From Columbia Pictures
Directed by Otto Preminger
Starring
Jean Seberg
David Niven
Deborah Kerr
Mylène Demongeot
Geoffrey Horne
Walter Chiari
Juliette Gréco
Martita Hunt
This film has always bewitched me... from the first time I saw it on its initial release until yesterday at my umpteenth viewing. Most of my attention was captured by Jean Seberg but much is left over for the stunning photography in the spectacularly beautiful south of France. I have long been intrigued, too, by the patina of charm, elegance and fun that almost hides the story's darker reality.
Autocratic director Otto Preminger bought the rights to Françoise Sagan's international bestseller of teen angst to star Seberg, his discovery, while the two of them were making St. Joan (1957). It turned out to be a bomb and threatened to destroy her fledgling career and Bonjour Tristesse was to be her saving grace. That did happen but not necessarily for the reasons Preminger had envisioned.
Preminger liked Sagan's more than casual attitude toward those who lived a decadent life on the Mediterranean and to get that across on the screen he hired noted Broadway and Hollywood writer Arthur Laurents to fashion a screenplay. He did write original works but he was a wiz at giving some sparkle to others' material. Laurents more than understood this lifestyle and Preminger knew he did which may be why he allowed the writer peace and quiet to write. I've always loved how this story played out.
Fetching 17-year old Cécile (Seberg) is spending the summer in a villa high on a hill side overlooking the Mediterranean (filmed at Le Levandou, Côte d'Azur and Saint Tropez) with her widowed, sybaritic father, Raymond (Niven), with whom she has a warm and loving relationship. One would have to be completely devoid of suspicion not to detect a teensy bit of incestuous behavior on both their parts. She usually calls him Raymond but sometimes it's Darling. With their excessive kissing hello and goodbye and goodnight and good morning, they seem more like boyfriend and girlfriend in need of keeping their Chapstick handy.
But wait. His current far younger flavor of the month, Elsa (Demongeot), is living with them. Neither she nor Raymond are confused that their relationship is anything more than a fun summer romp, which is fine with Cécile who wouldn't have it any other way. Actually the two women have become good pals.
Right here let's make a detour to comment about the use of color. It is beyond gorgeous. Rooms of the house are striking. The sea couldn't be shown more enticingly. I took note of how most characters usually wore garments of solid and beautifully contrasted colors. There's another thing about the use of color. As the film opens Cécile is telling the story of her life that summer and when she is doing it in current time, the filming is in black and white. When she goes back in time, to the villa above the sea, it is done in color.
As she tells the story (we're hearing her thoughts), she is dancing at some chic hotel. There is a glorious scene of the stylish Seberg looking over her partner's shoulder (she's actually watching the torch-song singing of Juliette Gréco warbling the title tune which translates as hello sadness in English) and the picture below is a example of the change from black and white to color.
While Cécile shares her thoughts, we are told that there was an unhappy ending to that summer and although we're not altogether sure at first what that entails, we are primed to think it has something to do with a family friend, Anne (Kerr).
Back on the Mediterranean, father and daughter don't think about much more than having a good time. They and Elsa spend a lot of time at their bathhouse (covered overhead but otherwise open and breezy with sofas for... um, lounging), which is at the water's edge and a few minutes' walk down the path-lined side of the hill. Cécile has come on to a neighbor boy, Philippe (Horne) and they soon want to emulate the hijinx of Raymond and Elsa.
Then Cécile learns that her father has invited Anne for a week's visit. Anne, we're told, is a longtime friend of Raymond's late wife but soon she and Raymond are romantically involved. Elsa moves out but stays friendly and Cécile stays put and is decidedly less friendly. Anne, a successful fashion designer, who is rather rigid in appearance and attitude and disapproves of the moral abandonment all around her, further incurs Cécile's wrath when she mothers her too much... study more, lose the boyfriend. Then Raymond and Anne advise they will marry and announce he's going to change his randy ways. The young woman decides the older woman must be out of their lives.
Getting rid of Anne simply means getting her to leave and never come back. Cécile's scheme, which involves Anne overhearing Elsa and Philippe chatting up about what an insincere scoundrel Raymond really is, goes horribly awry. Cécile gets a stab of conscience and attempts to explain her folly to Anne who is too upset to hear her. Anne drives off sobbing and plunges over a cliff.
We see that Raymond has handled grief expeditiously and we're certain Elsa is already packing her belongings for a return to the villa. We're pretty certain Cécile will feel like an accomplice to murder. Decadence becomes her and she'll probably grow up to become someone like... well maybe Jean Seberg.
Perhaps the film didn't end the way I would have preferred but after repeated viewings I just concluded it was all so French.
To some it seemed odd that a decidedly French work would star an American, a Scot and an Englishman and American critics used it as one of the arrows they would aim at the film. It didn't seem to bother the French at all but here's the thing... just like me, they had fallen head over heels in love with Seberg. She's as responsible for that short-haired look and breezy manner that became de rigueur in France in the late 50s and 60's. Despite the drubbing Seberg suffered at the hands of American critics, France couldn't get enough of her.
Two years later Seberg appeared in Breathless (some French critics called it a continuation of Cécile's life) and the French New Wave was born. It became an international sensation and Seberg along with it. Much of it is owed to Bonjour Tristesse. I always regarded it as a mirror into the inner workings of the young Jean Seberg at a transitional time in her life.
Those American critics carped that Seberg was immature and trying too hard and failing at becoming an adult. I think that was true but it was also true of Cécile so what's the problem? I thought she was perfect for the role.
Preminger harassed her more on this film than he did on St. Joan, often in front of the cast. Both Kerr and Niven took pity on her. Niven was used to Preminger's ways from working together five years earlier on The Moon Is Blue, but Kerr was shocked. She rarely spoke up negatively on film sets and was reluctant to throwing her weight around but she told Preminger his harsh treatment of Seberg was to stop, that she couldn't and wouldn't work under such conditions. Things improved.
Perhaps Kerr's pluck came from the character she was playing. This was one of her most unusual roles... starchy, humorless, bossy and I thought, she, too, was simply wonderful. Niven played Raymond well, but really, playing the over-sexed bon vivant wasn't exactly a stretch for him. Demongeot, one of France's top sexy starlets, is a delight. Handsome Horne, who'd just come off filming The Bridge on the River Kwai, should have had a bigger career. And who could sing a song about sadness any better than the perpetually sad-looking Juliet Gréco?
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| Cécile, Philippe and Anne out of beach ware and out on the town |
Kerr and Niven became life-long friends as a result of making this movie. They both immediately went into filming Separate Tables for which he would win an Oscar and she would be nominated for one. In the 1960's they would make three more films together.
It is egregious that Georges Périnal wasn't at least nominated for an Oscar for his gorgeous cinematography. I expect most cinemaphiles recall it. Georges Auric's music is letter-perfect as is Roger Furse's production design and Ray Sims' art direction. It was always interesting seeing what the imaginative Saul Bass would come up with for opening titles.
I am pleased to have read that we've come a long way since 1958 and that perhaps Americans have given the film another look and have come away with opinions a little closer to what Europeans saw.
I've always thought the most likely reason for the critical carping was Preminger himself. He annoyed Hollywood. He was considered a man of some importance when he pretty much single-handedly got rid of the rigid production codes, allowing films to find their own frothy futures but it also probably all went to his shiny head. St. Joan was a bomb and the discovery of Seberg and his treatment of her were both roundly condemned. Adding to it was his outlandish behavior involving his two-time star and girlfriend Dorothy Dandridge which didn't set well with many folks for several reasons. He was not easy to work for. So, it's you, you Otto, that I blame.
You know what? I think I'll watch it again. You can see a little yourself.
Next posting:
Almost Famous V
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