Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne
IMDb RATING
7.2/10
4.3K
YOUR RATING
A society lady engineers a marriage between her lover and a cabaret dancer who is essentially a prostitute.A society lady engineers a marriage between her lover and a cabaret dancer who is essentially a prostitute.A society lady engineers a marriage between her lover and a cabaret dancer who is essentially a prostitute.
IMDb RATING
7.2/10
4.3K
YOUR RATING
- Director
- Writers
- Robert Bresson(scenario & adaptation)
- Denis Diderot(novel "Jacques le fataliste et son maître")
- Jean Cocteau(dialogue: additional)
- Stars
Top credits
- Director
- Writers
- Robert Bresson(scenario & adaptation)
- Denis Diderot(novel "Jacques le fataliste et son maître")
- Jean Cocteau(dialogue: additional)
- Stars
- Director
- Writers
- Robert Bresson(scenario & adaptation)
- Denis Diderot(novel "Jacques le fataliste et son maître")
- Jean Cocteau(dialogue: additional)
- All cast & crew
- See more cast details at IMDbPro
Storyline
Hélène understands that Jean doesn't love her anymore. She is full of grief and anger, and she starts brooding on revenge. When she meets Jean, she pretends herself to be the one that has ceased to love the other. Jean is relieved, because now he thinks they can part as friends. Hélène goes to a night club, where a young woman, Agnès, is a famous dancer. Agnés has been forced into this life of debauchery and courtesanship because of poverty. She hates it and all the lecherous men. Hélène has met Agnès and her mother several years ago, and after the show she looks them up. She says that she will help them to leave this degrading life. The next day they shall move to an apartment she has rented, and stay there anonymously. Some days later she arranges a seemingly spontaneous meeting between Jean and Agnès in the Bois de Boulogne. Jean immediately falls in love with Agnès, who he thinks is an innocent girl from the countryside. Fueled by Hélène, and by Agnès's resistance, his infatuation turns into an obsession. Hélène's goal is to get Jean to marry Agnès, and then tell him that he has married a whore. —Maths Jesperson {maths.jesperson1@comhem.se}
- Taglines
- Starring the magnificent Maria Casares as 'first violin" in a 'string quartet" of 3 women and 1 man - Diderot's classic tale adapted by Jean Cocteau of a jilted woman's devastating revenge that boomeranged!
- Genres
- Certificate
- Not Rated
- Parents guide
Did you know
- TriviaFilmed in 1944 during the German occupation of Paris, there is no mention of World War II, no sign of any German presence, not a single uniform in sight, even at the wedding, and none of the usual well-known wartime regulations and/or shortages. Jean, with apparent ample income, but no meaningful source of obtaining it, seems also to have not only escaped military service, but also drives around Paris, otherwise devoid of civilian traffic and military or police control, in a pre-war American-made 1936 Pontiac convertible that would have normally have been confiscated for wartime use decades earlier, and with an apparent ample supply of otherwise unobtainable gasoline.
- GoofsIn the meeting between Hélène and Jean in which they tell each other that there is no more love between the two, the clock on the mantelpiece jumps from ten to twelve to ten past twelve within seconds.
- Alternate versionsThe German dubbed version is about two minutes shorter, due to several cuts in the final scenes. The channel Arte screened the complete movie with the missing scenes subtitled.
- ConnectionsEdited into Histoire(s) du cinéma: La monnaie de l'absolu (1999)
Top review
The Fires of Love
"Le Dames de Bois de Boulogne" is a very beautiful and rich love story. Bresson was a painter before becoming a director and he thought that images could convey feelings more purely than words. Contrary to many other films in which the words are the main tools used to describe feelings and love, the films of Bresson rely on the power of images. That is why "Les Dames de Bois de Boulogne" can have such an emotional impact on the sensitive viewer. In some ways Bresson reminds me of Antonioni (only visually speaking). Bresson is what I would call an idealist and Antonioni, maybe a relativist? (It is difficult to put a label on people or peoples ideas), but anyway both of them are visual masters.
"Le Dames de Bois de Boulogne" describes the many stages of a love relationship very subtly - a never-ending passion (but the fire is slowly going out) and the couple, Jean (Paul Bernard) and Helene (Maria Casares) decides (by suggestion of Helene) that it's time for them to end their love relationship but to remain faithful friends for life. Everything seems to be alright till Jean knows Agnès (a Helene protégée) and falls in love with her. But in Helene the remaining embers of the old passion are enough to rekindle the fire (not of love, but of jealousy) and she plans revenge.........
This is the classic love triangle story, but it is told without fanfares in a minimalistic way, and therefore it has a strong effect. At the end of the film we are esthetically and emotionally moved. We saw beauty.
"Le Dames de Bois de Boulogne" describes the many stages of a love relationship very subtly - a never-ending passion (but the fire is slowly going out) and the couple, Jean (Paul Bernard) and Helene (Maria Casares) decides (by suggestion of Helene) that it's time for them to end their love relationship but to remain faithful friends for life. Everything seems to be alright till Jean knows Agnès (a Helene protégée) and falls in love with her. But in Helene the remaining embers of the old passion are enough to rekindle the fire (not of love, but of jealousy) and she plans revenge.........
This is the classic love triangle story, but it is told without fanfares in a minimalistic way, and therefore it has a strong effect. At the end of the film we are esthetically and emotionally moved. We saw beauty.
helpful•125
- andrabem
- Apr 9, 2007
Details
- Runtime1 hour 26 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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By what name was Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) officially released in India in English?
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