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Jules and Jim More at IMDbPro »Jules et Jim (original title)

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103 reviews in total

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127 out of 212 people found the following review useful:
No -- still not getting it., 5 August 2002
Author: Bobs-9 from Chicago, Illinois, USA

Whenever a commentator declares outright that a film is a complete waste of time and that nobody, BUT NOBODY, should ever watch it, I tend to peg that commentator as an opinionated ass. So I would never say that about a well-respected film like "Jules and Jim." But quite honestly, I can't warm up to it. I've watched it on more than one occasion over the years, and it never fails to put me to sleep at both ends of my anatomy. I've just viewed a DVD edition in which a film scholar clearly explains his views on the fascination of "Jules and Jim." But I still couldn't see why the relationship of these three tedious characters, discussed and analyzed in all its very tedious minutiae by those same characters and an off-screen narrator (also tedious), should interest me. It's certainly beloved by academic types (maybe for those very same characteristics?), and film critics eat it up like it has gravy on it. Like another commentator, I'm a bit puzzled by all the comments about its lyrical, lighthearted and idyllic qualities. I'm left with the impression of a rather dry, academic dissertation on the complexities of male-female relationships ca. 1961 (the 1910 setting seems to me immaterial to the script).

I can't help feeling that I'm missing something, and I'm not averse to French films, but they're usually older, pre-new-wave films, for example "Forbidden Games," "French Can-Can," or Pagnol's "Fanny" trilogy. I take it that the sentimentality of such films is one of the things new wave directors reacted against. If so, I can't jump on their bandwagon, try as I might. I've enjoyed some of Truffaut's work, but not this, I'm afraid.

To those who love and appreciate "Jules and Jim" -- have pleasure of it. I envy you for that, and maybe I'll try it again in a few years.

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60 out of 79 people found the following review useful:
art isn't about "identification", 4 March 2005

Author: willtato from United States

Why do so many people need to "get into the characters" "care about the characters" "identify with the characters", to enjoy or appreciate a great film? I think it's a type of selfishness, as shallow as the urge to reject an outcome one doesn't like. Examples: "I know it's good; but the ending was too down" (Lolita), or a woman I once heard criticize Unbearable Lightness of Being because one of the main characters is a womanizer who doesn't repent or have justice rendered to him. Ironically, in Jules and Jim, we see a woman who is a "manizer" whom some viewers are appalled or put off by).

Jules and Jim features three characters whose unrealism is beyond question - Truffaut himself might comment on how Catherine fascinated the other two, but I doubt very much he would claim any of the three to be "realistic". I think the whole thing is a fable, and therefore the three are more like archetypes. The beauty isn't really the story, but HOW the story unfolds, and, most importantly how it is told VISUALLY: the breeziness interrupted by dramatic outbursts (flames, jumping into the river, death by drowning), the exploration of love as a fleeing of tediousness and predictability, the hinting (yes there is a type of love between Jules and Jim, though not a homo erotic one) that friendship is always deeper than romantic love, the beautiful flowing and editing of sequences, for example: where all three go bicycling in the country.

The duty of film is to tell a story in moving images, to take advantage of the things that specifically make cinema different from drama or literature - moving the spectator about in space and time, which cannot be done in any other art form in quite the same way. But nothing about this movie is conventional, and people looking for "resolution", or a someone getting their comeuppances, or even a character learning more about himself must look elsewhere for gratification.

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55 out of 74 people found the following review useful:
A breathless film about time., 12 July 2001

Author: Alice Liddel (-darragh@excite.com) from dublin, ireland

Time and revisionist critics have tried to tarnish the gleam of Truffaut's final masterpiece - citing its apparent misogyny and apoliticism; but for some of us, 'Jules et Jim' is the unforgettable film that opened the gates to both European film, and the great masters of American cinema like Hitchcock, Hawks and Ray.

'Jules et Jim' is, along with 'Citizen Kane', THE vindication of the pleasures of cinematic form: the first half especially, in its rush of narrative registers and technical exuberance, is unparalleled in modern film. This isn't mere trickery - the use of paintings, books, plays, dreams, conversations, documentary footage, etc., as well as the different ways of telling a story through film, all point to the movie's theme - how do you represent people and the world in art without destroying them? Or is art the only to save people and life from extinction?

The foregrounding of theatricality, acting, disguises, pseudonyms, games, works-within-the-work, all point to the high modernism in which the film is set, when the old certainties about identity and place were being destroyed by the Great War. In fact the film could be considered Cubist in the way it uses film form to splice up and rearrange images, space, characters, viewpoints.

Truffaut's film is a beautiful elegy about time: the historical time heading towards destruction in the shape of the Nazis, and the circular time of love, obsession and art. These times struggle in the film's structure, history zipping past years in the framing, Parisian sections, and days stretching out interminably in the central rural rondelay.

Far from being misogynistic, the film places Catherine's speech about 'grains of sand' at its philosophical heart. AND she's played by Jeanne Moreau, the most honest and human of all great actresses.

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48 out of 67 people found the following review useful:
Jules et Jim embodies the beauty of French cinema, 14 October 2000

Author: nicholas carlton (nmoc@globalnet.co.uk) from London, England

The French have a remarkable tendency of creating free-flowing, poetic movies that transport this particular art form into subtle, poignant flights of fancy and nowhere is this more evident than in Jules et Jim, which embodies the beauty of French cinema.

I believe that Truffaut is the most poetic filmmaker in cinematic history. Jules et Jim is his finest moment and, in the ever fluctuating relationships between the Oskar Werner, Henri Serre and Jeanne Moreau characters, we are allowed to be taken along on a refreshing, beatific ride through the passionate simplicity of love and friendship.

The leisurely philosophical musings of the two men in Jules et Jim are counterbalanced by Moreau's bright, airy amorality. She brings about a radicalism and sense of unpredictability in the movie that is nonetheless charming and utterly innocent and benign. Moreau's instinctive will makes her out to be a selfish attention-seeker but without that this movie would not be so surprising and liberating. Truffaut's does not stick to a rigid narrative form, like many '50s and '60s French New Wave directors, and he allows the stream of consciousness dialogue and the ever-changing fortunes of Moreau's erratic relationships with the men to dictate the structure. Jules et Jim has a certain clarity of vision.

French love stories are often based upon dialogue that is rife with throwaway witticisms, perceptive trivial observations, and explosive utterances of love or despair, and Jules et Jim is no different. It can drift along tranquilly until a sudden unexpected change of mood occurs and everything is turned on its head. Moreau's leaping into the river after a civilised night out at the theatre is a delightfully liberating moment, utterly pointless yet still gleefully uninhibited. My finest memory is the heavenly ditty by Moreau which sums up both her and the movie's personality and atmosphere. So simple, so sublime, and always tugging away in the most sumptuous manner at the heartstrings. I don't think I have ever got that tune out of my head.

If you want to experience the sheer majesty of cinema, Jules et Jim just has to be seen. Not only is it bright and breezy but it has tragic moments of pathos as well. There is a surprise at every turn, almost always caused by the Moreau character, and such is the freedom of her spirit and the freedom of the movie's spirit, you can forgive her every action and fickle about-turns. There is no sense of permanence with her. Jules et Jim only confirms my belief that the French make cinema's greatest romances. Utterly natural, hardly ever contrived, and so cool and graceful.

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16 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
Truffaut's Classic Relationship Triangle as Idiosyncratic, Disconcerting and Mesmerizing as Ever, 27 May 2006

Author: Ed Uyeshima from San Francisco, CA, USA

The enduring legacy around François Truffaut's emotionally turbulent 1962 film depends primarily on how compatible the three actors are in inhabiting the triangle at the core of the story adapted from Henri-Pierre Roché semi-autobiographical novel. And in fact, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre and especially Jeanne Moreau provide superbly etched characterizations in one of the defining works of the French New Wave. Fortunately, the two-disc Criterion Collection DVD set provides an appropriately rich package for this classic, although the print transfer is frustratingly variable at times.

The story focuses on the friendship between two writers, an Austrian named Jules and a Frenchman named Jim, kindred spirits who enjoy a decadent lifestyle in pre-WWI Paris. Inspired by a statue of a woman's face with a most enigmatic smile, they agree that they are destined to fall in love with a woman with the same smile. Enter Catherine, as seductively capricious a free-spirit as ever there was in cinema, and the two men are instantly enamored. Jules is intent on marrying her, even though it's clear from the outset that she is not one who could commit for the long term. The war intercedes, and the two friends are fighting on opposite sides. After the war, Catherine, married to Jules and raising their young daughter, is emotionally dissatisfied and embarks on an affair with Jim. With Jules' blessing, things are idyllic for a while, but Jim proves too much the alpha male to defer to Catherine's whims, and the resulting imbalance leads to increasingly dramatic consequences.

In just his third film, Truffaut's trademark style emerges with fast cuts between scenes and naturalistic camera movements (courtesy of Raoul Coutard's fluid cinematography). Moreover, George Delerue's animated music score and Michel Subor's voice-over add to the evocative photo-album memory atmosphere. At times, the storyline feels a bit disjointed, but the fulsome performances more than compensate. Werner fully captures the internal struggle within Jules in attempting to reconcile his love for Catherine with her impossible demands on him. Serre has the comparatively more objective role but convincingly shows his character surrendering to the tangled situation. After her impressive turn as an obsessed adulterer in Louie Malle's "Elevator to the Gallows", Moreau solidifies her vaunted reputation here, conveying Catherine's petulance and unyielding passion in a vividly mercurial fashion.

The DVD extras are abundant starting with two commentary tracks. The first one, a more factual account of the production, was recorded in 1992 with Truffaut collaborator Suzanne Schiffman, editor Claudine Bouche, co-screenwriter Jean Gruault, and scholar Annette Insdorf. The second, produced in 2000, is far better as it has Moreau sharing her personal recollections of the filming with Truffaut biographer Serge Toubiana. Disc One also includes a brief 1966 interview with Truffaut discussing Roché and a 1985 featurette, "The Key to Jules and Jim", which contains interviews with the author's friends as they discuss the inspirations for the characters. Disc Two takes a broader look at Truffaut with five separate interviews with the director over the span of fifteen years, as well as insightful interviews with Coutard and co-screenwriter Jean Gruault.

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21 out of 30 people found the following review useful:
You end up loving it!, 15 February 2005
Author: juanveliz7 from Tucumán, Argentina

This is the first movie by Truffault I've ever seen, and I have to say I'm now very intrigued in his other work...

"Jules et Jim" is the story of two friends who meet a very beautiful and strange woman who turns up to be a bit unstable...

It starts with how they all meet each other and end up together... I thought the beginning was pretty fast as many things happened and you just wonder if the whole movie will be like that. Also I thought I didn't care much for any character, but of course it was too quick to judge. There is also a narrator (throughout the movie) and at first you ask yourself if its really necessary...

Still, when I decided to go grab a snack, I realized I was so hooked by the story that I couldn't. The characters behaved like no other I've seen and you find yourself wanting two different things: for it to end and for it never to end.

The movie has it's many twists for those who like, even a laugh here and there, but if you see it as a whole is a very deep description of the relationship between the three main characters.

The end is somehow beautiful, maybe because is "fair", maybe because is "real", maybe because is "surreal", you'll just have to watch and find out...

Is one of those movies when after watching it you understand both sides: those who say it's overrated and those who claim it's a masterpiece... to me it was a one in a lifetime film experience

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13 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Whirlpool Of Days, 11 January 2002

Author: Cheetah-6 from Maui

Those with heavy sensibilities along the lines of conventional "morality" seem to have a hard time allowing themselves to enjoy this film for what it is: A beautiful visual poem about the passing of time and the progression and growth of an unusual friendship. This friendship may be unusual but feels completely natural and true. Jules and Jim if anything, exhibit great maturity in their relationship with each other and Catherine. It's refreshing to see a film dealing with a deep love, friendship and emotional bond between two males and a mutual love for a woman, without the usual competitiveness and controlling possessiveness that is the norm. Jules and Jim come off more as an enlightened pair. It seems understood among them there is no real belonging of one human being to another. Catherine's whims of the heart are discussed between them at every stage throughout the film and they are willing to accept them and love her for who she is as well as each other.

I do feel that this film lost it's pacing toward the end and seemed to speed up to conclusion. That being it's only flaw. Visually it is stunning. Francois Truffaut was a poet with the camera and his subtle nuances are captivating. The scenes of Jules, Jim and Catherine enjoying days together seem so natural and evoke the feel of wonderful days spent together among best friends that transported me back to days gone by.

"we met with a kiss/ a hit, then a miss/ and we parted/ we went our own ways/ in life's whirlpool of days/ around and around we go/ together bound/ together bound."

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14 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Truffaut's "Hymn to Life", 25 May 2006

Author: marissas75 from United States

Although "Jules and Jim" was made over 40 years ago and takes place 40 to 50 years before that, the amazing thing is that it barely seems to have dated. Because it focuses on the universal human relationships between its characters, rather than the specific time in which they live, it's the rare film set in the past that doesn't feel like a "period film." And, especially in the first half of the movie, Truffaut's New Wave techniques lend a remarkable energy and freshness.

The movie explores friendship and love among three semi-bohemian types: Parisian Jim (Henri Serre), Austrian Jules (Oskar Werner), and Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), the beautiful, free-spirited woman whom they both love. She's the most vibrant character in the movie, and impossible to pin down. It's never clear who she loves—she contradicts herself repeatedly, and perhaps loves no one but herself—or whether she's diabolical or simply misunderstood. Moreau nearly steals the movie, if not for the fact that the title reminds us to focus on the relationship between the two men, and that Serre and Werner give good performances too. Even if Jim and Jules aren't as mysterious as Catherine, they're complex and interesting characters in their own right.

The story plays out rather episodically, which means "Jules and Jim" is full of wonderful little moments, often involving the crazy things Catherine does. Some of my favorites include her dressing up as a man and racing Jules and Jim across a bridge; her jumping into the Seine in frustration; and her singing the movie's charming theme song, "The Whirlpool of Life." The episodes are linked together by surprisingly unobtrusive off-screen narration, which keeps the film moving along rather than slowing it down.

"Jules and Jim" does get a little tiresome toward the end, with Catherine continually vacillating between the men in her life, Jim vacillating between Catherine and his old girlfriend Gilberte, and Jules remaining loyally devoted to Catherine despite how foolish this may seem. However, the movie is redeemed by its tragic final scenes, which poignantly contrast with the carefree gaiety of the beginning. Jules, Jim, and Catherine are caught in a destructive spiral, tossed and defeated by the whirlpool of life. Still, the tone of the movie is gentle and human, not pessimistic. Truffaut considered "Jules and Jim" a "hymn to life," and it is most memorable as a vivid celebration of friendship and youthful possibility, even as it acknowledges how those things can sour.

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12 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
Forces of Nature, 23 July 2003

Author: Manuel Rivera from Berlin, Germany

There is a book by Goethe mentioned in this movie, it's "Wahlverwandschaften", and its appearance is quite meaningful. Because the movie takes a look on human loves and lives that is quite similar to older Goethe's fatalistic world-view in his novel, very far from hope and idealisms. Strength (Moreau's character) and Weakness (Jim) are equal forces of nature, and both conduct us to death. The stoic attitude (Jules) is resignation and, seen this way, it is "weakness" too, but, on the other hand, it seems to be the STRONGEST way, because it means survival. JULES ET JIM, both in its content and in its aesthetics, has an air of antique tragedies, but - and this is more like the German novel - without complain, without crying. That's why it leaves you so "unsatisfied", and that's why it's still disturbing, even today.

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15 out of 24 people found the following review useful:
Since everyone else is too scared to write what they really think - for fear of appearing "uncultured" - I will., 11 August 2007

Author: fedor8 (fedor8@yahoo.com) from Serbia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A better title would have been "The Two Suckers".

The movie starts off with a one-minute summary/prologue of some events that transpired between and around J&J. It went by so quickly that I could barely catch anything, except that Jules failed humping a number of women whereas Jim had them all, the French narrator pretty much being hell-bent on setting a new world-record in speed-jabbering. "Well, that must have been the movie then!" I thought, for there was enough plot in that speedy recount of events for an entire prequel to J&J. I guess that prequel would have been called "Jim & Jules: Their Happy Life Before Katherine".

We find out that J&J are poets, writers, artists... Oh, no! Not another pretentious Euro-trash saga about the sensitive souls that inhabit Paris while discussing the meaning of life! But no fear. While the movie IS pretentious, though, it's not about the meaning of life, but about the meaning and intentions of a particularly empty-headed French bimbo by the name of Katherine. After all, this is a French movie.

Before meeting this "apparition", as Jim so pretentiously calls her, J&J see a woman's "mysteriously smiling" face carved out of a rock. J&J "both dressed the same way" to see this work of art, we are told by the narrator, by not WHY they dressed the same way. And what happens if I dare ask why? I will be called an uncouth philistine who doesn't appreciate the "depth" that this movie has to offer. Nevertheless, I still ask why. If anyone out there can tell me, feel free to e-mail me. I look forward to reading your silly hallucinatory psycho-babble.

Anyway, predictably they meet a woman who fits the rock's smile, and it's of course Jeanna Moreau, whose beauty is vastly overrated. Katherine wants to set a bunch of papers (letters?) on fire which she refers to as "lies" (how poetic!), and in the process she nearly burns herself and her house down. Conclusion? Katherine is a moron. J&J have just fallen in love with a dumb floozy. That's what happens when penises do the thinking, nothing new there.

After watching a play, J&J disagree with Katherine on whether it was good or not. Realizing that J&J are far superior to her intellectually - i.e. she ran out of arguments - she spontaneously decides to jump into the river. The narrator calls it her "victory". So, all you women out there, if you ever find yourself out-argued: jump into the nearest batch of water. That'll show 'em!

WW I breaks out. Symbolically, J&J get split up to fight on opposing sides. The thing that made me smile was that both of them expressed fear of killing the other in battle. Are artists that dumb? What are the odds that they kill each other, in a war in which millions upon millions of soldiers participate? Still, this part of the movie was not bad at all, but this was probably due to the stock-footage of trenches and battlefields. I.e. these scenes were NOT directed by Truffaut so there was nothing much to criticize.

The war was over, Jim's side won. It turns out Jules has a child with Katherine (which is probably not even his), a woman who is not only dumb but also turns out to be a slut, having cheated on her husband numerous times. Jim sees his chance!

Btw, there is a silly scene in which Katherine lists various wines, and this moment reminded me of Monty Python's "cheese sketch". Nevertheless, the movie was improving at this point somewhat.

Eventually, Jim hooks up with Katherine: they're together, they split, they hook up, they split, they hook up, they split up - and then Katherine drives them both off a bridge, leaving Jules as the sole survivor of this French game of "who's the ass?". (The moment I saw her driving the car I knew she was going to do that.)

I love the way Truffaut (through his alter Ego, Jules) makes up excuses for Katherine's behaviour. When she's unfaithful, she is "exploring the boundaries of experience" or some such "poetic" malarkey. Jules is always covering up for her selfishness like some demented moron with his semantic bulls**t, which has nothing to do with the real world. Truffaut's skewered views are on display in other parts, too: Jules says that Katherine is "neither too beautiful, intelligent, or sincere" but that's what "every man wants"! What???? Maybe French men! Similarly, the quasi mini-hippie commune that the two morons, the harlot, and the child briefly form is supposed to be exalted, oh-so progressive, advanced. But what's one to expect from a decadent left-wing European director?

I was also fascinated by Katherine's penis-hopping. At one point she had dinner with three of the men she was involved with. There are pro prostitutes that can't achieve a feat like that... Truffaut tries to inject a philosophical slant to the whoring around, but no words, no matter how cleverly articulated, can mask the truth: namely that Katherine just gets bored with one penis far too easily then jumps on to the next. Just another floozy, what's there to discuss?

I found the narration to be too robotic, matter-of-fact. The narrator talked about all these complex emotional happenings, but he recited them with the passion/interest of a school-kid forced to recite a poem. In fact, they might as well have used Stephen Hawking's voice-box... Plus, some of the things said in the narration were superfluous, e.g. when Katherine walks Jim to the station in an obvious fog; it is then that the disinterested narrator informs us that "a fog has fallen". No kidding??

Oh, yes, and the movie is about destiny, for example Jim missing Katherine by only ten minutes in the bar, an event that could have changed everything... and... oh, whatever...

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