L'homme qui aimait les femmes

This is one of the most interesting conceptions of a man who spent all his career and life questioning the very conception of cinema and what it meant in every moment. After the adventure of french new wave of the 60's, Truffaut matured and, to me, he started producing his more focused work. He basically produced some films which were essays on cinema, as well as autobiographical depictions of his thoughts.

So, we have a film about storytelling. A womanizer who writes the story of his life. Every woman in his life is, herself, a story. So the pleasure of being involved with a woman maps the will Truffaut has to tell a story. The fact that Morane writes all the stories, and makes one single big form (a book) with them enhances this.

The woman editor has an important role. She is the key character that Truffaut places above Morane, and she annotates and comments on the whole structure. Her remarks on Morane's book and personality may as well be taken as commentaries on the very film, and of its director. She is self-reference, she is Truffaut commenting on himself, thus adding reflexivity to the film. That's why she observes that Morane, the writer, doesn't reject the "details" others wouldn't notice, and she literally says that he is basically a storyteller. Also, she is the one who remarks the fact that Morane's funeral is the perfect ending to the story. I saw all this as reflexive annotations on the very structure of the film and, more generally, on the nature of Truffaut's cinema. He was through all his life a storyteller, and above any pleasure he took in making a film, there was the pleasure of narrating. Also he took a special interest in filming details, something i think he took from Hitchcock. The hand dialing phone numbers, or turning the pages in the address book, that sort of thing.

Morane's funeral, which opens and closes the film, gathers all the women around him. It is, like the editor (the second narrator) told, a praising of Morane's life, the recognizing of his qualities, the celebration of his life (cinema).

This and "La nuit américaine" are so far the best built films by Truffaut that i saw. Many times i think that Truffaut (and Godard!) has spent to much time around things which were not that important, like school kids discussing football teams. But in certain points, he made important contributions to the evolving of cinematic narrative. This is one of them.

My opinion: 4/5

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If this movie had JUST been about the sexual escapades of the main character, I would have hated it. After all, this is a man whose entire existence is based on bedding women--and this alone would have made a boring movie. Instead, it shows the emotional shallowness of this character and his complete inability to be close to another person--and its ultimate impact on him. He doesn't see this as a problem, but during the latter part of the movie, its impact on him becomes apparent. I particularly liked the unexpected ending. As the movie begins, it is at his funeral, so you KNOW he will die but HOW is the real interesting twist.

About the only thing I did not like about the movie was the episodic nature. Sometimes it was a little hard to keep track of all the women. Perhaps this was unintentional, as there were a LOT of women in this man's life! Of course, it did serve to illustrate his problem!!

Another terrific character driven movie, François Truffaut creates a story that makes you laugh as well as cry. Charles Denner stars as a fan of the ladies. More than that, he is in great need of woman so much that is ends up to be his doom. The movie begins at the end, with the funeral. Like Hitchcock, François Truffaut makes a cameo at the beginning as his trademark. From there, we begin to see who this man was and why is urge for women caused his death. A very sexy film for 1977, it is still as funny today than it was almost 30 years ago. Unlike American movies, it is very difficult to have a scene with just words and no action. Many scenes in the movie are one shot scenes with nothing but pages of words, words and more words. This is the movie's strong point, besides having several beautiful women. The language (not just French) in the movie is powerful to its audience. It speaks to both men and women.

Far superior than the shoddy and self promoting Burt Reynolds remake. Excellent performances and a classic. Anyone interested in NLP and Speed Seduction should watch this as it is a great reference resource of "Unconscious Competence". The guy knows what he is doing...but doesn't know how he does it. Shame the ending is given away at the start but that only compounds the deep impact the guy had on all of the women. The fact that he is over fifty gives hope for us all. I have no issue with the amount of women involved. If it was the other way around, in these so called 'enlightened' times, when women have so much focus, she would have been applauded as a woman who takes control! Pour a glass of red wine and enjoy.

Towards the end of the film, the main character, Bertrand, a singular individual obsessed with women (a lot) and literature (a little), says, in a serious voice-over at night, in a room whose only light comes from a fireplace, the very soul of the film: "Then the desire took me to read the memoirists of the last century. How should you write when you talk about yourself? How had the others done? What were the rules? I realized that there are no rules, that each book is different and expresses the personality of its author. Every page, every sentence of any writer belongs to him. His handwriting is as personal to him as his fingerprints." The film, not very easy to like at first due to its repetitive side (Bertrand remembers different women he has known in his life) and a little bland (not much happens, really), captivates and gradually fascinates by its idiosyncratic nature, by a half-energetic, half-melancholic tone which cannot be anything else than the intimate expression of the work and personality of François Truffaut, by its subtle fade to black shots emphasizing the proud independence of the main character, by its rich literary tone. This is, for me, an inferior film to the magnificent 'The Mississippi Mermaid' which successfully combined this level of inner depth with an exciting film noir storyline, but it is no less a fascinating film due to its intimate authenticity. At one point a doctor says to Bertrand: "Nothing is more beautiful than seeing the publication of a book that you have written, nothing is more beautiful. Except perhaps giving birth to a child that we carried for nine months in our womb. But we are not capable of that, well, not yet." A fade to black shot deliciously placed there underlines the beauty of this profession of faith by François Truffaut on the essential importance of artistic production. He is no longer here, but his work speaks for him...