Ligações Amorosas

This hyper-cool French updating of the Laclos classic is a blast from start to (amazing) finish; its immorality can be a drag in the middle section, but there's too much fun to be had in it to abandon it for that reason. Jeanne Moreau does the full range of bad girl, and her performance alone would merit a viewing, but you can also enjoy the film for its sleek, French attitudes, its Thelonius Monk score, a handsome young Jean-Louis Tritignant, his suits, her wardrobe, and so on, forever. It's a nasty little film is some ways, but I enjoyed it immensely just the same.

Les liaisons dangereuses (1959) is a French movie co-written and directed by Roger Vadim. The film is a contemporary version of the 1782 novel by Pierre de Laclos.

Jeanne Moreau stars as Juliette de Merteuil, a beautiful but amoral woman. She lives by her own rules, which include serial infidelities and initiating seductions by one of her lovers, Valmont. (Portrayed well by Gérard Philipe.)

The target of their Valmont's seduction is Madame Tourvel, played by Annette Stroyberg. She became Annette Vadim when she married director Vadim after they met while making this movie. She was his post-Bardot sex kitten. (Unlike Moreau, she wasn't born to play the part of a virtuous young wife. She doesn't look pious or modest in the least.)

This movie has some merits--Moreau is perfect, and it's a pleasure to watch her act. Thelonius Monk composed the score, and Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers have a long set when they are playing at a wild party. There's also the famous telegraph scene, which is powerful in a horrible sort of way.

The movie takes liberties with the plot of the novel, of course, but I think it captures the essence. However, a film about decadence and deceit isn't going to cheer you up. Ultimately, I think the blame lies with the novel, not the movie. It's a story about people that we don't like, and for whom we don't care much. That pretty much sums up my thoughts of the film.

The movie has a lackluster rating of 6.9, which which I agree. I rated it 7.

The magnificent eighteenth century novel of Choderlos de Laclos has proved irresistible to film-makers and has also inspired an opera and a ballet. I would be surprised were Roger Vadim to feature on anyones list of 'great directors' but he has surpassed himself in this first adaptation which has been updated to the 1950's. Vadim has the services of two of the finest French actors in Gerard Philippe and Jeanne Moreau and has also accommodated his partner at the time, Annette Stroyberg, as the seduced and abandoned Marianne. The main difference in this version is that the two unashamed libertines Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont are not former lovers but plain old Mr. and Mrs. Valmont which serves to give their intrigues and evil machinations even greater piquancy and no doubt accounted for the films problems with the censors. The casting of Gerard Philippe as Valmont is inspired as he is able to utilise his natural charm to devastating effect whilst Jeanne Moreau's mesmerising performance has only been matched by that of Glenn Close in Stephen Frear's film. Annette Stroyberg was inevitably labelled Bardot#2 which is a little unfair. Although her Marianne does not come across as being particularly virtuous she certainly engages our sympathy and we cannot but feel for her fate. To say that Vadim caresses her with the camera would be an understatement! This was still early days of course for Jean-Louis Trintignant as Danceney but he has enjoyed a spectacular career and is still with us at ninety. Mention must also be made of Simone Renant as the cynical, worldly-wise Mme Volanges. Although pointless to speculate one wonders how Philippe's film career would have panned out had he not been so cruelly taken at the age of thirty-six. He was already under threat, as were many of his colleagues, from the New Ripple brigade and would most likely have concentrated more on theatre work. As it turned out his final role in Bunuel's 'Fever mounts in El Pao' proved unworthy of his talents but his Valmont definitely ranks as one of his best. Vadim's direction is taut and the production values excellent, not forgetting the contribution of his preferred editor Victoria Mercanton. A critical failure but a commercial success this fascinating piece bears revisiting despite its stark reminder that all is less than fair in love and war.

Among all Vadim's duds,"les liaisons dangereuses " seems to have stood the test of time better than the other "works" of the director.The reason is to be found in the cast.Gérard Philipe -though largely overshadowed by John Malkovich in Frears's version -and mainly Jeanne Moreau are earnest thespians and you cannot be wrong with them.And Roger Vailland and Claude Brulé had a good idea for the conclusion:fire instead of smallpox allows us to hear Laclos's immortal line "She's wearing her soul on her face!"

Objections to this early version -to be followed by half a dozen of them- remain:that the story should have been transferred to the sixties is eminently questionable:La Merteuil was a definitely modern original character in Choderlos de Laclos's times ;in 1960,such a woman's behavior had become banal.Vadim would do worse when he would transfer Zola's "la curée" to his era.

Proof positive that all that glittered in the nouvelle vague was not gold.

Roger Vadim's reputation as a director of erotica and his own affairs with numerous leading ladies has denied him serious attention by movie critics. Nevertheless, he did make a few prestigious efforts – mainly adaptations of famous, sometimes infamous, material: the film under review (based on the novel by Choderlos de Laclos), BLOOD AND ROSES (1960; Sheridan LeFanu's "Carmilla"), VICE AND VIRTUE (1963; inspired by the works of the Marquis de Sade), CIRCLE OF LOVE (1964; Arthur Schnitzler's "La Ronde"), THE GAME IS OVER (1966; Emile Zola's "La Curee'") and the "Metzengerstein" segment from SPIRITS OF THE DEAD (1968; based on an Edgar Allan Poe short story). I own all six of these but have watched only four so far, including LIAISONS; actually, I liked all of them – but, excluding SPIRITS, this first rendition of a scandalous classic emerges as not just the most satisfactory of the lot but perhaps the most significant in his entire oeuvre.

Incidentally, in view of the updating of the narrative from the 18th to the 20th century, the full original title is LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES 1960; tragically, co-star Gerard Philipe would not live to see that year through, as he succumbed to cancer two months after the film's September release…though he had, by then, finished work on another, namely Luis Bunuel's REPUBLIC OF SIN (1959). The source novel has been regularly adapted for both the big and small screens, especially in the last 25 years: I had earlier watched the 1988 DANGEROUS LIAISONS and the 1999 modernization CRUEL INTENTIONS, and also own the 1989 VALMONT and the 2003 DANGEROUS LIAISONS TV mini-series (coincidentally, featuring one of Vadim's former flames and VICE AND VIRTUE co-star Catherine Deneuve); speaking of Philipe, Vadim and remakes, it is interesting to note that Philipe had appeared in the original versions of two films Vadim would eventually rework, i.e. LA RONDE (1950) and THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS (1952; Vadim's would be made 10 years later where, again, he was just one of several directors involved in an anthology).

Anyway, this adaptation of French sexual intrigues makes a rather uneasy stab at equating what can be described as the perversions of the nobility (taking pleasure in corrupting the inexperienced, consequently quashing their idealized notion of love) with the amoral attitudes of the late 1950s; I say uneasy because, even if Federico Fellini's contemporaneous LA DOLCE VITA depicted a similarly decaying aristocracy, the 1960s would soon reveal that hedonism was pervasive and not tied to a certain class! That said, the plot retains its essential fascination – aided by the spot-on casting of Philippe, Jeanne Moreau (who would break out internationally soon after), Annette Stroyberg (then Vadim's wife and billed under his surname), Jeanne Valerie and Jean-Louis Trintignant; in keeping with the director's penchant for nudity, all three females mentioned shed their clothes throughout – but these scenes are extremely tame by the standards of even a decade down the line!

There are other good and not-so-good points: on the one hand, the ironic come-uppance of the central conniving pair (Philippe is killed in a fall while struggling with the otherwise mild-mannered Trintignant, after the latter finds out that the former has impregnated his girlfriend – and Philipe's own cousin! – Valerie; Moreau – Philipe's wife, who had also callously tried to break up the young couple's affair by seducing Trintignant – is facially-scarred after being engulfed in flames while trying to dispose of incriminating letters prior to the impending inquest over her husband's death); and the jazz soundtrack by Thelonious Monk (a trend popularized by Miles Davis' score for Louis Malle's LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD {1958}, also featuring Moreau). On the other hand, some of the dancing at the climactic party is 'wildly' dated but, more importantly, Stroyberg's descent into madness at Philipe's deception simply does not ring true in a modern context! For what it is worth, the film is also included in the "Wonders In The Dark" poll and I watched it appositely to mark the birthdays of its director and main female star.