Un amour de Swann

I really admire the work of Volker Schlondorff, I think he is one of the best German director nowadays with Wenders (although in a very different style). His adaptation of Proust is quite good but several things really annoyed me.

_first, the soundtrack: why using an atonal composition of Henze when Proust, who loved Wagner, filled his novel with specific musical references? It simply does not fit the atmosphere! Any chamber music of the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries would have been better!

_second, the acting: I am french and I really think Alain Delon is way overrated, he's simply mediocre. However, I really like Jeremy Irons, and Ornella Muti is usually quite good, but their dubbing is absolutely awful and ruins totally their acting! So I understand that Irons would have had a very strong English accent if he had been asked to act in french but if Schlondorff decided to shoot the movie in Paris with 90 percent of the cast being french, why in the hell didn't he choose two other french actors for the leading roles? I have nothing against English actors, on the contrary, but then, he should have shot the movie in English rather than dubbing miserably these good artists.

_Third, the movie is sometimes a little slow. Usually, Schlondorff does a much better job with the editing. If you want to discover the terrific job of this great director, you should rather see "The Tin Drum", "The Ogre", "The Handmaid's Tale" or "Death of a Salesman" before this one.

I should start by mentioning that I've never read any of Marcel Proust's works, least of all "Swann's Way" (and even if I did, something would probably be lost in translation). So, having watched Volker Schlöndorff's adaptation "Un amour de Swann" ("Swann in Love" in English), I can say that they knew exactly which kind of movie they were making. This critical look at Parisian high society of the late 1800s really wraps you in with the costumes, sets, and general ambience. The romance between an Englishman (Jeremy Irons) and a French woman (Ornella Muti) is but a window into this world.

Obviously I'd have a better sense of it had I read Proust's works. I doubt that I'll ever get around to reading Proust, given how long it takes me to get through a book. Even so, I recommend the movie if you want a look at fin-de-siècle France. It's not what I'd call a masterpiece - especially since 1984 also saw the release of "Amadeus" and "The Killing Fields" - but you should still check it out.

Who would've ever guessed that Schlöndorff, as one of the doyens of New German Cinema, would direct movies as different as this, "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum" and "Palmetto"?

For a long time I've thought that the Nobel Prize should go to a filmmaker, and who better than Volker Schlondorff. He has taken so many literary classics and turned them into fine films--Young Torless (Musil), The Tin Drum (Glass), Coup de Grace (Yourcenar), Michael Kohlhass (Kleist), The Ogre (Tournier) and many more. He has worked in Germany, France and the US and shows great ability and imagination always. This is the first film adaptation of Proust and it is wonderful in many places. The long sequence at Odette's house when an hysterical Swann goes on a rampage--looking for the source of the sound he imagines he hears--only to drive Odette into a fury as she smashes a vase is a classic of modern filmmaking. The pettiness and claustrophobia in the lives of aristocrats circa 1900 is superbly brought out. Sven Nykvist is the cinematographer (deep black night scenes, lovely) and Hans Werner Henze wrote the superb music: it's like another actor in the story; jangled, dissonant sound accompanying Swann's frantic travels through Paris.

Let's face it, Proust's monumental "A la Recherche du Temps Perdu" is probably unfilmable. The Chilean director Raoul Ruiz had a commendable shot at adapting the final volume "Time Regained" in 1999 that achieved a certain measure of critical acclaim in spite of being rather diffuse with not all the characters clearly presented. ( I think you have to know the novel well to fully appreciate it). A rather more satisfying attempt appeared fifteen years before with Volker Schlondorff's "Swann in Love". By concentrating more modestly on what is really a vignette, a novella tucked within the vast structure, Schlondorf achieved a work with a real sense of cinematic concentration. There is no Marcel, whose endless reminiscences are something of a kiss of death to film narrative and no confusingly vast set of characters to get to grips with. There is simply Swann, the man about town, his obsessive pursuit of the whore, Odette, and the characters he bumps into during the course of a short space of time and a brief epilogue some years later. It is a very free adaptation. I cannot remember the Baron de Charlus appearing much at this early stage of the novel, but, as he is one of Proust's most fascinating creations, his presence is welcome, even if John Malkovich in the later version is better cast than Alain Delon. What strikes most forcibly is Schlondorff's unflinching look at a thoroughly decadent and degenerate society. In studying only the rich he paints a portrait of the lengths they are prepared to go to satisfy hedonistic pleasure and, in the case of Swann, lust. In an amazingly frank scene he sodomises a prostitute but is obviously more interested in obtaining information about Odette from her than in what he is doing. Sven Nykvist's camera glides through salons stuffed with rich objects and people: this is a world where the poor simply do not exist. All around however are flunkies whose sole purpose in life is to serve their masters uncomplainingly. Just occasionally a look, such as the coachman Remi's, when he is ordered by Swann to drive him half the night in his pursuit of Odette, says it all.

I enjoyed this film very much. I don't know how the film works as a literary adaptation but, judging it purely as a film on its own terms, it works well as a study in sexual obsession and jealousy. Irons is perfectly cast as the fixated aristocrat but the post-dubbing, whilst seamlessly executed, is a little off-putting as it clearly isn't Irons' own voice (despite what some IMDb posters seem to believe). Irons expertly portrays Swann's social aloofness and the way in which his obsession takes over his sense of reasoning. The film is exquisite to look at (as you would expect from a film with Nykvist as the cinematographer) and Delon gives a scene-stealing performance as Swann's camp best friend. Worth watching.