential film that has grown in stature over the decades, Jules et Jim was often viewed by the counterculture of the 1960s as a cinematic proponent of the free-love movement, but in actuality the picture is a statement against such a way of life. Despite the bond shared by Jules, Jim, and Catherine, their ménage à trois is doomed to fail; and Catherine's inability to choose between the two men leads to tragic consequences for all three. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
Review
His third and most popular film, François Truffaut's adaptation of the Henri-Pierre Roché novel is a lyrical, elliptical meditation on the possibilities of love. Shot in widescreen black-and-white by Raoul Coutard in beautifully detailed pre- and post-World War I settings, the central ménage à trois of Jules, Jim, and mercurial Catherine reveals the limits placed on a woman's freedom by the men's desire to mold her to their fantasy ideal. Catherine remains an enigma to Jules and Jim, though they adore her, as they tragically misjudge how absolute her refusal to choose between them will be. Truffaut's eclectic technique (bolstered by Georges Delerue's score) evoked the shifting emotions in this ultra-modern romance, ranging from kinetic handheld shots communicating the trio's joie de vivre to freeze-frames briefly suspending Catherine's beauty in time. An international smash and instant classic, Jules and Jim cemented Truffaut's reputation as a cinematic artist, rather than just a brash critic. Despite Jules and Jim's tragic end, audiences embraced the possibility of alternative romantic arrangements, while Truffaut's bravura, resonant style inspired even Truffaut's idol Jean Renoir to say that he wished he had made the film. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Boris Bassiak - Albert; Sabine Haudepin - Sabine; Danielle Bassiak - Albert's companion; Elen Bober - Mathilde; Pierre Fabre - Drunkard in Cafe; Dominique Lacarriere - One of the women; Bernard Largemains - Merlin; Anny Nielsen - Lucy; Kate No_lle - Birgitta; Jean-Louis Richard - 1st Customer in Cafe; Michel Subor - Narrator; Michel Varesano - 2nd Customer in Cafe; Christian A. Wagner - Helga
Credit
Fred Capel - Costume Designer, François Truffaut - Director, Claudine Bouché - Editor, Georges Delerue - Composer (Music Score), Boris Bassiak - Songwriter, Fred Capel - Production Designer, Raoul Coutard - Cinematographer, Marcel Berbert - Producer, Jean Gruault - Screenwriter, François Truffaut - Screenwriter, Henri-Pierre Roché - Book Author
Truffaut came across the book during the mid 1950s whilst browsing through some secondhand books in Paris and later befriended the elderly Roché. The author approved of the young director's attempt to translate the words on the page into film.
The film is set before, during and after the Great War in several different parts of France, Austria, and Germany. Jules (Oskar Werner) is a shy writer from Austria who forges a friendship with the more extroverted Jim (Henri Serre). They share an interest in the world of the arts and the Bohemian lifestyle. At a slide show early in the movie, they become entranced with a statue of a goddess and its serene smile.
After encounters with several women, they meet the free-spirited, capricious Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), a doppelgänger for the statue with the serene smile. Although she begins a relationship with Jules, both men are affected by her presence and her attitude toward life. A few days before the declaration of war, Jules and Catherine move to Austria to get married. The men both serve during the war; however, they serve on the opposing sides, and each fears throughout the conflict that he might have killed the other.
After the wartime separation, Jim visits, and later stays with, Jules and Catherine in Austria. Jules and Catherine have a little daughter, Sabine, but the marriage is not a happy one. Catherine torments and punishes Jules with numerous affairs, and she tells Jim that she once left Jules and their daughter for six months. She flirts with and attempts to seduce Jim, who has never forgotten her. Jules, desperate that Catherine not leave him forever, gives his blessing for Jim to marry Catherine so that he may continue to visit them and see her. For a while, the four of them live happily together in the same chalet in Austria, until tensions between Jim and Catherine arise because of their inability to have a child. Jim leaves Catherine and returns to Paris, and after several exchanges of letters, Catherine breaks off their relationship.
After a time, Jim runs into Jules in Paris. He finds that Jules and Catherine have returned to France. Catherine attempts to win Jim back, but he rebuffs her, saying he is going to marry Gilberte. Furious, she pulls a gun on him, but he wrestles it away and flees. He later encounters Jules and Catherine in a very famous (at that time) movie theater, the Studio des Ursulines.
The three of them visit a park, and after lunch, Catherine invites Jim to get into her car because she has something to show him. After telling Jules to watch them, she proceeds to drive the car off a bridge the broken arch of a bridge, killing them both. Jules is left to dispose of the ashes of his friends.
Style
One of the seminal products of the French New Wave, Jules and Jim is an inventive encyclopedia of the language of cinema that incorporates newsreel footage, photographic stills, freeze frames, panning shots, wipes, masking, dolly shots, and voiceover narration (by Michel Subor). Truffaut's cinematographer was Raoul Coutard, a frequent collaborator with Jean-Luc Godard, who employed the latest lightweight cameras to create an extremely fluid and distinctive film style. For example, some of the postwar scenes were shot using cameras mounted on bicycles.
The evocative musical score is by Georges Delerue. One song, "Le Tourbillon" ("The Whirlwind"), summed up the turbulence of the lives of the three main characters, became a popular hit. The dialogue is predominantly in French, with occasional lines in German and one line in English.
Jeanne Moreau incarnates the style of the Nouvelle Vague actress. The critic Ginette Vincindeau has defined this as, "beautiful, but in a kind of natural way; sexy, but intellectual at the same time, a kind of cerebral sexuality, — this was the hallmark of the nouvelle vague woman." Though she isn't in the film's title Catherine is "the structuring absence. She reconciles two completely oppposed ideas of femininity". [1]
Influence
The song "Let There Be Music" by Prefab Sprout refers to the film in the lines "There shall be music, music will be..., and if cupid's bow, strikes you low, hey Jules and Jim, I wrote the hymn to ectasy."
It is also heavily referenced in Cameron Crowe'sVanilla Sky where: a clip featuring Jeanne Moreau appears during the finale montage; a poster for the film is displayed in the main character's bedroom; two best friends fall in love for the same woman – who leaves the insecure one for the passionate one – causing friction between them; a climatic scene involves a woman driving her car off a bridge with her lover.
The song "When the Lights Go Out All Over Europe" by The Divine Comedy references Jules and Jim in the lines 'Jeanne can't choose between the two / 'Cos Jules is hip and Jim is cool / And so they live together'.
The song "Speedboat" by Lloyd Cole and the Commotions refers to the film in the lines "Jules said to Jim, 'Why don't we jump in,/ While the water's clean and we are still friends?'"
In the short story, "Las dos Elenas," by Mexican author Carlos Fuentes, one of the Elenas watches Jules et Jim and it influences her perspective on life and relationships.
The original music video for the popular song "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer pays tribute to the film and recreates many of the classic scenes.
In Eytan Fox's film The Bubble when two characters impersonate French Time Out journalists in order to visit a friend living in the West Bank one says to the other: "No darling, you are Jeanne Moreau, and I am Jules... we are going to find Jim, and we're gonna die for our love..."
In Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Steve Zissou and Ned Plimpton are standing outside Jane Winslett-Richardson's cabin door. Steve says "Not this one, Klaus", a little homage to the character of Jules in the Truffaut film.
In the opening chapter of the novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1989) by Michael Chabon, the narrator observes a fight between two men over a woman. After the woman chooses one of the men, named Larry, the narrator walks off. Another man watching the fight asks the narrator, "Which way were you going, anyway, before you ran into Jules and Jim back there?" The narrator replies "Jules and Larry".
In Jeanette Winterson's novel, Written on the Body, the narrator is discussing French films. "They pack more action into their arty films than the Americans manage in a dozen Clint Eastwoods. Jules et Jim is an action movie."
In Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited Jack Whitman's girlfriend and mother both wind a music box, an homage to the first of Jules girlfriends to leave him.
In Season Three, Episode 1 of Gossip Girl, Nate tries to give Chuck advice on how to handle his relationship with Blair, whom he also used to date, which Chuck dismisses saying he'd like to retire any mention of the Jules and Jim thing.
See also
Beatrice Wood, a possible inspiration for the character Catherine
