398 Les enfants terribles

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miless
Joined: Sat Apr 01, 2006 9:45 pm

#51 Post by miless » Thu Jul 26, 2007 1:00 am

I was wondering if anyone has noticed how light the subtitles are? (they're a very translucent grey)

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Luke M
Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:21 pm

#52 Post by Luke M » Tue Aug 07, 2007 2:08 am

Am I crazy or is this shot from Criterion's website NOT in the movie?

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indiannamednobody
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#53 Post by indiannamednobody » Tue Aug 07, 2007 9:34 am

What I remember is them going into the bathroom together and the doors close without showing them there again. Maybe thats a production still?

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Michael
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#54 Post by Michael » Tue Aug 07, 2007 11:51 am

I watched it the other night and I didn't like it a bit. Stiff, tedious, stale. Coming from Melville and Cocteau, I expected more and now trying to remember a thing from the film, nothing jumped to my mind. Not good.

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domino harvey
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#55 Post by domino harvey » Tue Aug 07, 2007 12:28 pm

Michael wrote:Not good.
I didn't want to be the first dour voice here, so I'm glad you chimed in. I have the BFI DVD and this film is easily the worst from either director, I had no desire to seek any sort of upgrade once the Criterion was announced.

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jbeall
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#56 Post by jbeall » Thu Aug 09, 2007 11:30 pm

Luke M wrote:Am I crazy or is this shot from Criterion's website NOT in the movie?

Image
I was wondering about that, too. I rented an old VHS from Rutgers' library with shitty subs (couldn't see them half the time...) and figured that the VHS had been censored. And since The Dreamers has a bathtub scene, I assumed it was inspired by this one.

I'm a little disappointed to see criterion using that still in their promotion of Les enfants terribles if it's not actually in the film, but I have to agree with domino and Michael--I didn't much care for the film, either. I didn't hate it, but I certainly don't need to see it again. (BTW, I think having read Cocteau's novel makes the film better, but still not enough for me to actually like it.)

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Tommaso
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#57 Post by Tommaso » Fri Aug 10, 2007 7:04 am

jbeall wrote: (BTW, I think having read Cocteau's novel makes the film better, but still not enough for me to actually like it.)
You may have a point there, it's hard to tell for me whether I would like that film as much if I hadn't been a fan of the novel for a long time. But it's also interesting to compare "Les enfants terribles" to some of Cocteau's film work. The initial snowball fight sequence is a replay of a similar sequence (also based on the novel) in "Le sang d'un poete", for example. Whereas we get a highly symbolic/surrealist rendering of that motif in the earlier film, in this version of course it seems (seems!) to be 'realistic', but the earlier treatments in the novel and Cocteau's film seem to enhance the sequence in Melville's version, adding that mythical quality that is always there as a hidden layer in the film anyway. As already discussed in the "Silence de la mer" thread, the question of how large Cocteau's influence was on the making of "Enfants" remains still somewhat unsolved to me. I do see some stylistic similarities between Melville's version and Cocteau's 1948 film "Les parents terribles", for example. And for me it's fascinating to see how effortlessly Melville's "Enfants" fits into the canon of Cocteau's works. It may not necessarily be a major film (and I tend to admire "Silence de la mer" more), but I'd say, give it another try, and if you haven't done so yet, perhaps watch some Cocteau before.

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colinr0380
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#58 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:40 pm

I can sympathise with Michael and domino's reaction to the film, the main characters do seem to be made quite insufferable and there is a heady theatricality about the film, but that is kind of unsurprising given the Cocteau connections. However I did like it much more on a second and third viewing.

It is interesting that the character are meant to be teens but are played by obviously older actors. It gives an interesting sense of strangeness to our perspective on the story. The teenage squabbling played out by grown ups adds much more of a sense of sexuality to their fighting, as if there is more of an awareness to their games due to the actors looking old enough to understand the hidden subtexts - or to put it another way I don't get a sense of naivete in the playing of the scenes from the actors. (Also there is the interesting way that the other characters treat these "adult children" - would it be more controversial for Elisabeth at 16 or 17 marrying an older rich 'sugar daddy' than it would if the actors, at least, look like they are similarly aged? And what about the frisson of the adult actors teasing a little girl until her mother slaps her? Is it worse or better that a full grown couple are teasing her than if they were teens?) This is something that also seems to be made more apparent by the stylised surroundings and I think it is working to illustrate the larger theme of a vague awareness of desire and need but trying to push it away to the back of your mind - to not talk about it in case you are rejected or repulse others by your admission of interest.

It is part of what can make the film annoying in the way that it is one of those films where if the character's would just talk to one another, to find the courage to admit to themselves and their companions their feelings, that things would go much better for everyone.

Concerning the Dargalos/Agathe part, I thought it did not exactly work in the best way for the story to have an actress performing both the male and female objects of desire. Despite Gilbert Adair calling it "unthinkable" in his commentary (as compared to the way the age difference might also be considered unorthodox?) perhaps a male actor performing both the parts might have actually been more effective. By giving the roles to an actress it seems to give primacy to Paul being more interested in the feminine characteristics of Agathe which coincidentally bear a little bit of a resmblance to the tearaway Dalgalos whom Paul had a "boy crush" on. If the parts had been played by a man then the situation would have been much more weighted to the effect that Dalgalos played on Paul and that Agathe was a chance to recapture or recreate his unrequited (and unacceptable?) love. While it would probably have been much more controversial to have a man playing both parts than a woman, it just feels as if the film is shying away from any idea of homosexuality - which might also be able to be seen in the sidelining of Gerard, of whom the narration in the taxi scene early on suggests that he has a similarly unrequited affection for Paul. Though this is tempered by a comment about remembering how Elisabeth called him "dear", so it could come across that the film is trying to suggest that he is just a 'really good friend' to them both. :roll:

I do like the way that the incest theme isn't fully developed though - I like the idea from Adair's commentary that the way events play out it might really be better if they had committed incest, since denying it does not work out much better either! The way Paul and Elisabeth treat each other suggests there is a tension between them that is more than exasperation, there is a mutual need based on their constant companionship. Yet beyond the (rather crude!) metaphor of Paul throwing his 'milk' in his sister's face, there seems to be more of a mutual need there than a sexual interest.

Paul and Elisabeth have been given the keys to the house by first their mother and then Michael - characters who both die almost immediately upon their introduction. So the siblings have to create their own rules for living, even while they at the same time still live in rooms inside the larger apartment or house, despite seemingly being able to have the run of the place. They are haunted by the more responsible, but absentee, landlords. They also both seem to have been given validation in certain roles: Paul as the bedridden, needy invalid and Elisabeth as the harassed put upon maid to him, and they are enjoying playing their parts to the hilt!

The addition of Gerard and Agathe as a kind of surrogate family and potential lovers is interesting as they are more important in showing the way Paul and Elisabeth relate to each other than interesting in themselves. Gerard is most important in the shoplifting section where Elizabeth cows him into going back to steal something truly useless like a watering can. It anticipates the way Elisabeth will use the letter later on, as it is revealed in a comic coda (with an appropriate musical flourish!) that Paul and Elisabeth give the watering can to their housekeeper in an act that means that they were fully aware of a use to which to put that particular 'useless' object! Incidentally, it looks like Elisabeth uses the comb that Gerard first shoplifted in an ironic touch when she announces to Paul and Agathe that Gerard will be coming to stay with them in Michael's house, thereby 'completing' their stock company!

I like the idea that Elisabeth's use of the letter to attempt to manipulate the other three characters into a configuration that they might all find acceptable succeeds only through their complete lack of communication with each other! There is also a feeling that she is on very shaky ground though - there is no way that the charade can go on forever. She might know that "killers have to strike blow after blow" but it seems that she is setting up the tragic climax by being so possessive of her brother that she would rather destroy any chance of a relationship even with a surrogate in the form of Agathe. Then Dalgalos reappears as a spectral figure to provide Paul's escape - he gets to die in the presence of Agathe by Dalgalos's hands, so Elisabeth is shown in no uncertain terms that she will always come second in Paul's affections.

I much prefer the ending of the film than the other, more Cocteau-styled one discussed in the extra features. The Cocteau ending is described as more poetic but Elisabeth's death, bringing down the theatrical screens surrounding Paul's room as she falls was beautifully poetic in itself, made all the more powerful by not retreating into fantasy, instead showing the dead siblings with Agathe/Dalgalos standing between them, as they always were.

Actually that brings me to one of the extra features, Around Jean Cocteau, in which a couple of experts talk about whether the film is more Cocteau or Melville. Unsurprisingly (given that they are wandering around an exhibit dedicated to Cocteau during the piece!) they both say the film is "100% Cocteau". I didn't particularly like the piece as I think Melville was unfairly denigrated by both the critics - I feel Melville actually keeps a lot of the Cocteau touches (and there are a lot of them) more grounded in a recognisable setting. I suppose it is similar to the Kubrick/Spielberg A.I. situation in that Spielberg would probably never have been able to make A.I. on his own, and produced a work dedicated to Kubrick using similar recognisable Kubrickian traits. Yet Spielberg also added a number of sentimental touches which are recognisably his. So the work is a sort of hybrid between the two filmmakers. I get the feeling that the situation was similar in the case of Les Enfants Terribles, only Cocteau was of course much more present during the shooting! So the end product is different in style from a film like Orphee but at the same time is not purely Melville-ian.

I love the score of the film, providing much needed warmth and depth to what is on the surface a shallow series of events about unlikeable, lost people. Nicole Stéphane and Edouard Dermithe are fantastic in their roles - I completely agree with Adair that you couldn't imagine a more Cocteau-styled pair!

One quick note on different takes in trailers: I noticed in the trailer that there is a brief shot of Elizabeth trying to pull the cloth off of Paul's lamp in their room in their mother's apartment that is shown in a wide shot from the foot and looking down on their beds. In the film itself the same action is shown looking over Paul's bed toward Elisabeth's as she comes across to try and grab the cloth.

I also noted in Adair's commentary that he stated that one of Nicole Stéphane's future producer credits was for Swann In Love, though her role is not noted on her imdb page. Is Adair wrong in this statement or does imdb need updating?
Last edited by colinr0380 on Mon Jul 28, 2008 5:10 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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colinr0380
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#59 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Jul 28, 2008 8:31 am

I agree davidhare, I'm liking the film more each time I see it again - I love the sleepwalking scenes, the snowball sequence and the dream sequences which do a great job of evoking Cocteau while at the same time looking more 'grounded' (for want of a better word) by Melville's style in comparison to their similar scenes from Cocteau's previous films.

I forgot to talk about Elisabeth, who in the extra features I think is spoken of in rather limited terms as simply being monstrous or as irredeemable. I usually end up feeling a lot more compassion for her than anyone else in the film, even Paul who at least has his fantasies to hold on to. I thought her final speech where she talks about having "to make life unbearable, to make it sick of me" is quite a moving explanation for her combativeness - she seems to be testing the people around her to see if they'll still love or care for her and not abandon her even if she acts terribly. Unfortunately Paul always had someone else on his mind!

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HerrSchreck
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#60 Post by HerrSchreck » Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:08 pm

Speaking of Cut From The Same Mold, what amazed me at first sight of even the stills from the film-- before I'd even seen it for the first time-- is the resemblance between Nicole and Edouard Dermithe. They look like fucking twins.. its really amazing.

I find so much of what the movie about registers in the look of things, the feel of things, a sense of sharp vaguery about the photography that's just brilliant. The feeling of Being Close To Things In Your Room when out of school with the flu, your blankets, the domain of your bed, making forts or race cars out of blankets & headboard, how it's your kingdom, your imagination crashing in on reality resulting in Your Own World As A Kid.. not that feeling specifically, but rather the way that snatches of that little world come back to you as an adult with a sweet taste. Prompted maybe by a cold & damp foggy day in the fall and for some reason beyond your understanding while walking over piles of wet leaves down a block lined with rusty iron and old leaning tenements, snatches of that feeling come back to you.

THAT'S what I get out of that film, the photography is a miracle, really. The bare walls of school, cheap wallpaper curling under steam heat hissing behind the dean's desk.. snatches of long stretches of school boredom & daydreaming. The gleaming, luminously vague look of the cinematography shows the mutual understanding between Dacae & Melville & Cocteau regarding the spirit of the material's core. Which is, to begin with, the tone of Cocteau's nostalgic ruminations on who he was and where he came from.

Brilliant!

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movielocke
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Re: 398 Les enfants terribles

#61 Post by movielocke » Tue Aug 26, 2014 8:48 pm

This might be the first Melville film I've seen that I didn't unreservedly love. The film is a beautiful melding of Cocteau and Melville, but it never really connected for me. It was shocking to see such an explicitly homosexual message to a film from the forties, did Cocteau "hide" the gay from censors behind the coy incestuous tones? I felt the film really went to efforts to explore explicitly the gay aspects of the film, while using the incest as a beard. that beard quality to the incest is rather... amusing, I suppose.

I was also had a continual sense of dejavu while watching the film, not just because it was clearly influential on innumerable characters in new wave films, but also because I saw The Dreamers, and it seems as though that latter film is more or less a remake of this one.

Overall, it's a fascinating little film, but far from my favorite from either auteur.

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hearthesilence
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Re:

#62 Post by hearthesilence » Sun May 14, 2017 12:58 pm

david hare wrote:This is one of those transfers that upscales to look like true HD.
Finally the saw the DVD and I bet most people watching the close-up shots on this DVD upscaled on an HDTV would mistake them for true HD. Looks marvelous.

Also, it's easy to see how Wes Anderson can have such affection for this film - the tone and characters share many attributes seen in his own films.

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