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Jules and Jim

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Wikipedia article




'Jules and Jim' ( ) is a 1962 French New Wave romantic drama film, directed, produced and written by Franois Truffaut. Set before and after World War I, it describes a tragic love triangle involving French Bohemian Jim (Henri Serre), his shy Austrian friend Jules (Oskar Werner), and Jules's girlfriend and later wife Catherine (Jeanne Moreau).

The film is based on Henri-Pierre Roch's 1953 semi-autobiographical novel describing his relationship with young writer Franz Hessel and Helen Grund, whom Hessel married.[http://www.telerama.fr/idees/stephane-hessel-un-homme-engage-j-ai-toujours-ete-du-cote-des-dissidents,29906.php "Stphane Hessel, un homme engag : 'Jai toujours t du ct des dissidents'"] Tlrama (March 12, 2011). Retrieved March 17, 2011

Truffaut came across the book in the mid-1950s while browsing through some secondhand books at a shop along the Seine in Paris. He later befriended the elderly Roch, who had published his first novel at the age of 74. The author approved of the young director's interest in adapting his work to another medium.

The film won the 1962 Grand Prix of French film prizes, the toile de Cristal, and Jeanne Moreau won that year's prize for best actress.

The film ranked 46 in 'Empire' magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.



Plot



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 Frenchman Jim (Henri Serre). They share an interest in the world of the arts and the Bohemian lifestyle. At a slide show, they become entranced with a bust of a goddess and her serene smile and travel to see the ancient statue on an island in the Adriatic Sea.

After encounters with several women, they meet the free-spirited, capricious Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), a doppelgnger for the statue with the serene smile. The three become inseparable. Although she begins a relationship with Jules, both men are affected by her presence and her attitude toward life. Jim continues to be involved with his girlfriend Gilberte, usually seeing her apart from the others. A few days before war is declared, Jules and Catherine move to Austria to get married. Both men serve during the war, on opposing sides; each fears throughout the conflict the potential for facing the other or learning that he might have killed his friend.

After the wartime separation, Jim visits, and later stays with, Jules and Catherine in their chalet in the Black Forest. Jules and Catherine by then have a young daughter, Sabine. Jules confides the tensions in their marriage. He tells Jim that Catherine torments and punishes him at times with numerous affairs, and she once left him and Sabine for three months.

She flirts with and attempts to seduce Jim, who has never forgotten her. Jules, fearful that Catherine might 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 three adults live happily with Sabine in the chalet, until tensions between Jim and Catherine arise because of their inability to have a child.

Jim leaves Catherine and returns to Paris. After several exchanges of letters between Catherine and Jim, they resolve to reunite when she learns that she is pregnant. The reunion does not occur after Jules writes to tell Jim that Catherine suffered a miscarriage.

After a time, Jim runs into Jules in Paris. He learns that Jules and Catherine have returned to France. Catherine tries 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 famous (at that time) movie theater, the Studio des Ursulines.

The three of them stop at an outdoor cafe. Catherine asks Jim to get into her car, saying she has something to tell him. She asks Jules to watch them and drives the car off a damaged bridge into the river, killing herself and Jim. Jules is left to bury the ashes of his friends in the Pre-Lachaise Cemetery columbarium; Catherine wanted her ashes to be scattered in the wind from a hilltop, but at the time it wasn't legal.Fry, Nicholas (translator). Truffaut, Franois and Gruault, Jean (script). 'Jules and Jim, a film by Franois Truffaut'. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1968. 68-27592. pp. 11-100.

Cast



* Jeanne Moreau as Catherine

* Oskar Werner as Jules

* Henri Serre as Jim

* Vanna Urbino as Gilberte, Jim's fiance

* Serge Rezvani (credited under the name "Boris Bassiak") as Albert, Catherine's sometime lover

* Marie Dubois as Thrse, Jules' ex-girlfriend

* Sabine Haudepin as Sabine, Jules and Catherine's daughter

* Kate Nolle as Birgitta

* Anny Nelsen as Lucy

* Christiane Wagner as Helga

* Jean-Louis Richard as a customer in cafe

* Michel Varesano as a customer in cafe

* Pierre Fabre as a drunk in the cafe

* Danielle Bassiak as Albert's companion

* Bernard Largemains as Merlin

* Elen Bober as Mathilde

* Dominique Lacarrire as a woman

* Michel Subor as the Narrator (voice)Allen, Don. 'Finally Truffaut'. New York: Beaufort Books. 1985. . . pp. 225-226.

Style



French New Wave

Jeanne Moreau incarnates the style of the French New Wave actress. The critic Ginette Vincendeau has defined this as, "beautiful, but in a kind of natural way; sexy, but intellectual at the same time, a kind of cerebral sexualitythis 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 opposed ideas of femininity."Ginette Vincendeau, speaking on an edition of BBC Radio 3's 'Nightwaves' series, hosted by Philip Dodd, March 2009.

Music

According to 'New York Times' film critic Bosley Crowther, "the emotional content is largely carried in the musical score" by Georges Delerue, which he lauded as "a dominant element in the film". The soundtrack was named as one of the "10 best soundtracks" by 'Time' magazine in its "All Time 100 Movies" list.

Awards and nominations



Influences



According to 'ShortList', "The pacy energy of 'GoodFellas' (1990) was influenced by Scorseses love of French New Wave cinema, especially Franois Truffauts doomed love triangle classic 'Jules et Jim'. He wanted a similar voiceover to open, along with extensive narration, quick cuts and freeze frame shots. He called it a 'punk attitude' towards film convention, mirroring the attitude of the gangsters in the film."

The production of 'Jules et Jim' was the subject of a documentary directed in 2009 by Thierry Tripod.

Further reading



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References




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