Genre: Drama/Romance Director: François Truffaut
Writers: Henri-Pierre Roché (novel); François Truffaut and Jean Gruault (adaptation and dialogue)
Producers: Marcel Berbert and François Truffaut
Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre, Vanna Urbino, Boris Bassiak, Anny Nelsen, Sabine Haudepin, Marie Dubois, Michel Subor
Music: Boris Bassiak, Georges Delerue
Cinematography: Raoul Coutard
Distribution: Cinédis
Release Date: January 23, 1962
Love, I believe is something that is difficult to portray on film, because while passion is universal, love is different for each of us. Perhaps that is why Jules and Jim creates such polarizing reactions from viewers, because the film is very much director François Truffaut’s perspective on love. Though the film was based off of an autobiographical novel written during the days of World War I, the film doesn’t belong to the early twentieth century, but rather to the early 1960s in it’s depiction of love, passion, and existentialist angst. Truffaut’s vision of the novel on screen also belongs more to the cinema than to the literary world; such was the tradition of the French New Wave. When Jules and Jim was first screened in 1962 its cultural impact was undeniable. It’s impact on me was also undeniable, Jules and Jim is a film that changed the way I looked at how cinema was able to portray emotion and ideas, and it also changed the way I looked at my own life. This analysis will probably be more personal than the past reviews I’ve written, but that’s only because Jules and Jim is a film that means so much to me.
Unfurling in the years before and after World War I, Jules and Jim tells the complicated story of the friendship of the Austrian Jules (Oskar Verner) and the Frenchman Jim (Henri Serre) who meet in Paris before the war and the love for Catherine (Jeanne Moreau). The film does tell a story, but it’s driven purely by emotion. The characters of Jules, Jim, and Catherine exist outside of time, they’re driven by human emotions, and their actions and needs are always shifting and changing. Jim is shy and awkward with women, while Jules is outgoing and exuberant, though both men are compassionate and passionate about life.. But it’s Catherine that’s the most fascinating character. She’s woman incarnate, an intellectual, emotional creature who is never sure what she wants, and though she manipulates her friends to get what she wants, she never quite does, and only winds up with guilt. Perhaps this is why the film feels so spontaneous. The plot feels as if it is an unwritten narrative unfurling itself in all sorts of exciting directions. The film at once resembles a farce not unlike a Charlie Chaplin film or a screwball comedy, and at other times its drama enters a land of romantic melancholy that reminds one of Jean Vigo’s L’Atalante, a film which greatly influenced Truffaut as a young boy.
As viewers we are swept up in the character’s emotional hurricane. Watching the film I was excited by the spontaneity of the lives the character’s led, the way the allowed their pure emotions to dictate them and how they faced the future on unknown, and despite the tragic consequences of their actions, perhaps no other film captured for me my own emotions at the time of watching the film. I admire the characters in the film, but I often wonder how I will view this film five, ten, twenty years down the road when I am older and not so susceptible to my teenage mood swings. Though perhaps it is my demographic that Truffaut intended the film to be seen by, Truffaut after all was young himself at the time, but steadily getting older. If The 400 Blows depicted his childhood, perhaps Jules and Jim was meant to depict his younger years and the relationships he embarked on. That is after all what the author of the novel Henri-Pierre Roché intended. I think it’s because of this my aunt and uncle who are approaching middle age were not able to fully appreciate Jules and Jim, their young years of spontaneity had left them behind and though the remember those years, they cannot remember the way they felt during them. And although Truffaut is a romantic, he isn’t a sentimentalist, the tragedy in the film is on the characters own doing, and we should pity them not fawn over them.
There is a purely cinematic way with which Truffaut manages to trap so much emotion. One is his sprightly direction which skips through the years like a pebble on water creating an atmosphere of time lost. However through collaboration with cinematographer Raoul Coutard and through his own innovative devices Truffaut creates so much visual poetry. He uses all of the devices at his disposal such as jump cuts, long takes, tracking shots, still pictures, stock footage, narration, etc… to weave his poetry, and he makes no effort for there to be consistency in his use of cinematic technique, though the film takes on a slower and more somber appearance as it progresses. The visual style though captures so much; Truffaut has this uncanny ability to capture raw emotion on film in a distinctly cinematic manner. How fortunate we are the Truffaut shot the film in black and white, it’s so soft and poetic, and though the events in the film are complex, the visuals remain in pure black and white, and the images he captures with them stir so much up in the viewer.
The acting in the film is fantastic throughout. Jeanne Moreau casts a fiercely sensual presence. She is the archetypical New Wave female, a woman who seduces with her intellectual ability rather than with her body (though I don’t think anyone is denying that Moreau is a beautiful woman). She is able to speak so much using her face, and she delivers her dialogue in constantly shifting tongues. Oskar Werner and Henri Serre are both fantastic as Jules and Jim themselves. Oskar Werner always has this sad, wistful look on his face, he slips into the role of the awkward Jim quite comfortably. The supporting cast is all fantastic, they really bring their all into the film especially the little girl Sabine as Jules and Catherine’s daughter, and she’s just so adorable.
Jules and Jim is a film that remains after almost fifty years as fresh and exciting as it did when it came out. It’s a film that exists outside of time, and with the ability to tap into the consciousness of any generation. Truffaut never did anything this masterly again, but maybe he knew Jules and Jim couldn’t be topped. It remains one of the few perfect films I have seen, and one of the few films that I feel a part of emotionally, because I am made a part of the story. See this movie and experience these feelings for yourself.
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