User reviews

In July 1839, in Yonville, the widower countryside Doctor Charles Bovary (Pierre Renoir) marries Emma Rouault (Valentine Tessier), the spirited daughter Mr. Rouault (Cahuzac) that is his patient and farmer in Les Bertaux. Emma has friction with her mother-in-law and sooner she feels bored with the simple lifestyle of her husband. Two years later, during an agricultural fair, Madame Bovary meets the womanizer Rodolphe Boulanger (Fernand Fabre) and they have a love affair. When her naive husband falls in disgrace after an unsuccessful surgery, Emma proposes to travel to Rouen with her daughter Berthe and live with Rodolphe. However, her lover sends a letter to her ending their affair and travels alone. Emma gets ill and during her recovery, November 1942, she travels with her husband to see an opera in Rouen, where she meets the young Leon (Daniel Lecourtois) that becomes her lover. When her debts with the trader Lheureux (Le Vigan) reaches eight thousand francs, Emma shall get a loan to avoid the execution of the pledge.

The original version of the tragic romance "Madame Bovary" by Jean Renoir was reduced from 210 minutes running time to 101 minutes, and this certainly explains the ellipsis in many sequences. I am not sure how the standard of beauty was in 1840s since in the present days the histrionic (that was usual in the period immediately after the silent movies) Valentine Tessier can not be considered a seductive woman like the lead role demands. But checking the article "1940s in fashion" in Wikipedia, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1840s_in_fashion), it seems that the women in those years had her shape. Therefore, Jean Renoir seems to be faithful to the period of the story in a perfect art direction. The remark about Jews in the present days would be considered "politically incorrect". When Madame Bovary meets that old man seeking a loan and pretends to cry, this scene seems to be the source of inspiration to Jane Fonda in "Klute" when she is with her client and sees the hours in her watch. This film was released on DVD in Brazil by Versátil distributor. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Madame Bovary"

Drastically reduced by more than half its length (the original cut ran for an incredible three-and-a-half hours), this is still an artfully directed but rather cold adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s famous novel which is, unfortunately, marred by unsympathetic leads; Valentine Tessier is perhaps too old for the title role and she resorts to rather extreme histrionics at particularly strenuous points in the narrative. From the rest of the cast, those who come off best are Renoir’s own brother, Pierre (playing the cuckolded Monsieur Bovary), Max Dearly (as Bovary’s anti-clerical friend) and Pierre Larquey (as Hippolyte, a man on whom ambitious country doctor Bovary operates unsuccessfully).

An undeniable sense of anti-clericalism permeates the film both through the character of Homais (who is often seen discussing philosophical aspects with the Parish Priest) and especially during the scene in which Emma tries to confide her emotional turmoil to the oblivious Parish Priest. Having already brought NANA to the screen in 1926, Renoir would adapt yet another celebrated feminist work in the following decade, Octave Mirbeau’s THE DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID (1946), a little-seen adaptation which is not only among the best films Renoir made during his wartime exile in Hollywood but which I actually prefer to Luis Bunuel’s 1964 version!

Furthermore, I have watched two other cinematic renditions of MADAME BOVARY by great directors - Vincente Minnelli’s in 1949 with Jennifer Jones in the title role (which I have recently acquired on DVD via Warner Bros.’ “Literary Classics Collection” set) and the 1991 one helmed by Claude Chabrol (whom I met very briefly at the 2004 Venice Film Festival) with Isabelle Huppert as the eponymous heroine. According to the IMDb, there are at least 11 more of them, including a German one in 1937 with Silent film star Pola Negri and two which, judging from the snippets shown on the “After Hours” programme preceding this Italian TV screening of the Renoir version, seem quite intriguing: another German production in 1969 with, of all people, Edwige Fenech(!) and one made for Italian TV with Carla Gravina.

If you haven't read Madame Bovary, it is highly recommended as it is a masterfully written, poetic, powerful and moving if also biting and unrelenting- like with the anti-clerical stuff- with a titular character that is definitely one of the most difficult literary characters to pull off, so you can understand also why it caused controversy at the time. Of the four versions(the others being the decent 2000, truly beautiful if comparatively restrained 1949-with the incredible ballroom sequence-, and the beautifully mounted if emotionally cold 1991 versions) seen so far by me, it was this one by Jean Renoir that satisfied the most. Not completely satisfying, some of the editing is clumsy but even more of a caveat is the length which is too short(an hour and forty minutes is not enough), Renoir intended for the film to be twice as long and there are times where it does show. The production values are sumptuous and doesn't have a studio bound look really, not as evocative as the later versions but there is evidence of authenticity. Renoir's photography is very clever with some angular shots and also some distant ones that show some intimacy and the sense that we as a viewer are there observing. Darius Milhaud's music score compliments the moods of the story very well, mixing the sympathetic tragedy(without being syrupy) and passion without a problem. The dialogue does show some poetry and has sparkle, something that didn't happen with the 1991 version which had the poetry but not the emotional sparkle as a result of being too faithful most likely.

The film and its script flows well and lets us get to know the characters, there is that passionate love, that Emma is not someone to easily sympathise with but also a victim of her own passions and also the ability to make Emma and her husband Charles identifiable to us and equally(and it does these the best of any of the four versions put together). The story is truncated but the content and spirit is faithful with an intensely poignant finale and the feeling of stuffy French provincial life(though the inclusion of the wedding scene may have made that come out even more strongly), the anti-clerical statements are toned down and understandably. The performances from the supporting cast are good especially from Max Dearly's unscrupulous Homais, Ferdinand Fabre's suave Rudolphe and Pierre Larquay's Hippolyte, though admittedly Daniel Lecourtis is on the wooden side as Leon and L'Heureux while still well portrayed by Robert Vigan has been more menacing in later versions(screen time maybe). But it is the two leads that dominate, Valentine Tessier is not the most attractive Emma(that would be Jennifer Jones) but she captures the coldness, passions, vulnerability, wayward flightiness and sympathy the most convincingly. Pierre Renoir, brother of Jean, is equally outstanding, he gets completely that with Charles' oafishness that he can be insensitive and a dork but also because he is mild-mannered and somewhat wronged that he is also one of the more empathetic characters in the book. In conclusion, excellent but needed a longer length to completely do this great story justice. 8/10 Bethany Cox

I used to favor Minnelli's version over Renoir's .Not anymore .The only thing which works better in the American version is the actress.Jennifer Jones is par excellence the romantic heroine ,the passionate dreamer and she's beautiful.Valentine Tessier,Renoir's lead is not attractive at all and I would go as far as to write she makes a nice pair with her unfortunate hubby (Pierre Renoir,excellent).Artistically,Tessier has moments of great acting,notably the scene in front of the church with the priest where she gives a very modern portrayal -she looks as if she 's in search of a shrink-.But physically she cannot be a romantic tragic dreamer.And, most of the time,she seems to be on a stage.

But all that surrounds Tessier is much better than Minelli's too hollywoodian adaptation.Only a French director can feel the atmosphere of a small town of Normandy,only a French director can recreate the moist landscapes of the land of the apple trees,only a French director can recreate an agriculture meeting with its awards: the scene where an old lady is awarded a medal after 54 (!) years of hard labor on the farms (a decoration which she intends to give to the vicar who in turn will celebrate a mass for her) represents all the poverty of the world and time :it's in Flaubert's book and Renoir at this stage of his career -he was at his most anarchist ,see "la Chienne" and "Boudu"- had to include it in his film.

Renoir ,better than Minnelli,understood this hatred Emma felt for the provinces.Born on a farm,she dreamed away her childhood and adolescence.Neither Minnelli,nor Renoir have depicted the wedding and it is a pity : this vulgar country celebration with its rude peasants epitomizes all that Emma despises,she who is still dreaming of a Prince Charming who will take her away.And when the Prince appears (Her lover Rodolphe Boulanger) he will betray her.

The scene of the ball in an aristocratic castle is the pivot of both the novel and the film:afterward ,Emma will never be the same.Had she inherited from some distant relative,she would have been saved .But living shut away in her own small town,in the company of a meek less-than-handsome man and some petit bourgeois such as Homais ,her only hope is to be carried off by her lover....

But her lover ,Rodolphe Boulanger,is a wealthy selfish buck:the scene in the luxury house ,where Emma begs 8,000 Francs is similar in the two versions ,although in that one,Minnelli has the upper hand ,cause his actors (Jones and Louis Jourdan) are more convincing.

Chabrol's work starring Isabelle Huppert is eminently forgettable.

Although the opening shot makes good use of mobile framing, most of the film has a more tableau feel. The sweeping pans are more tied to character psychology based on their habit of reframing and thus constructing psychological space. Angular shots (convo with clergy, faint outside window) further a sense of transcendental subject positions arranged for identification with character psychological effects. The exteriors are picturesque and painterly especially through naturalist oblique staging. There is a great depth of field and camera positions are arranged with obstructions in the mise-en-scene lending to the sense of an unobtrusive apparatus. The alternating shot scales within a scene are traditional and like Carrefour one gets a sense that this Renoir film is a hybrid of stylistic systems. Problems are compounded in this regard not simply through the film being an adaptation of Flaubert's work but also through Emma's character being so close in characterization to what we know of Dedee (Catherine Hessling). I imagine that Renoir was torn during the production of Madame Bovary. On one hand he may have felt that expressing his personal life through an adaptation that was conducive for such sentiment had a cathartic effect while on the other hand he was marring the development of his stylistics and not adequately purveying an even approach to character portrayal. The effect is that the spectator is neither fully engaged nor fully bored - creating an awkward wishy-washy response. This is not Renoir's most profound film.