L'homme qui aimait les femmes (1977)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

François Truffaut

Writers:

Michel Fermaud (writer)
Suzanne Schiffman (writer)

Release Date:

25 August 1977 (Sweden)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Plot:

Many women are attending Bertrand Morane's burial. They are all the ones that 40 years old engineer loved...

Plot Keywords:

Women | Novel | Swinging | 1970s | Publisher

Awards:

4 nominations

Cast

Charles Denner	...	Bertrand Morane
Brigitte Fossey	...	Geneviève Bigey
Nelly Borgeaud	...	Delphine Grezel
Geneviève Fontanel	...	Hélène (as Genevieve Fontanel)
Leslie Caron	...	Véra
Nathalie Baye	...	Martine Desdoits
Valérie Bonnier	...	Fabienne (as Valerie Bonnier)
Jean Dasté	...	Docteur Bicard
Sabine Glaser	...	Bernadette
Henri Agel	...	Lecteur
Chantal Balussou
Nella Barbier	...	Liliane, la Karateka
Anne Bataille	...	La jeune femme à la robe frangée
Martine Chassaing	...	Denise
Ghylaine Dumas	...	La seconde employée 'Midi-Car'

Also Known As:

The Man Who Loved Women (USA)

Runtime:

120 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White | Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M (DVD rating) | Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16 | France:U | Singapore:NC-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Montpellier, Hérault, France

Company:

Les Films du Carrosse

Trivia:

Director Cameo: ['Francois Truffaut']man outside cemetery at the beginning of the film.

Quotes:

Bertrand Morane: So was it truly impossible to feel any pleasure, without hurting somebody?

Movie Connections:

References The Barefoot Contessa (1954)

A really good movie about a man who was just crazy about women.

This movie is just wonderful, a kind of masterpiece as for its construction, its dialogues and the actors' performances. The first image sets the scene very clearly : Bertrand Morane's burial attended only by women. No guys in the funeral procession. Twenty or so lovely middle-aged females are following their (former) lover's last trip. One of them, Brigitte Fossey, Bertrand's last girlfriend, comments, from backstage, on this unusual situation and explains, incidentally, what the film 's gonna be : a flashback to Bertrand's life. How does she happen to know about it ? Thanks to Bertrand's book she has recently edited for him and called "The man who loved women" (passed tense works here as a premonition). The author describes his passion for women and focuses on some of them. Inspired directly from the Bertrand's life (and from the director's life as well), his narrative is informal, genuine, sometimes contradictory but never pedantic nor rude. He remembers his love affairs, his bad and good times, and, most of all, tries to express his feelings to such an extent that is story must be seen as an auto-analysis, the writer's personal attempt to understand his personality rather than a woman chaser's curriculum vitae. Come to that, Charles Denner, the lead, shows us very well that his character's everything short of a sexist and self-confident womanizer. He fell in love once, but this experience turned out to be a real disappointment. Now, he feels as if he were unable to love anymore. So, he's `collecting'. He may have shortcomings, he may have fun picking up beautiful girls wherever and whenever he can, he may not be the kind of faithful and steady guy a good many girls usually like, his behavior might be considered as outrageous by some, the thing is he's a sensitive, affectionate, simple and nice person who knows how to make women happy and comfortable. Each mistress's chosen for a particular reason, a physical standard (behavior, way of walking, voice..) but all share one thing : they have long, smooth and attractive legs. All in all, `The man who loved women' is a mighty good film, worth watching it.