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Le Beau Serge
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Wikipedia article
'Le Beau Serge' (, literal English translation: "Handsome Serge") is a 1958 French film directed by Claude Chabrol. It has been cited as the first product of the Nouvelle Vague, or French New Wave, film movement. The film is often compared with Chabrol's subsequent film 'Les Cousins', which also stars Grard Blain and Jean-Claude Brialy.
Plot
Franois, a young man recovering from a mild case of a respiratory illness (probably tuberculosis), returns to his home town of Sardent after a long absence to spend the winter there. He is surprised to find that his old friend Serge has, dissatisfied with life in the village, become a wretched alcoholic. Serge had hoped to leave the village to study, but had to stay to marry a local girl, Yvonne, when she became pregnant. Their first child was stillborn, but Yvonne is pregnant again.
Though Franois feels somewhat out of place in the provincial village, he is driven by his desire to figure out a way to help Serge. While he works on this, he strikes up a relationship with Yvonne's promiscuous 17-year-old sister, Marie, with whom Serge also has a sexual history. Marie lives with Glomaud, a drunk who is rumored to not really be her biological father, though no one knows if he is aware of this. After Glomaud confronts Franois about sleeping with Marie and gets Franois to say that Marie is not his daughter, Franois visits Marie and discovers that Glomaud has just raped her.
Serge and Franois alternately reminisce about the past and argue about the present and future. Things between them come to a head at a town dance when Serge beats up Franois for trying to stop him from cheating on Yvonne with Marie. Franois withdraws to his room for a time, unsure of what to do next.
When Franois hears that Yvonne has gone into labor and neither the doctor nor Serge can be found, he jumps into action. First, he tracks down the doctor, who is attending to a sick Glomaud. The doctor does not want to leave, as he thinks the baby will probably be another stillbirth, while he can help Glomaud, but Glomaud tells him to go, since he has Marie to care for him. Going out again into the cold and dark, Franois finds Serge sleeping outside. Serge is very drunk, so Franois has to drag him home through the snow, but they make it in time for the birth of a healthy, though premature, baby boy. Franois collapses in exhaustion and Serge beams, crying and laughing almost hysterically.
Cast
*Grard Blain as Serge
*Jean-Claude Brialy as Franois Bayon
*Michle Mritz as Yvonne
*Bernadette Lafont as Marie
*Claude Cerval as the priest
*Jeanne Prez as Madame Chaunier
*Edmond Beauchamp as Glomaud
*Andr Dino as the doctor
*Michel Creuze as Michel, the baker
*Claude Chabrol as La Truffe
*Philippe de Broca as Jacques Rivette de la Chasuble
Production
At one point, Chabrol had intended for 'Les Cousins', rather than 'Le Beau Serge', to be his first film project, but, due to that film's Paris setting, it would have been twice as expensive to film. 'Le Beau Serge' was filmed in Sardent, where Chabrol, whose mother was from the village, often spent childhood summers with his grandmother and lived during the war years. It was shot over a period of nine weeks in the winter of 1957-8 on a budget of 32 million old French francs, which Chabrol acquired courtesy of an inheritance his first wife had received. The film was initially 2 hours and 35 minutes long. To reduce the running time, Chabrol cut a great deal of quasi-documentary material, a decision he later regretted.
References
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