Product Details

• Actors: Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Béart, André Dussollier, Élisabeth Bourgine, Brigitte Catillon
• Directors: Claude Sautet
• Writers: Claude Sautet, Jacques Fieschi, Jérôme Tonnerre, Yves Ulmann
• Producers: Jean-Louis Livi, Philippe Carcassonne
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Subtitles: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Republic Pictures
• VHS Release Date: March 5, 1996
• Run Time: 105 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302973570
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #188,997 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Daniel Auteuil (Manon of the Spring) plays Stephane, the curiously diffident coowner of an exclusive violin brokerage and repair shop. A brilliant technician, Stephane can make any instrument live up to its promise, yet he is emotionally remote himself, disconnected from passionate experience. His partner, Maxime (André Dussollier), lacks Stephane's gifts but is rich in personality and desire. When Maxime's new lover, a violinist named Camille (Emmanuelle Béart), is drawn to Stephane's still waters, the latter is briefly moved, thus destroying the fragile, symbiotic relationship between all three individuals. Veteran French filmmaker Claude Sautet (of the Oscar-winning César et Rosalie) has made a powerful film here expressed in the smallest of gestures, just as one might tune the strings of a violin ever-so-slightly to achieve perfection. Sautet indeed employs such a sonorous motif in this story, in which violins always seem to be playing and suggesting that the principal characters look at life as they do music: something to be tinkered with and manipulated for effect. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker

A tale of love and violins, but don't expect "Intermezzo.'' Claude Sautet's film, as its title suggests, is not much of a heartwarmer; but its cool look at thwarted passion is enthralling nonetheless. Stéphane (Daniel Auteuil) makes and mends violins; Camille (Emmanuelle Béart) plays them. The two of them shift from distrust to desire to disappointment-in other words, they go through all the motions of love except the making of it. This is so restrained it's shocking; we feel the terrible pressure of all that Stéphane might do with his life and yet refuses to attempt. With his spirit as buttoned down as his shirts, Auteuil offers a startling portrayal of failure, never hamming it up for the sake of our compassion. André Dussollier turns in an equally quiet performance as Stéphane's business partner and rival in love; add Béart's immaculate poise, and you wonder what strange district of Paris this is, populated largely by emotional cripples. The movie will hardly blow your mind, but there's nothing precious here; Sautet builds up a needling tension, aided by fine renditions of Ravel at his most difficult and plaintive. In French. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sad, Beautiful Tale of Unrequited Love, May 25, 2000

By 

David Montgomery "Book Critic" (davidjmontgomery.com) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Un Coeur En Hiver [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The title translates as "a heart in winter." A cold heart, bereft of love. A heart incapable of any emotion at all. That describes Stephane (Daniel Auteuil), a solitary violin maker and repairman. A man with the soul of an artist, but none of the talent.

Stephane is partnered with Maxime (Andre Dussollier) in a thriving business. Maxime is everything that Stephane is not: gregarious, confident, extroverted. Together they form a successful team. Maxime brings in the clients and Stephane does the work. They both are quite happy.

One day Maxime introduces Stephane to his new love, Camille (Emmanuel Beart), a beautiful violinist. He is cold to her at first, but the music she makes gradually stirs something in him. She in turns responds to him. She can sense that he has the heart of a musician, but something is wrong. Something is keeping him from opening his heart to anyone else. That something is music. Stephane is surrounded constantly by beautiful music, but none of it emanates from him.

We come to realize why Stephane, once a promising musician, gave up music. The sounds his fingers made could never equal the music he heard in his soul so he quit. Rather than risk the pain of further disappointment in life, he chose instead to feel nothing at all. If that meant forgoing love, it was a price that he had to pay.

Camille eventually confesses to Maxime that she is in love with his partner. Maxime is hurt, but what can he do? She goes to Stephane. We can see that he probably loves her as well, but still he refuses her. He will not allow her into his heart. She is hurt by this, but she has her music and Maxime and, perhaps, that is enough. She is too proud to play the woman scorned.

Emmanuelle Beart gives a truly wonderful performance as Camille. She is stunning to look at, of course, but as a gifted actress, she will not settle for just that. Her work is meticulously crafted, imbibing her role with dignity and grace. She studied for a year to learn to be a convincing violinist and she succeeds magnificently.

Daniel Auteuil is also excellent, playing the difficult part of a man who keeps his thoughts and emotions very much to himself. It is a subtle performance, filled with poignant suggestions and nuances. His carefully guarded expressions and manner prove that still waters do run deep.

As is typical of most of the finer French films, "Un Coeur en Hiver" is a very mature, adult film. Not in the sexual sense--there is nothing even remotely objectionable in it--but rather in terms of its thoughtfulness and sophistication. The relationships in this film, as in real life, demonstrate that love is never easy. There isn't always a happy ending, and just because a man and a woman should get together, that does not mean they will.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Devotion, dreams and their agonising absence, October 28, 2000

By 

Mr. Cairene (Cairo, Egypt) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Un Coeur En Hiver [VHS] (VHS Tape)

It's a fine art this violin tuning. Watching the characters in Claude Sautet's Un Coeur En Hiver (A Heart in Winter) as they debate the clarity, density and heaviness of that instrument's voice, you may think that it's all in their head. The beautiful instrument's incompetence nothing but a manifestation of their own insecurities. But then the process of watching this lovely film is, in itself, a fine art. In its delicate progress, the viewer is drawn in till he/she hears entire exchanges in a shared glance. Pain, humor, relief and agony in a moment of silence. Another person wondering in midway through the film may ask what in the world is so absorbing. There are scenes of great beauty in the film, there is a superb use of music, "those irrelevant dreams". But as in Sautet's somewhat lesser Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud, what is left unsaid, unresolved and unrequited is far more important then what is.

There are two sets of masters and their apprentices in the film. Maxime (Andre Dussollier) and his business partner Stephane (Daniel Auteuil). Together, they own a shop where the reticent Stephane builds and fixes violins with great precision, and Maxime handles the business and social side of things. Then there is Camille (Emanuelle Beart) and her agent Regine (Brigitte Cattilon). Both Camille and Stephane appear frigid at first, they channel all their energy into their work, while the others live their lives for them. It is a convenient way of life for Stephane, the Heart in Winter of the title. But Camille is still open, still warm enough to seek love. So when Maxime introduces Camille as his lover, there is visible hurt on Stephane's face. At first it seems that he is jealous of her, or him, but then I realised that he was jealous of their readiness to, and faith in love. A tentative and unacknowledged romance develops between Stephane and Camille. They meet at the studio, and he takes her out for a drink. For the first time in the film, she smiles. They seem to be comfortable together. And since this is a French film, love is not defined as some magical formula, but a relationship in which each partner could to dilute their obsessions, to be at ease with themselves. But Stephane freezes, he breaks off all voluntary contact with Camille.

It is tempting to think that this abrupt change of heart on his part was because of fear, a reluctance to give up his carefully constructed world. Perhaps his dedication to his craft was so great, that he feared his love of Camille would lessen the quality of his work. Why would he ever attempt to make the perfect violin when perfection is right beside him in Emmanuelle Beart. And my, is she perfect. It is even more tempting to believe that he has abandoned her for the sake of his friend in a Casablanca sort of sacrifice. What makes the A Heart in Winter so special is that Sautet doesn't choose either of those easy answers, although they are viable. Instead we are left with the tragic notion that there are people like Stephane who are incapable of emotion, "Something is broken inside." In a moving scene, Auteuil drives away from Beart, crying. Some will think his tears are for a love he can never acknowledge. Perceptive viewers will understand he is crying because he knows he can never feel love. All he can feel is the lack.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Frozen Heart in a World of Violins, December 1, 2002

By 

Scott68 (Columbus, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Un Coeur En Hiver [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a wonderful French movie with subtitles, easily one of the best movies I have ever seen, I enjoyed it immensely, so much that I had to buy it to watch again and again.

The movie is about two men who own a violin shop and they both fall in love with a beautiful soloist who becomes their client, her violin is a wonderful sounding Vulliame with an incredible tone. There are wonderful performances of Ravel's trio and sonatas throughout the movie.

The movie makes a profound statement about violin making, musical interpretation, the awkwardness and inconvenience of true love, jealousy, death, inner feelings that are rarely spoken, how friendship can change over a woman, and how a man's heart has become frozen from a life of romantic solitude.

What I found most interesting about the plot is that we do not know if Camille and Stephen will eventually become lovers, he say he will attend her next recital in Paris and she drives away with Maxim looking at him with adoring eyes. Paris is like New York, you have to be big to play there so apparently by this time Camille has become popular. One thing we do know is that Stephen does have a life and says he is not worthless because of his abilities as a violin luthier. In the end, Stephan is left with his violins: woman or no woman we never know if he will be forever trapped in his frozen world...

Fans of "The Red Violin" will love this movie but I would recommend this to anyone who loves romance and violin performance, essential viewing and not to be missed.