Customer Reviews

Bonjour Tristesse

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This stylish film is one of Otto Preminger's best. The French New Wave has influenced him in his opening shots, but only on a visual level. This is pure Hollywood on ever other level. The melding of the two styles works perfectly and begins by setting the stark mood in stunning black and white widescreen shots of 1958 Paris. The present is painted in shades of grey and silver, where Cecile portrayed by the beautiful Jean Seaberg moves aimlessly thought her pointless upper crust Parisian life. Only when she encounters her father David Niven later in the evening does the past seep in on the edges of the cinemascope frame in vivid color and finally takes over moving us from the present to last summer on the Riviera. The device is used several times as we move from past to present and finally at the end of the film it creates a stunning effect once you know what suddenly happed to Cecile and her father last summer. The thing that changed everything forever and allows Preminger's camera to linger in the last frame of the film on Jean Seaberg as she wipes away the make-up from her perfect face.
David Niven is perfectly cast as Raymond the aging (...) father of Cecile. He has the cool style and humor of a man who can't commit to any woman and treats his daughter like a playmate rather than his child. His particular talents as an actor are that he seems to be playing the "David Niven" character in most of his films but here in `Bonjour' as he often does in so many roles he makes a nice little twist on the "character". He catches you off guard to wrench his and the audiences emotions and prove once again what a good actor he is.
At first Deborah Kerr also seems to be playing her role by rote but it is just a ruse to set us up for her fall. As does Niven she too digs deeper in to her persona as Anne Larson and carries the film to its surprise ending. She is a joy to watch as a film actress and here she is particularly wonderful.
The French actress Mylene Demongeout is delightful as Elsa, Ramon's summer plaything. She is in fact `Brilliant!" in the role.
Geoffrey Horne is decorative and serviceable in his role as Cecile's beau who awakens her (...) .
Jean Seaberg who with her short cropped spiked hair in certain shots reminded me of Sharon Stone has that kind of blonde goddess look that Miss Stone possesses. She was only 19 when she made the film and in the hands of her director she presents us with a sensitive and spellbinding performance as Cecile. She is at once a teenager in turmoil and a young girl on the verge of becoming a woman. This is a delicate high wire act that the young Miss Seaberg executes with charm and elegance. She is festinating to watch and just right for the role.
The subject matter is even today a little shocking and indeed this is one of the films of the 1950's that put the sin in Cinemascope. Despite the restrictions of the day or because of them filmmakers of that time were challenged in ways they are not today. Challenged to be inventive and insinuate things that we were too innocent or too naive to know happen in the world. Those filmmakers knew that the imagination is more vivid and titillating than what they might show. It was good that the antiquated production code of the Hayes office crumbled in the 60's but with it's passing we lost a whole vocabulary in film. Here is a wonderful example of the meeting of the Movies and 50's cinematic innuendo that serves this delicate story to a tee. I think "Bonjour Tristesse" is `Brilliant!'

This film has several elements that are worth noting. First, it is an accurate account of the empty, amoral, flamboyant and insensitive life in the French "high-life" during the late 50's/early 60's. Told in flashback, the story shows the way the central characters behave, have fun, hurt people and get to a point when "have fun" is just a way of forgetting.

The whole cast is excelent. David Niven is the most perfect "late life" bachelor who is cool about everything. Jean Seberg is absolutely beautiful as a teenager who practically lives as a woman... the chemistry of the two characters (father and daughter) is fantastic (and very puzzling). Deborah Kerr has also a great role as a sophisticated woman who doesn't get to understand the games going on between father and daughter.

The film has a beautiful cinematography. It opens in a dark black and white while all the flashback scenes are in the most fantastic colors - a perfect example how cinematography serves to enhance the character's point of view and (also) tell the story at a visual level.

The final scene is something that will stay in your memory for a long time as a great example of a great conclusion for a story that is rich and well written.

This film is a serious study of aloofness, emptyness and amorality in a way that only Hollywood could tell. It shows that money can buy off some consciences while, deep inside, some consiences cannot be bought.

A trully great cinematic experience!!!
This DVD edition has no extras (except for trailers). The image quality is first rate. So is sound quality. The opening titles (by Saul Bass, no less!) is gorgeous! The cinemascope cinematography by Georges Perinal begs to be viewd in a big screen. The music score by the great Georges Auric ("Rififi" and "La Bele et la Bête") is top.

I read the novel well over thirty years ago, in Europe, when I was fifteen, but did not get to watch the movie until tonight. I wanted to see it for a sit-down stroll through memory lane, and never expected to be touched by the story and its morale. You see, when I first read the novel, I did not care about it; I was then a fifteen-year old who was dealing with a much harsher existence than the seventeen-year old Cecile's (marvelously portrayed by Jean Seberg), who had the freedom and the money to drive her own car, to smoke, to dance, and hobnob between Paris and the French Riviera with her soft-hearted, caring, and still a child-at-heart, dad. Thus her poor little rich girl's woes, primarily consisting of keeping her dad's love to herself, was boring as well as infuriating. I realize now that I got to read the novel again to reexperience the characters in the manner originally presented by Francoise Sagan.
From the film version I watched tonight, I did not get the sense that it's >>>an accurate account of the empty, amoral, flamboyant and insensitive life in the French "high-life" during the late 50's/early 60's.<<<<
The core of the story is a father (debonair David Niven) and teenage daughter (beautiful imp, Jean Seberg), who lead charming lives and have the good fortune of being each other's friend and confidante. I can't recall a reference as to the manner of the mother's death (re-reading the novel ought to help in that), but neither the father nor the daughter seem to mourn her loss. However one may easily surmise that the father's affectionate and tolerant treatment of his daughter is his way of filling the void of a mother in her life. Although a charming and prolific playboy, he always makes sure that his daughter knows she is number one in his heart, and Cecile never feels threatened by any of his short-lived paramours.

So, on that fateful summer, father and daughter land on the French Riviera for their customary fun-filled R & R. But then a dark cloud appears on Cecile's sunny skies: Anne (portrayed by Deborah Kerr), beautiful, intelligent, elegant, a successful career woman willing to leave her profession (she is a respected fashion designer) to be a perfect wife and astute stepmother; much to Cecile's chagrin her father falls for Anne's charms, pops the question and Anne answers in the affirmative. Overcome by jealousy and the fear of losing her careless butterfly lifestyle, Cecile hatches a diabolic plot to prevent their marriage from occurring. And unfortunately, she succeeds, with tragic consequences.

The morale, of course, is: don't mess with Fate! On the other hand, Cecile, having faced her darker side, builds a wall around her heart to keep herself from feeling pain and sorrow, yet as you watch the closing scene, you will understand that the wall is transparent, letting us look into Cecile's soul as she sits in front of her mirror, taking off her make-up with cream, and by now the scene has reverted to black/silver/white...tears are running down her cheeks... and, ah, tristesse.... bonjur, and bonnuit, always.

The cinematography is superb, the opening and closing scenes are various shades of gray and silver, and then as the story flashes back the French Riviera comes alive in glorious colors, Jean Seberg is just beautiful,her portrayal of Cecile deserving of respect, David Niven sophisticated in an easy-going, warm-hearted way, Deborah Kerr's Anne is perfection, and Juliette Greco, playing herself as the night club singer crooning Bonjour Tristesse in her unique style, a real treat. Be prepared to be surprised at how much you will feel touched, and enjoy.

PS: French author Francoise Sagan, had made international headlines when she was a teenager with her first novel, "Bonjour Tristesse". Her background was privileged, a la her heroine, Cecile's; born Francoise Quoirez to a wealthy family in Cajarc in southwestern France, Sagan - who took her pseudonym from a character in Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" - was educated in private and convent schools at home and in Switzerland. She wrote "Bonjour Tristesse" ("Hello Sadness") in 1953 while on a summer holiday from her studies at the Sorbonne. Sagan, then 18, completed the manuscript in just six weeks.
Interesting to note how the world has changed, since then... upon its release in 1954, Bonjour Tristesse created a furor in France. Some critics scorned it as a tale of "passionless hedonism" and Sagan was called immoral and was marked as symbolizing a generation of bored and blasé young adults. They could not have been more wrong....

Premminger was a superb director who was greatly appreciated in his day but for some reason is relatively ignored today. Bonjour Tristesse is by far his best and most underrated film, it is a melodrama of sorts but if you're a fan of Douglas Sirk movies like Imitation of Life and Written On The wind then you will love this. Based on the novel of the same name by Francoise Sagan, (apparently regarded as the French`Catcher in the Rye') it's an intelligent and moving film about a daughter,(Seberg) jealous of her father's, (Niven) new lover, (Deborah Kerr.)

There's much more to this movie than meets the eye. A black and white present day with the past in colour, the relationship between Seberg and Niven, dubiously close and intimate, the countryside and woods in front of the house, haunting and almost surreal in their depiction. Jean Luc Goddard was apparently a huge fan, Seberg's character in Tristesse was imagined as a continuation in A Bout De Souffle. Deeply moving, intelligent and beautiful, it's an absolute classic that will grow in stature, the Premminger reappraisal begins with this movie.

Panned at the time of its release, "Bonjour Tristesse" stands up today as one of the more stylish and less hokey 1950's treatments of teenage angst & sexuality in changing times (it's more commercial counterpart would be the saccharine "A Summer Place" with Sandra Dee). Shot almost entirely on location at a villa on the French Riviera, director Otto Preminger's camera often encircles it subjects, follows them straight through rooms, up stairs and around porches, until you get a panoramic sense of really being there with the characters amidst the beautiful scenery. There's a sense of perpetual movement in the camerawork that makes "Bonjour" worth studying for its innovative cinematography alone.

Adding to the eye-candy factor is star Jean Seberg in her second film and second collaboration with Preminger (their first being the disastrous "Saint Joan" of the year before). Jean caught a lot of flack from skeptics who criticized her performance as "wooden" and "stilted", bedgrudging her rapid ascent to leading-lady status after having been picked from obscurity to play Joan of Arc. Preminger's "search for Joan" contest was not unlike today's "American Idol", with the instant success (and resentment) that its "winners" experience. On his TV show, Mike Wallace grilled her mercilessly about whether or not she thought she deserved to star in anything, firing accusatory statements at her like "you are a synthetic star", "your debut was a failure...what are you going to do if you fail again? What will it take for you to pack up your bags and go home?" As it happened, Jean met both Wallace's hostility and the challenges of "Bonjour Tristesse" with her customary good grace.

As Cecile, Jean adeptly essays a teenage girl, sweet of temperament but disporportionately enamored of her widowed father, played by David Niven. Cecile plots and schemes--with disastrous results--to eliminate Anne (Deborah Kerr) as the competition for his affections.

Compelling by her looks alone--dimpled and aglow with youth (and a decidedly lucky bone structure), Seberg nonetheless does more than just trade on her beauty--she carves something interesting from a character that could easily have been bland. The duplicitous Cecile, who is not quite as benign as she seems, needs just the right amount of lurking menace--more the result of immaturity than evil, and Seberg manages the balance commendably. Her inexperience shows through in spots, but as Francois Truffaut remarked of her performance, "when she is onscreen--and she is onscreen all the time--you can look at no one else." She had that cinematic attribute which trumps virtuosity; she is compelling. Ironically, it is in the easy scenes that she is weak and the histrionic ones where she shines. But she is never less than arresting, never boring, never banal. She glitters with star quality.

Co-stars David Niven and Deborah Kerr are excellent--Niven especially as the philandering but loveable father, and Mylene Demengeot as Cecile's comic girlfriend contribute much toward making "Tristesse" a funny, sad, and haunting picture. The sexual and moral (or amoral) themes are ahead of their time, perhaps influenced by the French New Wave that was just gaining momentum (and which would embrace Seberg as its female mascot after the release of Godard's "Breathless").

If you are in doubt of "Bonjour"'s ability to pack a dramatic wallop or 19 year-old Seberg's ability to render its message with depth and sensitivity--bear with it to the final shot, where Cecile, Macbeth-like, vainly tries to wash herself clean in a makeup mirror, her face a mask, betrayed only by the eyes filling slowly with tears of self-loathing for the damage she has wrought, until finally her pretty face cracks like a porcelain doll.

BONJOUR TRISTESSE, like many Preminger films, is ripe for reevaluation, and this spiffy new DVD transfer may help spur on that long-overdue second look. Seberg's performance was much-maligned in its day, but she looks smashing here and acts with considerable wit and poise; our girl's a long way from Marshalltown. True, vocally she's perhaps not ideal, but certainly sounds as Gallic as co-stars Kerr and Niven. The material plays with all three stars' images in fascinating ways; Seberg's ingenue is lethal, Kerr, frequently neurotic, was never presented as a creature of such moral ambiguity, and Niven's all suave facade covering inner corruption, in a performance akin to his Oscar-winning turn in SEPARATE TABLES. Wonderful location photography, and great fun to hear the title tune keep turning up in a variety of arrangements, in best 50's-movie-theme-song tradition. The comparison others have made on this site to the glorious Sirk melodramas is apt; the picture transcends genre in many of the same ways. Preminger and company manage to get under your skin.

Francoise Sagan's works have never quite been realized on film ["That Certain Smile", "GoodBye Again"].

This version starring Jean Seberg, pairing David Niven and Deborah Kerr [great team] as the hapless loves sabotaged by the daughter's love, with the various other inhabitants of the summer villa has quite a unique black and white prelude/conclusion and title sequence. Juliette Greco [icon!] sings demurely!

Slightly soap-operaish, it holds attention, and is rather pretty - that French Postcard look.

You'll need a kleenex or two for this one though......

i highly recommend this film for it's stunning locations, beautiful cast and wonderful theme song.anyone who loves films from this era and can appreciate the atmosphere will not be disappointed.

A must-see!!! Jean Seberg is an amazing actress! After I watch this movie, I always wish I had lived in the 50's, had a home on the Cote d'Azur, and could dance the night away in Paris! Of course, the issues in the movie are dark...I think I have understood this movie on different levels as I have watched it at different ages during my life. - I highly recommend it...especially to students of French...It is a great introduction to the work of Francoise Sagan. The book which inspired the movie is a good first novel for French students--fairly easy to read.

The films of Otto Preminger share for the most part a detached objectivity in their attitudes to character and moral issues...

In "Bonjour Tristesse," his gamine protégé Cecile (Jean Seberg) is a very peculiar girl, maybe spoiled and willful and arrogant and lazy...

Anne (Deborah Kerr) had made her look at herself for the first time in her life...And that turned her against her... And now, her father is not having fun anymore, which was probably another reason she decided to get rid of her... How carefully and how seriously she went about that decision, is the tale of Françoise Sagan, published in 1954, by the time she was nineteen...

Raymond (David Niven) is a bundle of surprises... For him, it's such a wonderful fun to have Cecile for a daughter... And loving Anne doesn't mean that he loves his daughter any less... The wealthy playboy becomes serious from the moment that Anne arrived... He could never think of her as just someone to have fun with... He does have fun with Elsa (Mylène Demongeot) but that's a long way from being all he wants... Now, he has never wanted any woman the way he wants Anne...

Anne spent her honeymoon by the sea 12 years ago... She had quite a debate with herself before coming down to the French Riviera... For knowing that Elsa was there, she got stupidly angry and decided to leave...Then the prospect of packing and looking for a hotel was too much after that long drive so she decided to stay...

Being too sophisticated (maybe for discovering occupied territory), Anne was as suspicious of summer as she was of Raymond in spite of the fact that she knew him 15 years ago, and was quite sure that with him, nobody is safe...

For Cecile, Anne is prim and prissy and prude... For a woman who hates vulgarities--even when they're funny--she could never be seriously interested in a man like her father... So part of her was angry, part was happy, all of her was excited... Her father had brought a girl to the seashore, made her go out in the sun and then when she was a mess of peeling, dropped her like a hot lobster... It was unfair... Yet even while she was angry at him, she was proud that he had gotten the unattainable Anne... Anne looks now softer... She moves easier... In the morning, she seems as though she had the most wonderful secret in the world...

Suddenly she becomes aware of a great responsibility towards Cecile, as it would be good if she stops seeing Philippe (Geoffrey Horne) and studies for her philosophy examination...

Cecile becomes furious at her interference... Anne wants her to study and not to see Philippe... So what shall it be? For her, there'll be a man to take care of her...And she doesn't need a diploma for that...

Now she hates Anne... For her, she has changed her father...She'll change her and will change everything...