Une vie (1958)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Alexandre Astruc

Writers:

Alexandre Astruc (writer)
Roland Laudenbach (writer)

Release Date:

24 September 1958 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Normandy, second half of the nineteenth century. Jeanne Dandieu lives in a manor house with her parents and their servant Rosalie...

Plot Keywords:

Normandy | Unfaithful Husband | Based On Short Story | Marriage For Money | Based On Novel

Cast

Maria Schell	...	Jeanne Dandieu épouse de Lamare
Christian Marquand	...	Julien de Lamare
Pascale Petit	...	Rosalie
Louis Arbessier	...	M. Dandieu
Marie-Hélène Dasté	...	Mme. Dandieu
Antonella Lualdi	...	Gilberte de Fourcheville
Ivan Desny	...	De fourcheville
Gérard Darrieu	...	Fisherman
Michel de Slubicki	...	Paul de Lamare
Andrée Tainsy	...	Ludivine

Also Known As:

End of Desire (USA)
One Life
Una vita (Italy)

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

Italy | France

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Becquet, Manche, France

Company:

Agnes Delahaie Productions

Movie Connections:

Version of Naiskohtaloita (1947)

If you were born a woman...

...you're born to be hurt.That's one of Maupassant's recurrent topic. Astruc only adapted the first half of the novel,which is probably this great writer's finest work along with his famous short stories which influenced a lot of people (Dudley Nichols found inspiration for "stagecoach" in "Boule de Suif")

There is a splendid cinematography ,where Claude Renoir's camera works wonders in a green ,too green Normandy."Une vie' tells the tale of a woman,Jeanne, (Schell) married with a man who treats her like a dog,cheating on her with every woman around.And this woman could not divorce,because it was the nineteenth century.

The second part of the novel is Jeanne's son's story and it's as tragic as the first one.But Astruc chose to end his movie before.

Alexandre Astruc ,though he came to the fore with the new wave was not part of them.His estheticism sometimes recalls the great patriarches:Jean Renoir (une partie de campagne) and Max Ophuls (le plaisir),but his style is harsher without any lyric outpouring.His style was called the camera-stylo (pen camera).