Moderato cantabile

This has to be one of the dullest films of the early Sixties. Remember that Godard, Malle, Truffaut and company had been challenging the traditions of story telling; the world seemed young again, and full of possibilities. Moderato cantabile has nothing of this spirit. It might have been made by an old-guard director like Clément or Delannoy (if they had decided to take a chance on a Duras script).

There isn't much energy or interest in this story: what happens in the first ten minutes is endlessly rehashed throughout the remainder. Belmondo is ill at ease here, or at least seems that way to me--there is no chance for any extroversion, exuberance or even anger from the character. Jeanne Moreau is used decoratively (Brook must have seen what Resnais was able to do with Delphine Seyrig in Last Year In Marienbad) and always looks elegant, if never really desperate or anguished. You know something's wrong when the piano teacher provides much of the dramatic interest: she's bullying the child into giving her a Diabelli sonata "moderately, with a singing feeling".

Note: I have just remembered that Clément did do a Duras script (Barrage contre le Pacifique) in 1958.

"Moderato Cantibile" was only the second film by the great British director Peter Brook and it proved, like Welles before him, that he was equally adept in either medium. It was made in France in 1960 and has now largely been forgotten, though at the time the magazine Films and Filming selected it as the best film of the year from any source and it's a masterpiece. It's also one of the most beautiful black and white films to be made in the Cinemascope format. (Armand Thirard was the DOP).

It's about a respectable,if unhappily married, woman in a grim little coastal town in France who drifts into an affair of sorts with a man from farther down the social ladder. They are played, magnificently, by Jeanne Moreau and Jean-Paul Belmondo. The oblique, brilliant screenplay is by Marguerite Duras and Gerard Jarlot from a novel by Duras and anyone remotely interested in cinema as an art-form should seek it out.

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.

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!