Two English Girls (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Francois Truffaut‘s fine 1971 film, Two English Girls, seems intent to tell us that young men and women cannot be close friends, that personal sacrifice cannot withstand non-conjugal physical desire.  Based on a novel by Henri Pierre Roche, just as Jules and Jim is, it revolves around two women (sisters) and one man, unlike the two men and one woman of Jules.

Stylistically Truffaut is probably a bit over-imaginative, but he also proves what an excellent eye he has.  He gives us a likable overhead shot of Claude (the man) and Muriel (one of the women) atop a high hill with the tiny figure of Muriel’s sister Anne—before she disappears in an iris-out!—at the bottom of the hill.  He provides a smart scene in which Muriel, a thirty-year-old virgin—circa 1900—has her full-cover 19th century apparel slowly removed from her by the aforementioned Claude, whom she loves.  Standing at last with her attractive mammaries exposed, she virtually symbolizes all humanity poised before an era of gradual sexual freedom (and all its unfortunate consequences).

In an earlier review of Two English Girls, I said it is inferior to Jules and Jim.  Not so.  Girls is not tedious.  It is sad, which indeed is connected to its real feeling for suffering (mostly Muriel’s).  It remains what I called it earlier:  guileless and humane.  If I live to be very old, chances are I’ll read the novel.

(In French with English subtitles)

The Earrings of Madame de… (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In my view, the Max Ophuls film The Earrings of Madame De . . . (1953, a.k.a. Madame D . . .) is not art, but rather a lovely, outstandingly directed and edited work of craft.  Adulterous love arises in French aristocratic culture, as it does in Renoir’s The Rules of the Game, but here there are no lower class folks playing the game as well.  Plus Ophuls keeps a certain distance from his characters, going in for tragedy instead of sardonic farce (as in Renoir).

Charles Boyer, as a general, knows how to enact a man who can both express love and keep his dignity.  Danielle Darrieux keeps hers too, and is right for romantic tragedy.  Also just fine as an aristocrat is Lia de Lea, the general’s mistress.  Vittorio de Sica, as Madame de’s lover, might have been inspired enough by this film to direct his own male-female stuff (e.g. Marriage Italian Style).

(In French with English subtitles)

Guys and Dolls (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Brando sings!  Yes, and he spoils the song “Luck Be a Lady” in the 1955 movie adaptation of Guys and Dolls.  He is miscast as a crooning illicit gambler, whereas Frank Sinatra clearly is not.  It’s a pleasurable role he is in, with Vivian Blaine, as his inamorata, holding her own.  Musically, that is, Betty Boop voice and all.

Songsmith Frank Loesser did himself proud, although I truly do not know whether “If I Were a Bell” is a good ditty or not.  This is because Jean Simmons—an embarrassment—loses the melody by shouting rather than singing the song.  It’s a disastrous performance, and the entire sequence with her and Brando in Havana is unamusingly poor.  Over and above, the musical’s book (adapted by Joseph Mankiewicz) lacks any real charm, any cakes-and-ale sparkle and bounce.  Music, singing and dancing manage to entertain, though.

Guys and Dolls (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Brando sings!  Yes, and he spoils the song “Luck Be a Lady” in the 1955 movie adaptation of Guys and Dolls.  He is miscast as a crooning illicit gambler, whereas Frank Sinatra clearly is not.  It’s a pleasurable role he is in, with Vivian Blaine, as his inamorata, holding her own.  Musically, that is, Betty Boop voice and all.

Songsmith Frank Loesser did himself proud, although I truly do not know whether “If I Were a Bell” is a good ditty or not.  This is because Jean Simmons—an embarrassment—loses the melody by shouting rather than singing the song.  It’s a disastrous performance, and the entire sequence with her and Brando in Havana is unamusingly poor.  Over and above, the musical’s book (adapted by Joseph Mankiewicz) lacks any real charm, any cakes-and-ale sparkle and bounce.  Music, singing and dancing manage to entertain, though.

Cover of Notre Musique

I want nothing to do with Jean-Luc Godard‘s Notre Musique (2004), which I had to see on DVD since it was never shown in a Tulsa theatre.  No wonder.  It has no entertainment value despite a few moments of striking insight, and its middle section is interminable.  Without being otherworldly, its three sections correspond to the Hell, the Purgatory and the Paradise in Dante’s Divine Comedy, but it makes its points through exposition, not drama.  So it’s talky—a talky elegy for a war-afflicted world.

Godard himself appears in the film, posing as the indubitable Intellectual Of Cinema.  After lecturing at a literary conference in Sarajevo, during “Purgatory,” someone in the audience asks him whether little digital cameras will ultimately “save” cinema.  Frowning like Laurence Olivier, Godard sits and never answers; and, yes, even though it’s a stupid question, the scene is smugly patronizing.

Now, the politics.  A Jewish girl, Olga (Nade Dieu), martyrs herself in protest against Israel’s aggression toward the Palestinians.  Godard has a right to his views about Israel, but he’s far more seduced by leftist tunnel vision about the country than by a cautious appreciation for history and present complexity.  When he made this film, did he not care a whit about Ehud Barak’s concessions to the Palestinians in 2000?  Was he aware of them?  He makes a comment in the movie about non-revolutionaries:  “Humane people don’t start revolutions.  They build libraries.”  “And cemeteries,” another man chimes in.  (Oh, dear.)  Of course Godard has forgotten that in these cemeteries there are plenty of Israeli civilians killed by Palestinian terrorists.  Twenty-six of them died in 2002 at a Passover celebration in Netanya.

Notre Musique is the worst kind of art film:  offbeat but also a myopic bore.