Madame Bovary (1991)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Claude Chabrol

Writers:

Claude Chabrol (writer)
Gustave Flaubert (novel)

Release Date:

25 December 1991 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

In nineteenth-century France, the romantic daughter of a country squire (Emma Rouault) marries a dull country doctor (Charles Bovary)...

Plot Keywords:

Clubfoot | Doctor | Boredom | Spurned Female | New Dress

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win & 2 nominations

Cast

Isabelle Huppert	...	Emma Bovary
Jean-François Balmer	...	Le docteur Charles Bovary
Christophe Malavoy	...	Rodolphe Boulanger
Jean Yanne	...	M. Homais - le pharmacien
Lucas Belvaux	...	Leon Dupuis
Christiane Minazzoli	...	La veuve Lefançois
Jean-Louis Maury	...	Merchant Lheureux
Florent Gibassier	...	Hippolyte
Jean-Claude Bouillaud	...	Le père Rouault - un paysan - le père d'Emma
Sabeline Campo	...	Felicité
Yves Verhoeven	...	Justin
Marie Mergey	...	La mère Bovary - la mère de Charles
François Maistre	...	Lieuvain - le conseiller de la préfecture
Thomas Chabrol	...	Le vicomte
Phillippe Abitol

Runtime:

143 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | Finland:K-13 | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | UK:PG | USA:PG-13 | Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Lyons-la-Forêt, Eure, France

Company:

CED Productions

Trivia:

In its original French version, one of the masculine voices overheard by Emma during the great Bail sequence is director Claude Chabrol's voice saying: "Mais qu'il en soit fait selon votre desir, ma chere... Lucien!".

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Pourquoi (pas) le Brésil (2004)

Soundtrack:

Les voix du printemps opus 410

Over-economical screenmake of a literary classic

Just finished watching this film on VHS after a long search of London libraries. Disappointed, but first the good stuff... Huppert does the soul-wrent-in-twain-through-moral-confusion well. The others in the cast are unknown to me but do a better job than on the made for TV version (BBC 2002) simply because they are French (don't live day to day with ironing boards for spines). The costuming is beautiful - this is important to twist the knife as Emma's debt becomes incommutable. The bad stuff - the direction. Or lack of it. La Ceremonie is the only Chabrol film I can remember worth seeing; this film is not as bad as the recent zzz-worth Merci pour le Chocolat... there's French filmmaking and there's unabashed pretension and that film is the latter. The continuity in Bovary is sloppy as is the sound editing (although Chabrol's brother's score's OK). The final straw is Huppert's inability to find some of the naivete that is so engaging in, say, Heaven's Gate. The latter part of the film is good - it's as if her scheming to avoid the fate she is preparing for herself increases the fall she succumbs to. But at the beginning, she's the same character... there's no preparation for a transformation. And WHY - WHY OH WHY does this production insist on white sub-titles? It's such a cheap error! 5/10... buy lots of popcorm.