Movies – The Delphine Seyrig Project – Hedda Gabler (fr)

Delphine Seyrig in “Hedda Gabler.” credit: ebay.fr

1967 featured Delphine’s appearances in Accident and La Musica, but we also mentioned the television adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, one of the landmark works of early-20^th-century naturalism in world theater. (This is a link to a full video version, directed by the talented Raymond Rouleau, but, alas, it’s only in non-subtitled French.)

Hedda Gabler is the only daughter of the late, great General Gabler, a revered local military hero and widower, who left her a beautiful pair of pistols and, seemingly, not enough else. While considered quite a catch for well-to-do suitors, Hedda demurred in characteristically haughty fashion until that internal “spinster / old maid” alarm went off in her head and she chose George Tesman as her husband. A practical choice, Tesman is a well-regarded academic and a real nice guy, but Hedda quickly sours on Tesman’s dry, middle-class demeanor and his dowdy and pious elderly aunts. Returning from their honeymoon abroad to Christiania (now Oslo), which Tesman used as a research tour, they move into the spacious house that George has recently purchased. He could barely afford it, but Hedda admired it, and he got a bit of financial help from his good friend Judge Brack, another cagey and influential local dignitary. Tesman is in line for a good job as well – as a full-time professor at the local university. He’s putting the finishing touches on a manuscript he hopes to publish (“publish or perish…”) that will seal the deal, thanks to his recent honeymoon sabbatical.

Delphine Seyrig and Pascale de Boysson in “Hedda Gabler.” credit: ebay.fr

Coincidentally, another local acquaintance of the Tesmans’ pays a visit – Mrs. Thea Elvsted. Thea is an old schoolmate of Hedda’s, and may have been involved with George long ago. She took a position in the country as a governess to a local rural sheriff and his two children. When his wife passed away, Thea married him. As the kids got older, Thea hired Eilert Løvborg to tutor them. Eilert is a contemporary of George’s, quite brilliant, but he’d fallen into disgrace because of his nasty temperament, louche indulgences and drinking issues. Thea has sent congratulatory flowers along to George and Hedda upon their honeymoon return, but also brings news that Eilert has cleaned up impressively, is fully reformed, and has just published a well-received study himself. Thea wants to help Eilert re-ingratiate himself with the old crowd in the city, and stay sober, with the Tesmans’ assistance and blessing, but George and Hedda see him as competition for the university post. Judge Brack comes by for a visit as well, voicing his own concerns that Løvborg will throw a wrench into George’s ambitions. Since Judge Brack has extended so many favors to the Tesmans, he subtly but unmistakably warns then to keep their belts tight for the near future. In an extended dialogue with Hedda (the start of the play’s second of four acts), it’s obvious he’s intent on wielding considerable power over the Tesmans’ fates, and the fetching Hedda most specifically.

In the early evening, Judge Brack swings by to collect Tesman for a bachelors’ party the Judge is throwing. He’s also there because Eilert will be stopping by, to be joined by Mrs. Elvsted. Eilert seems great, clear-eyed and confident. He dismisses his recent book as a piece of fluff he knew everyone would like – the real deal is his newest book, and he’s brought along his manuscript of it along to run by Tesman. But, invited to Brack’s party, he declines, and chooses to stay there with Thea and Hedda. While Brack and George have drinks in the parlor, Hedda sows malicious disruption in the front room by assuring Thea that Eilert is capable of reforming, despite her numerous nervous doubts earlier in the day. This pokes Eilert’s thin pride and ego, and he recklessly toasts a sudden drink or two to Thea’s “high opinion” of him. He recovers, and apologizes to Thea, but he’s now emboldened to go to Brack’s party and show everyone he’s a new man. And the three of them strike out for the evening.

The results of the evening are predictably tragic. The real fabric of the play isn’t an inexorable march to disaster, but how, exactly, each of these people look to themselves and manipulate each other to gain their own advantages. George Tesman is as honest as the day is long, but Hedda, Judge Brack, and, to some extent even Thea, have no qualms about throwing others to the wolves if it benefits their own cause. Eilert Løvborg is an intriguing character at first glance, but his baser appetites appear close to the surface in surprisingly short time. He doesn’t have a chance against Hedda’s machinations, and is doomed to fail as one of Thea’s last hopes for redemption, his and her own. Judge Brack is as smooth a villain as any actor would want to portray, and if anyone “wins” the play’s war of attrition, it’s him.

Laurent Terzieff and Delphine Seyrig in “Hedda Gabler.” credit: picclick.fr

I watched a few different versions of the play – in our media-fevered DVD, TV and streaming days there are surprisingly few available. There’s a very good Ingrid Bergman from 1963, with Michael Redgrave (Tesman), Ralph Richardson (Brack) and Trevor Howard as Eilert on YouTube. YouTube also has Diana Rigg’s Hedda Gabler from 1981 – it’s in eleven parts there, but if you’re disposed to downloading, it’s not tough to find. (*Not An Endorsement…*). Alan Dobie’s Judge Brack there is noteworthy. Maddeningly, the best filmed version is the Glenda Jackson / Trevor Nunn Hedda from 1975. Jackson is superb, and received a Best Actress Oscar nomination, but no one has bothered to preserve it on DVD. There’s a smeary, gauzy VHS rip one can unearth on the internet, (YouTube, of course), but, trust me, it’s unwatchable. Nunn keeps things very theatrical – the interiors include obviously scene-painted trompe-l’oeil elements, and it was shot by the great Douglas Slocombe. It’s crying out for restoration.

Delphine’s portrayal is a bit calmer, quieter, more focused than the imperious-yet-elegant Bergman, the cagey and clever Rigg and the commanding Jackson. No less indulgently provocative, no less self-serving, Delphine’s Hedda is all about persuasion, and convincing others that her indulgences are all their idea – Pascale de Boysson’s Thea is consistently wary of Hedda, but plays along nonetheless. Laurent Terzieff is probably my favorite of the Eilerts, veering unpredictably between smooth charm, convincing self-possession, indignant disappointment and self-loathing despair. French speakers are avidly encouraged to check it out.

Movies – The 400 Blows

Jean Pierre Leaud in “The 400 Blows.” credit: institutfrancais-nigeria.com

One of the great coming-of-age films of our modern era, François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups) (France, 1959) brings a far more personalized narrative style to film. Truffaut, as an acolyte of the great film critic André Bazin and an accomplished critic himself, railed against the theatrical pretense of mainstream French films, the “Quality Tradition” of the late forties and fifties. Eschewing elaborate linear narratives, melodramatic acting performances, hidebound and prosaic photographic strategies and ostentatious art direction, Truffaut’s debut film is semi-autobiographical, and streamlines the narrative to his protagonist’s direct experiences. All we know of his objective life – his school, his Paris neighborhood, his family – we only learn as he himself encounters and passes through it.

“He,” of course, is Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud), as reliable a love-addled recurring cinematic character as has been invented. Here, in The 400 Blows, he’s about 14-years-old, living with his mother and stepfather in a tiny Paris walk-up apartment. The 30-minute short film Antoine And Colette, one of five episodes by five different directors in Love At Twenty (France, 1962), features Antoine at 17, infatuated with a music student (Marie-France Pisier) who isn’t all that interested in him. Stolen Kisses (France, 1968) finds Antoine dishonorably discharged from the military, but still pursuing his heart (and libido) in awkward-but-good-hearted fashion. Antoine has married in Bed And Board (France, 1970), but is getting divorced in Love On The Run (France, 1979).

Truffaut (and his talented cinematographer, Henri Decaë, behind the camera for many landmark French films of the 50s through the 70s) opens the film with a low-angle collage of apartment buildings, workplaces and warehouses, with nary a glimpse of city streets, but nonetheless featuring the Eiffel Tower looming over all – the hive rather than the city itself. The Paris of Parisians. Young Antoine Doinel is where he should be – in school, though he’s not thrilled. A sexy pin-up photo circulates around the classroom (the school is definitely not co-ed), and he can’t help the urge to draw a moustache on her. The teacher, “Sourpuss,” (Guy Decomble) catches him and puts him in the corner. Antoine then poetically documents his unfair treatment on the schoolroom wall. After another upbraiding or two, Sourpuss then gives him an assignment: conjugate the phrase “I deface the classroom and abuse French verse” in indicative, conditional and subjunctive tenses. Antoine probably can, but we’re catching on to him, and it’s no surprise that he doesn’t. Not having the work for the next day, he skips with his pal René, visits the cinema, the pinball arcade and a carnival, and sets into motion a series of evasions, denials and mistruths that will eventually lead to his forced estrangement from both friends and family.

Jean Pierre Leaud in “The 400Blows.” credit: notanotherremake.wordpress.com

Antoine nicks small bits of money from his parents, and can scarcely believe his ears when his fellow students admit that they don’t. One of them has a brand-new pair of motorcycle goggles that will later be passed around the classroom and destroyed – no teacher witnesses that, oddly. Antoine’s father can’t find his Michelin guide… mysterious; he belongs to the Lion’s Club, and races rally cars on weekends, but we have no idea what he or his wife do for their meager living. Antoine sees his mother kissing another man while playing hooky. Mom tries to bribe Antoine into applying himself to his schoolwork more diligently, so he plagiarizes his idol, Honore de Balzac. Antoine sees it as a tribute, an homage, a display of his intelligence and good taste. Sourpuss, of course, disagrees, and suspends him for the rest of the semester. Not interested in facing that music, Antoine runs away from home, crashing at his buddy René’s place where he plays backgammon and smokes René’s father’s cigars. He steals a typewriter from Dad’s office to sell for living money, gets double-crossed, and is arrested when he tries to return it.

But Antoine’s not just a grumpy little aspiring criminal. Antoine’s demeanor is both antic and serious-minded, beleaguered but undaunted; he has genuine fun out with Mom and Dad to the movies, even though he knows they’re not particularly interested in having him around on a regular basis. And Truffaut keeps delivering little episodes of slapstick to keep things animate: one of Antoine’s classmate’s struggles manfully with a pen and inkwell; exercising students making their escape from the gym teacher leading them on a jog through the city (a tour de force sequence for Decaë); Antoine and René shoot spitballs at pedestrians from a rooftop. Adolescence is hard, and family dynamics are tricky, but fun is where you find it.

Claire Maurier, Jean Pierre Leaud and Albert Rémy in “The 400 Blows.” credit: curzonartificialeye.com

The 400 Blows is one of those films that fans can revisit every few years and find something new. It’s engaging and amusing, but Truffaut takes Antoine’s growing pains quite seriously. In Antoine’s struggles, awkwardness and self-possession, it’s easy to recall our own disparate experiences, and what they nonetheless have in common, miles and years away. The last moments have Antoine running away from the “Observation Center” (we’d call it The Boys’ School, or Juvie), by himself, through a rural pathway to a beach, then across the beach to the edge of the water. He arcs away, walks towards us, stares directly at the camera, and Truffaut freezes that last look on Antoine’s face. There are chapters and chapters of stories in that young man’s face – we’re lucky that François Truffaut got to tell us five of them.