Bonjour tristesse (1958)

Director:

Otto Preminger

Writers:

Françoise Sagan (novel)
Arthur Laurents (screenplay)

Release Date:

April 1958 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Cecile, decadent young girl who lives with her rich playboy father Raymond. When Anne, Raymond's old love interest...

Plot Keywords:

Playboy | French Riviera | Riviera | Widower | Foreign Language Adaptation

Cast

Deborah Kerr	...	Anne Larson
David Niven	...	Raymond
Jean Seberg	...	Cecile - Raymond's daughter
Mylène Demongeot	...	Elsa
Geoffrey Horne	...	Philippe
Juliette Gréco	...	Herself as a night club singer.
Walter Chiari	...	Pablo
Martita Hunt	...	Philippe's Mother
Roland Culver	...	Mr. Lombard
Jean Kent	...	Mrs. Helen Lombard
David Oxley	...	Jacques
Elga Andersen	...	Denise
Jeremy Burnham	...	Hubert
Eveline Eyfel	...	Maid

Runtime:

USA:94 min | Argentina:94 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Finland:S | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Côte d'Azur, France

Company:

Wheel Productions

Trivia:

Dominique Wilms was Otto Preminger's first choice for the part of Elsa, but she refused.

Quotes:

Cecile: It's getting out of control. I just wish I were a lot older or a lot younger.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Les bonnes femmes (1960)

Soundtrack:

Bonjour Tristesse

Preminger in transition

A fascinating, frustrating, though ultimately deeply satisfying film. Many readers have commented on the frustrations, and they are hard to deny. My experience of this movie goes back to the early 70s, when I first encountered it in ideal circumstances, at the Museum of Modern Art during its complete Preminger retrospective, and in a gorgeous, perfect print. A great introduction to a film whose very meaning resides in its glossy surface. The first few minutes of the film powerfully set up the tragedy that is to come: Saul Bass's dripping teardrop titles underscored with Auric's deeply tragic music, followed by the first black and white scenes depicting Cecile's current active but deeply disengaged life. Then, as Cecile arrives home and begins remembering "last summer", the blue Mediterranean sea begins to invade the frame, little by little -- a striking effect, to say the least --, we are there, in the midst of a carefree vacation with Cecile, Raymond and Elsa, and quite successfully invited to forget the tragedy that seems to be in the making and enter a carefree, sunlit world where nothing, seemingly, could ever go wrong. Masterful film-making, and, thus far, perfectly pitched: Seberg's perfectly expressionless and beautiful face has no small part in making it work. That she is less secure in the flashback scenes is unfortunate, but her physical presence at least gives the right signs: this is a very young girl, happy but extremely shallow. (Yes, I will admit that the line readings are quite stiff -- no question she is "acting." But, if one is already in the proper frame of mind they are not all that damaging.) What's important is the holiday mood, and the performances of Niven and Mylene Demongeot are sufficiently effervescent to evoke it. (Demongeot is a real charmer -- beautiful beyond belief and full of joie de vivre.) The arrival of Deborah Kerr on the scene changes all this: a dignified Lady coming into the midst of a world she finds immoral, distasteful and, in the deepest sense, unacceptable: her reaction to realizing that Raymond is, shall we say, shacking up with Elsa is the turning point of the film, the crossroads of comedy and tragedy. And from this point we are invited to see how, step by step, comedy turns to tragedy. What's most wonderful about this film is how diverting that progression is. The world of the French Riviera is, after all, a world of carefree bliss (at least on the surface), and we are given ample opportunity to enjoy that along with the characters in the film: a delightful casino scene (enlivened by the presence of that wonderful actor, Walter Chiari, a truly handsome man with a wonderful flair for comedy, and here, playing opposite Demongeot, particularly delightful) and a visually stunning dance at the dock, a masterpiece of costume design in delicious color and Cinemascope, worthy of a Minnelli musical (and, in its delirious scale, surpassing most of them). Finally, let me just say that the final moments of the film (and I will refrain from spoiling them) are among the most moving in all cinema: an evocation of self-loathing and emptiness that remains unrivaled in its beauty. Yes, beauty. Caveat emptor: It is useless to see this film in the pan&scan version (I have had the experience, and it is horrible). The Columbia DVD edition looks great (absolutely NO extras, by the way; it appears to have been simply dumped on the market -- odd treatment of a masterpiece). Oh, yes, my title heading: Preminger's previous films had mostly dealt with "little" events -- noirs, small comedies, etc.; most of his subsequent films ("Exodus," "The Cardinal," "Advise and Consent," "In Harms Way") with Big Events. This one is still on an intimate scale, but has much in common visually (particularly the masterful use of CinemaScope, to which Preminger took like a fish to water) with the later films.