•BETTY BLUE C atapulted to fame and glory by the cute and perhaps overrated Diva (1982) and then mercilessly (if not vindictively) shot down for his self-indulgent but largely m isunderstood The Moon In The Gutter (1983), director Jean-Jacques Beineix, in the space of only two films, has experienced both extrem es of filmm aking — its joys and its tears, but m ore im portantly, its lures and its traps. Yet, Beineix is a gam bler, and if the suc cess and fiasco of his two previous films somehow m iraculously neutralise each other, his third film, Betty Blue (37°2 Le Matin) allows him to start from scratch again, learn from his mistakes and . . . take another m ajor risk. Based on a novel by Philippe D jian, Betty Blue is B eineix’s m ost m ature and subdued film to date. R ecapturing the flair of Diva and the beauty of The Moon In The Gutter, and devoid of the coquetry and artifice that encum bered both films, it goes straight to the point, touches and troubles and consequently provokes. T he subject: a love story, with its two classical and fundam ental elem ents, a couple and an adventure; a microscopic study of obsessive love. T he story deals with the heady relationship between 3 5 - y e a r - o ld Z o r g ( J e a n - H u g u e s Anglade), who would be content to spend the rest of his life eating chilli, m aking love and painting beach huts, and 20-year-old Betty (Beatrice Dalle), vulnerable and wild, m arked with a passion for passion. As m uch as Zorg seems encrusted in his peaceful and routine lifestyle Betty refuses to make any com prom ises. O ne day she comes across a pile of little black notebooks filled with Z org’s w riting. C ertain that she has discovered the greatest w riter of his generation, she is determ ined to get him published. In a rage, she sets fire to their bungalow and offers him the chance to live an adventure of sublime passion. H e accepts. From the beginning of Betty Blue, Beineix imposes the two principal traits which have undeniably becom e his trade m a rk : u n e x p e c te d n e s s a n d selfconfidence. T he opening shot shows a couple m a k in g love, slowly an d intensely. Above them , on the wall, the M ona Lisa watches with an accomplice smile. Im perceptibly, we move closer to them . T he shot lasts a long tim e and ends only after the sexual crescendo is reached before o u r eyes. A lm ost cathartic in its effect, this uninhibited display at the outset solves, in a most interesting way, the problem of nudity and sexuality on screen, so that every exposure that follows appears neither coy nor salacious. It is a scene which has no continuation in the film but one that acts as a postulate right from the start. Like a prelude, it also introduces the m ain them es: desperation and its inevit able loneliness. If Betty Blue is a m elodram a full of suspense (from the richness of the
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em otions and surprises that it provokes), it is also, in a typical Beineix fashion, a film m arked by a trem endously wicked sense of hum our — a lightheartedness which precedes the dram atic scenes as if to give them their force and to drag us m ore deeply into the gravity of the situa tions. T here is no sad or happy ending to the film but a sense of desperate hope, a feeling em bracing the painful love of life. B etty’s jo urney tow ard m adness occurs progressively and we never know at which particular point it becomes dangerous. H er fantasy is sanctioned by her m adness. Zorg goes back to w riting as Betty flounders, and he is obliged to confront the duality between w riting and love. T he ultim ate question then becomes: should one have to choose between life and art? M odern poet of derision and, u n doubtedly, representative of a genera tion, Beineix the author com plem ents m ore than adequately Beineix the tech nician in Betty Blue, constantly m ain tain ing perfect equilibrium and grace between the two. H elped by his talented leading actors, Jean -H u g u es Anglade (Z, ’Homme Blesse, Subway) and new com er Beatrice Dalle, and an excep tional cast, including G erard D arm on, Consuelo de H aviland and Jacques M athou, Beineix brilliantly composes a w ounding and lyrical fable which encap sulates the excessive passion and lack of direction of Tamour fou and ends (literally) with a poke in the eye. Is it ju st a coincidence that Betty Blue invites com parison with a certain cinem a of the sixties that dealt with m adness — m adness glorified as n o n conform ism , rebellion against society — and m ore precisely, with G o d ard ’s Pierrot Le Foul T here are parallels that can be established: between the m ain c h aracters, F e rd in a n d /Z o rg , M arianne/B etty; between the storylines, as resignation to m ediocrity is swept away by the female presence, as couples leave one environm ent for another. A nd in the fascination with A m erica, and the relentless bleakness of its vision, Betty Blue (and for that m atter, B eineix’s cinem a), presents a considerable reevaluation and reassertion of a cine m a t i c l a n g u a g e f a s t b e c o m in g redundant. However, this is not to imply that Beineix’s film should be con sidered the beacon of its times to the same degree as G o d ard ’s; yet its acute reflection of its generation cannot be underestim ated. Norbert Noyaux BETTY BLUE (37° LE MATIN): Directed by JeanJacques Beineix. Executive producer: Claudie Ossard. Screenplay: Jean-Jacques Beineix. Based on the novel by Philippe Djian. Director of photography: Jean-Francois Robin. Art director: Carlos Conti. Music: Gabriel Yared. Editor: Monique Prim. Cast: Beatrice Dalle (Betty), Jean-Hugues Anglade (Zorg), Consuelo De Haviland (Lisa), Gerard Darmon (Eddy), Clementine Celarie (Annie), Jacques Mathou (Bob). Production company: Constellation Production/Carqo Films. With the participation of the Centre National de la Cinemato graphic (Ministere de la Culture). Distributor: Fox Columbia. 35mm. 121 minutes. France. 1986.
HEARTBURN: Meryl Streep occupies the foreground,
•HEARTBURN Heartburn, the m ovie, is the last stage of a process, a publicity ju g g ern au t that has lum bered along ever since it was announced in gossip colum ns that N ora E phron, jo u rn alist and author, was writing a novel; a ‘fictional’ work about the affair that her husband conducted while Ephron was pregnant with their second child. T he husband was C arl ‘W atergate’ Bernstein. T he other w om an was the daughter of a form er British Prim e M inister and the wife of the then British am bassador to the U S (him self the brother of the co-writer of Yes Minister)-, details that helped to m ake this tale of high infidelity all the m ore tantalising. So if you’ve seen the articles on the book, the interviews with Bernstein, with the actors, if y o u ’ve read the book . . . see the film. See Jack Nicholson and M eryl Streep confer their own p a r ticular form of celebrity on the already celebrated B ernstein and Ephron (or M ark Form an and Rachel Sam stat, to give them their m ovie nam es). These layers of expectation m ake it difficult to see the film as a separate entity from the book, if this were desir able or possible. E ither way, for m any reviewers, the film has been a letdown. It has been declared Not As F unny As The Book, M eryl Streep described as Not Jew ish Enough, and Jack N ichol son’s perform ance has been com pared to his work in The Shining, where he posed rather a different kind of threat to the stability of family life. C ertainly there is som ething m ore sober and slow-paced about the film. It adopts a strictly chronological narrative structure, while the book began with the revelation of the affair, m oved around in tim e, and was interspersed with recipes — a touch that hit an extraordinarily responsive chord in readers. Recipes in New Idea are ju st recipes, but Lillian H eilm an’s pot roast in the m iddle of a novel: what daring. T he book’s sometimes wisecracking, sometimes despairing, always conversa tional snap and crackle m ade the reader into an intim ate, a confidante. In the film, we observe Rachel from a distance. At the same tim e, a sort of first person perspective is m aintained: we get R achel’s story, R achel’s version but not