Since we must sadly acknowledge the decease of the very magnetic Anouk Aimée who passed away on June 18, 2024, let us console ourselves by rewatching a monument of French cinema: “A Man and a Woman”.
The movie, directed by Claude Lelouch, wins the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1966 and the Oscars for Best Foreign Film and Best Original Screenplay in 1967.
However, the making of the film follows a difficult period for Claude Lelouch. Absolutely depressed by the resounding failure of his previous film “The Grands Moments” in 1965, he decides to flee Paris and drives recklessly towards Deauville. On the beach, he sees from a distance a woman who seems very beautiful accompanied by a little girl. He does not accost her but begins to imagine the life of this beautiful stranger and writes down the plot of what will become the scenario of “A Man and a Woman” in three hours at a local café.
The story is simple: a man, Jean-Louis, meets a woman, Anne, in Deauville thanks to their respective children who are in boarding school there. Anne missed her train to return to Paris and Jean-Louis offers to take her home by car.
Do you often miss your train?” “Yes, quite often.”
He is a race car driver, she is a script girl but the misfortune of widowhood brings them together and sadness and loneliness inhabit them. They attract each other, seduce each other, repel each other, love each other and this nascent love fights against their respective bereavements.
Claude Lelouch wants to tell a “love story like there is in life and not like there is in movies”. In fact, great latitude is left to the actors, whose spontaneity bursts. To play Jean-Louis, Claude Lelouch’s choice immediately falls on Jean-Louis Trintignant – who shares his first name with his character but also his passion for automobiles – but the same is not true for the main actress: the director suffered a rebuff from Romy Schneider and it is Jean-Louis Trintignant who proposes the name of Anouk Aimée to play Anne.
Unlike the film’s director and lead male actor, Anouk Aimée is already a star and a New Wave icon, having starred in Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” and Demy’s “Lola.” She arrives on a very low-budget movie set, with a small crew of ten people, which flirts with amateurism. Due to an obvious lack of resources, the filming is completed in three weeks – the average at the time being more like eight weeks – and the black and white film alternates with the color film – Lelouch not having the money necessary to produce the entire film in color.
Anouk Aimée finds love in the arms of Pierre Barouh who plays her deceased husband in the movie– and who writes the lyrics of the now world-famous song, “A Man and a Woman” whose onomatopoeic suite “Dabadabada” has surprisingly been transformed in “Chabadabada” without us really understanding why.
Moreover, the movie score, which includes many other songs signed by the composer Francis Lai and performed by Nicole Croisille and Pierre Barouh, is wonderfully delicate.
This musical delicacy is perfectly consistent with the delicacy of the images shot by Claude Lelouch, which highlights the fleeting nature of moments, thoughts and trivial gestures which nevertheless carry the promise of imminent happiness. His actors’ improvisation matches this love story born by chance, nourished by spontaneity, torn by conflicting feelings but ultimately blossoming in resilience. The very beautiful love scene focused on Anouk Aimée’s face wonderfully illustrates the range of contradictory feelings that permeate this new and fragile love.
I absolutely do not agree with certain feminist analyzes which state that the film locks the two protagonists into very gendered roles. According to these analyses, Anne is given the emotional domain and passivity while Jean-Louis is very masculine in his proactivity and nonchalance. Let’s not forget that the movie was shot in 1966 and that the standards have changed a little, that Anne, contrary to these analyses, has a visibly fulfilling professional life, is independent and is the one who decides to give a new dimension to a budding flirt – and she does it in a particularly strong way. In my eyes, she is a woman whose agency is intact.
It’s beautiful to send a telegram like that, you have to have some nerve. It’s extraordinary that a beautiful woman would send you a telegram like that, it’s wonderful. How brave.”
Jean Louis
Claude Lelouch will direct two sequels to “A Man and a Woman” in 1986 and 2019, which are, in my opinion, absolutely forgettable.
Let’s stick to the delicacy and fragile beauty of the first movie, whose poignant music of feelings remains in mind for a long time.
Editor’s note. Here I am in a Dior prototype dress, made for the French film “3 Hearts”, in which a Parisian man misses his train and meets a woman. I think I detect in the first lines of dialogue of this film a nod to “A Man and a Woman”: “I missed my train. I often miss my trains.”
Dior prototype – Prada shoes – Chloé purse – Chanel sunglasses
July 26, 2024
