Quartet (1981)

Director:

James Ivory

Writers:

Jean Rhys (novel)
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (screenplay)

Release Date:

25 October 1981 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot Keywords:

Nightclub | Ménage À Trois | Zoo | Concubine | Decadence

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Alan Bates	...	H.J. Heidler
Maggie Smith	...	Lois Heidler
Isabelle Adjani	...	Marya 'Mado' Zelli
Anthony Higgins	...	Stephan Zelli
Pierre Clémenti	...	Théo the Pornographer
Suzanne Flon	...	Mme. Hautchamp
Daniel Mesguich	...	Pierre Schlamovitz
Sheila Gish	...	Anna
Armelia McQueen	...	Night Club Singer
Wiley Wood	...	Cairn
Virginie Thévenet	...	Madmoiselle Chardin
Daniel Chatto	...	Guy
Bernice Stegers	...	Miss Nicholson
Paulita Sedgwick	...	Esther
Sébastien Floche	...	Edouard Hautchamp

Runtime:

USA:101 min

Country:

UK | France

Language:

English | French

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:18 (video rating) | UK:X (original rating) | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Singapore:M18 | Sweden:11 | USA:R | Ireland:18

Filming Locations:

Paris, France

Company:

Merchant Ivory Productions

Trivia:

The book written by Jean Rhys was originally titled "Postures" when it was published in London in 1928 by Chatto and Windus. When the U.S. publishers Simon and Schuster published it in the United States, the name was changed to "Quartet".

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Wandering Company (1984) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Arabesque Valsante

Bleaker than the real-life version.

Abandoned in Paris with no work permit and no savings, when her art-dealing (illegal) Polish husband is sent to prison, Marya Zelli (Isabelle Adjani) accepts the hospitality of the Heidlers, Lois and H.J.(as Lois invariably calls him) which, probably inevitably, involves her providing bed service to H.J. The video box describes the Heidlers as a "freethinking British couple" - if you can accept a couple, with such limited self-awareness and inability to talk through their problems, as freethinkers.

The film is based on the novel by Jean Rhys, based on her own experiences with Ford Madox Ford who presumably had more going for him than H.J., or else he wouldn't be in all those books on the literature of the twenties. Apparently Ford helped Rhys with her novel, and after he tired of her body got her a ghost-writing job on the Riviera. Rhys' husband was out of prison and had abandoned her before she moved in with the Fords. Presumably her major motivation was her devotion to her writing. Marya Zelli, in the film is not a writer, and she stays in Paris because her husband is still in prison. She says more than once to Lois that if given 100 Fr she would disappear (back to England where she could legally work?) but she gets 250 Fr just before moving in with the Heidlers when she sells almost everything she has to the hotel concierge.

Thus while the film is of the desperation of no choice, Marya has in fact fewer options than the real-life Rhys, and the film ending where Marya is thrown on the mercy of her husband's acquaintance from prison, is very bleak, unlike Rhys' fate of being ejected to a writing job.