Moderato cantabile

Moderato cantabile (1960) was shown in the U.S. with the title Seven Days . . .Seven Nights. Peter Brook directed this French film, and Marguerite Duras adapted her novel for the screen. (Note that IMDb has the film listed with its U.S. title, although the VHS uses the original French title, and lists the date of release as 1959.)

The plot of the movie is somewhat basic. A beautiful woman leads a banal life as the trophy wife of a town's leading industrialist. Her only pleasure is her interactions with her son, Pierre, who is about seven years old. (The title Moderato Cantabile comes from the son's piano teacher, who is trying to get him to understand the concept.)

Within the first few minutes of the film, a horrible scene occurs in a bar right next to the piano teacher's home. For the rest of the film, the plot keeps circling back to discussion that event. We assume something bad is going to happen, although we don't know what.

Jeanne Moreau plays the wife, Anne, and Jean Paul Belmondo plays Chauvin, someone who works in her husband's factory. They meet and discuss the event, and then we watch their relationship unfold.

This would be just another black and white French film from the 1950's, except that it stars Moreau and Belmondo. Belmondo is a formidable masculine presence, with his high cheekbones and his broken nose. Moreau is unique--certainly one of the great actors of the 20th Century.

Director Brooks knows that when he is working with Moreau he is working with an extraordinary actor, and he lets us know that he knows. In one scene, there's a single image of Moreau's face that fills the screen. That single image is on the screen for almost 30 seconds! Those large eyes and downturned mouth are a part of French and worldwide cinematic culture.

I want to make note of Didier Haudepin, who plays Moreau's son, Pierre. He's an extraordinary child actor, because he looked as if he weren't acting. He had a major role in the movie, but it appeared that he was just a normal kid who didn't like piano lessons. It's hard for an actor-- especially a child--to look as if he weren't acting. Haudepin managed it, and it's no surprise that he went on to have an outstanding career in film.

We saw this movie on VHS cassette, but it's available on DVD. It's an excellent film, and definitely worth seeking out and viewing.

P.S. We became interested in Moderato Cantabile because years ago we acquired an original movie poster of the film. We eventually donated the poster to the excellent Little Theatre in Rochester, NY. If you attend The Little, you'll see it prominently displayed. Our thought to ourselves was--you've seen the poster, now watch the movie!

for the Duras's atmosphere. for the lead actors. for the story, landscapes, dialogs, the piano lesson or for its end. for the illustration of a state of soul as result of a mixture of sin, fear, high expectations and fall. a film about a woman and a man. all in simple manner presented. a town. and few meetings. and level of dark revelation. a film of silhouettes and silence. and it is enough for discover an universe who could be part from yourself. a film about choices. and about a strange form of music. Jeanne Moreau is not a surprise. Belmondo is the perfect choice despite the expectations about other actor if you read the novel. the result - not comfortable but good occasion for reflection. about love. and about versions of Madame Bovary.

In a small provincial town that time neglects, two lost souls meander round quite circumspect, an imperceptible entwine, fading in and out of time, both longing for a moment to connect. One is captured in a marriage like a fly, cocooned inside a coffin left to die, the other, isolated, all his options firmly gated, unable to remove the bonds that tie.

Once again, Jeanne Moreau delivers a performance few other actors could have managed, both then and now, more than ably supported by a sullen Jean-Paul Belmondo, they both leave you wishing they were alive in a more modern world, where tradition and fear of the institutions that bind them have all but vanished, and they can be who they want to be. Although without those shackles the connections may well have been quite different.

Jeanne Moreau is with her son at a piano lesson. A fuss in the street alerts her that something is going on in the street. A woman has been killed in a nearby bar. She goes there and meets Jean-Paul Belmondo, who witnessed the event. They begin a brief affair.

Under the direction of Peter Brook we get one of Mlle Moreau's typically fine performances. The story, however, is very slight. We are to see the emptiness of her life, her indifferent husband, and his dull business associates at their haute-cuisine dinners, her lack of connection to anyone save her child. Her concern with the murder is an obvious issue, with its concerns about the evanescence of life. Yet that soon evaporates. Her inability to connect to another adult save through sex renders her as shallow as the dinner guests. The audience is held in suspense, hoping she will achieve something deeper.

Peter Brook acquired the rights to the successful Nouveau Roman 'Moderato Cantabile' from author Marguerite Duras as a vehicle for Jeanne Moreau with whom he had worked on stage in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'. Brook's previous film 'The Beggar's Opera' had hardly been a resounding success which made it difficult to get funding for this latest venture. However, thanks to the Herculean efforts of producer Raoul Levy the necessary funds came through. Levy and his backers must surely have been disheartened by the films failure outside of France. Such a pity also that the film became lumbered with the ghastly alternative title of 'Seven Days....Seven Nights', the suggestiveness of which was obviously designed to get bums on seats. Jeanne Moreau as Anne, the bored and unfulfilled wife of a rich industrialist, is attending a piano lesson at which her young son Pierre is struggling, under the stern eye of his piano teacher, to get to grips with the 'moderato cantabile' movement of a sonatina by Diabelli. They are interrupted by the blood-curdling scream of a woman in the bar next door who has presumably been murdered by her lover. Anne becomes intrigued by and obsessed with the crime and the reasons for it. She meets Chauvin, one of her husband's employees, who seems to offer an explanation and they begin what can only be described as a 'metaphysical' relationship which to Anne's despair, does not progress to the physical....... This film comes within the Golden Age for stage-trained Jeanne Moreau that began with 'Lift to the Scaffold' for Louis Malle in 1957. Her performance here as Anne is utterly mesmerising and fully justifies her being described by Orson Welles as 'simply the greatest'. As Chauvin Jean-Paul Belmondo is frankly miscast and by all accounts was bored and mystified by the whole enterprise. His instinctive talent and undeniable screen presence carry him through. Young Didier Haudepin is splendid as Pierre and would excel four years later in 'A Special Friendship', a forgotten masterpiece of Jean Delannoy. Colette Regis certainly makes an impression in her two scenes as Mlle Giraud the piano teacher. The highlight of the film is the dinner party where Anne finally cracks, the direction of which by Brook is superlative. The final scene between Anne and Chauvin also leaves a deep impression. Shot in lustrous black and white by Armand Thirard this is a compelling and haunting work the power of which lies in its restraint. Moreau's astonishing portrayal won her a Palme d'Or and the film itself marked the start of a long and fruitful collaboration with Marguerite Duras. In 2001 she came full circle by playing Duras in 'Cet amour-la'.