Tuesday, February 27, 2018
423 - The Man Who Loved Women, France, 1977. Dir. Francois Truffaut.
You can't make love all day.
That's why work was invented.
So says Doctor Bicard as he prescribes our man Bertrand Morane his remedy for gonorrhea.
Doctor Bicard says he understands. He was young once. When he was young he was never allowed to eat an entire bar of chocolate. He grew furious. He vowed that as an adult he would eat all the chocolate he wanted. At every meal. He did. He came down with jaundice.
Morane is just going through the same learning experience. If he controls his appetites he will get better too.
Therefore, the doctor prescribes him, along with his medication, a diet devoid of alcohol, especially beer, no carbonated mineral water, and of course no copulating.
Then he hands him a book he wrote himself. The Evolution of Trout Fishing. That ought to keep you company in your time of convalescence.
But Doctor Bicard clearly does not know our man Bertrand Morane. Bertrand is a bit . . . high strung.
What the doctor does not realize is that Morane is not a player. Or as they would say, a ladykiller. Morane says so himself. He says he hates those kind of men.
He is looking for love.
He has a lot of love to give.
And he is looking for someone to give it to.
Only once did he get pulled into making a woman believe he was invested in her future when he was not. And he hated how it felt. And he vowed never to do it again. So in all of his searching, he seeks always to tell each woman the truth. If he is drawn to her, he says so. If it is not working out, he says so.
We have been with Bertrand now for half of the movie. And we have discovered that he is not a mere skirt-chaser. Although he is unsure himself. He is on a perpetual quest to understand himself. To understand others. To understand what it means to be human.
And in the process he is surprisingly transforming into an author.
When he falls for someone, he goes to any length to get her. Or in some cases, even to find her again.
Any length.
Perhaps Morane will finally find what he is looking for. One thing is for sure. He will spend the rest of his life trying.
* * * * *
To write, to express yourself, is also to expose yourself to judgment. The typist's condemnation of my book was all the more painful because it was done with kindness. My first reader had blacklisted me. At first I stopped writing. I lost interest in everything. Then I began to read nineteenth-century autobiographies. How do you write about yourself? How did others do it? What were the rules? - Bertrand Morane.
Doctor Bicard is played by the legendary Jean Daste, who began his film career back in 1932.
We have seen him in Jean Renoir's Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932), Jean Vigo's Zero for Conduct (1933), Jean Vigo's l'Atalante (1934), and Jean Renoir's one and only La Grande Illusion (1937). He also appeared in Costa-Gravras' Z (1969), Francois Truffaut's The Wild Child (1970), and Francois Truffaut's The Green Room (1978).
Boudu Saved from Drowning
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/02/057-boudu-saved-from-drowning-1932.html
Zero for Conduct
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/03/073-zero-for-conduct-1933-france-dir.html
l'Atalante
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/03/074-latalante-1934-france-dir-jean-vigo.html
Grand Illusion
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/03/061-grand-illusion-1937-france-dir-jean.html
Meanwhile, Nathalie Baye plays one of the woman Morane loves, or he thinks she is one of the woman he loves. Until he meets her up close. We have seen Nathalie Baye in Francois Truffaut's Day for Night (1973) and Jean-Luc Godard's Every Man for Himself (1980).
Day for Night
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/05/126-day-for-night-1973-france-dir.html
Every Man for Himself
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/04/119-every-man-for-himself-1980-france.html
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