To kill a baron too eager to Charlotte, his wife, Nicolas Philibert had to flee to America, where he made his fortune and met an heiress he wants marry. It is therefore in France, where the Revolution erupted in the meantime, Charlotte return to asking for a divorce.
After public and critical success of his first film La Vie de Chateau (for which he received the Prix Louis Delluc), Jean Paul Rappeneau thinks big. Wishing to rub his paw swirling to a more ambitious, he begins work (supported by Claude Sautet) in scenario Bride of the Year II and wants to confront a person with multiple tables available outside the troubled context of the Revolution French. The click on the tribulations of his hero will take place during historical research, the turning of a painting showing couples queuing for divorce at the town hall, this right being launched with the revolutionary regime. After much discussion upstream (Julie Christie considered alongside an enthusiastic Warren Beatty finally absent subscribers) and during the filming (in Romania with an inexperienced team, a passing of time, a disagreement Jobert / Belmondo), is out of Rappeneau all the pitfalls to deliver his most successful and spectacular.
The Bride of the Year II is somehow in the filmography of Rappeneau the second installment of a trilogy that began by La Vie de Chateau and concluded by Bon Voyage. In the latter two films, the director applied to depict a historical period French turbulent, causing his characters in a grand narrative fiction. The spirit of adventure and the adventures surf faze however, affect the precision and truth of the description of the framework. Bon Voyage and , one of the few films to take place in France from 1940 in full rout, which depicted a lucid moment of confusion that would result in Petain regime. Located in the same period, La Vie de Chateau showed indolence and the posting of the rural nobility against the plight of the country. Comedy, adventure and fast-paced happily ever come to temper the blackness of the backdrop in part autobiographical Rappeneau child who witnessed these events. 
It's the same with The Bride of the Year II makes us go further back in time at the time of the Revolution. Under the gaze of detached Belmondo, one discovers is a country with fire and sword ravaged by ideological conflict. The arrival hero's boat on the left side Nantes see strewn with corpses floating. Later, it will be a city of Nantes plagued by famine where there is suspicion of a royalist plot will be displayed. Suspicion resulting trial and condemnation as arbitrary will discover to his cost Belmondo. Not to mention the outrageous decisions like refusing wheat to the people on the pretext that it is doubtful as coming from a supposed royalist. All this occurs in the line of caustic humor (Belmondo counsel for the defense, the Rams still more to look good, great comic moment), but the virulence About the house. The description of the nobility fled the field, detached from the realities and the haughty arrogance intact are equally scathing. Voluntarily through the back Rappeneau he denounced the other two parts of his trilogy in the time of the Revolution, as always the true personalities are revealed when the wind blows from the chaos and turmoil. 
The fundamental influence of American cinema of Jean Paul Rappeneau, clearly visible in Life castle is revealed in all its glory with The Bride of the Year II . Of director's own admission, he tried to marry the breadth of westerns and adventure films of Anthony Mann and comic timing of Lubitsch. Achieved, Rappeneau be clearly none to offer the screwball comed to the French and adventures. Already as a writer, his writing had largely contributed to the speed and tone picaresque Man Ri o . During the filming of the movie complex, the producer Alain Poire tried repeatedly to cut some sequences of the script not necessarily essential to advancing the plot. Polite refusal, but determined by the person concerned, maniac of his writings, and for good reason. In Rappeneau, the script and the script (directed by upstream for the entire movie) are partitions of a symphony finds its fulfillment in the imaging. Behind the wind of madness of each of his films is a Swiss watch carefully prepared, a house of cards that collapses if one removes the lower part. In this sense, Rappeneau approximates the greatest masters of comedy (if any kind requiring despite appearances) since Wilder, a Lubitsch or Sturges did not proceed otherwise. 
The science of rhythm manifests itself in various ways in the film, starting with its astonishing brevity (only 1:35!) Given the chain vicious vicissitudes and twists. Rendered invisible by Rappeneau, the lack of real bravura playing cascades Belmondo (which entered its greatest period daredevil "Bebel) may surprise. Whenever the opportunity arises for the hero to showcase his physical (big selling point of his films at the time), plays the director of the ellipse. 
The beginning of the movie where Philibert jailed several times and will always play the ellipse for his escape. The use of the assembly is the most inventive, as when George Beller on hides in a closet before his execution. Revenue for him, the cabinet is empty. Then comes the scene where Belmondo is trapped alone in an office where he observed the window a garden of roses. 
Zooming person view brings us more and more flowers when suddenly a hand emerges in the plan to snatch a Philibert This is quietly pursuing his journey and that we have seen its climbing and descending from the window. The fact of attending would have slowed the plot and had no other interest than spectacular, needless to dwell on (I tried to show the progress of the scene shown in the last four catches). 
While the movie starts working together in this tone alert when we supplied information on the context, characters (voice off truculent and whether particular Jean-Pierre Marielle works wonders), led to one place to another in record time. Only when the main issue based on the reunion between Charlotte and Nicolas played the film condescends to slow down. While there was barely able to savor the sumptuous reconstruction before (gorgeous costumes by Marcel Ecoffier) Rappeneau offers the finest moment in the story with the party illegal in the nobility hidden in the countryside. Everything goes perfectly without any dialogue: the grace of staging accompanies the wild dance of the nobility, and the hide and seek game of glances between Belmondo Marlene Jobert, all carried very high by the romantic music of Michel Legrand who signed this one of his best scores. 
The chases, claws and slaps between the star couple are not forgotten thereafter but within a temporality less rushed. Only then, when the drama requires that the dramatic may invite itself. There will thus be entitled to a duel with swords between lecture Belmondo (obviously at ease after Cartridge De Broca) and two attackers (the balance between the clash of arms and Legrand's music is a fan again precision), then facing the dark Marquis played by Sami Frey. 
The irony may then fade and feelings explode when Charlotte so far distant melts when she thinks Belmondo death, forgetting his dreams of nobility to run at the bedside of her man. The final reconciliation amid battle epic works the same way, the context of chaotic battle between the French and British armies used to prevent the meeting of the couple (a hilarious scene in the town hall with a divorce Bebel bewildered having come relax the atmosphere in the meantime). 
For those who see in Rappeneau a filmmaker frenzy, another love story the film has made a scathing denial. Even if they reserve a beautiful intimate moment in a tree, Philibert and Charlotte do love that in the conflict (the hilarious final scene definitely support this). More romantic and literary scandal, forbidden passion between brother and sister played by Sami Frey and Laura Antonelli (for the anecdote that will couple with Belmondo movie sequel) offers a dramatic true grace and melancholy to the film. Not objectively necessary for the story (Alain Poire would once again play the squeeze on this) but the fundamental balance of the film. 
Their final scene offers a real melancholy hanging, showing the overlap side by side and exchange the knowing eye of star-crossed lovers and sad. Rappeneau the future, less rhythmic and more internalized Cyrano and Horseman on the Roof (the beautiful etsous-estimated All Fired having announced the turnaround we will talk soon here) is already taking shape in these instants. released in a beautiful collector's edition at Gaumont
0 comments:
Post a Comment