Customer Reviews

The Man Who Loved Women

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This is one of Truffaut's best films and it is an excellent exploration into the impulses that drive men to seek out a woman. The main character falls in love with any woman who catches his eye and in one case is so attracted to a pair of legs that he seeks out the woman with a very devious - but innocent - system that will ring true to many a romantic Casanova. the man is so obsessed by women - never in a bad way - that he decides to explore his feelings through a book. as he looks for the publisher he ends up finding t=yet another interest. the film, however, in no way presents women in a degrading way and is very thoughtful in its respect of women in fact. The main character could be compared to Casanova as he too loved and respected women. the film has a comedic tone and almost comes across as a personal documentary as the scientist narrates his feelings and motivations. The subject matter and its portrayal are still relevant today. excellent.

Charles Denner plays a seemingly mild mannered engineer who has a fatal attraction to beautiful women. The story begins by showing the length he will go to track down an elusive beauty, then spins a wonderful array of thoughts and observations on the nature of relationships as Bertrand tries to come to terms with his obsession. This leads him to pen a book that more or less forms the backbone of the movie as he drifts back in time to chart some of his early relationships, including the Oedipal one with his mother. However, the movie maintains a firm focus in the present, ultimately leading to an engaging relationship with his editor. Along the way there is the playful banter between Bertrand and the operator who provides wake up calls each morning; an older woman who runs a lingerie shop at which Bertrand gazes at the new window displays; and a couple of relationships from the past which come back to haunt him. Unlike the 1983 remake featuring Burt Reynolds, this movie doesn't devolve into middle age angst. Bertrand is modest and relatively honest with himself, which is what ultimately wins over his editor. The only problem is that Bertrand still has one woman that has managed to elude him leading to a fateful closing scene where he rushs headlong into traffic after the perfect pair of legs.

All I can say is ... great! But do NOT see this film with a date ... or even your wife! Most women I've known don't get the poignance of the hero's obsession ... not at all!

Truffaut's pseudo-autobiographical romantic comedy concerns a man who, at least outwardly, has no particularly exceptional qualities. And yet his persistence, frankness, and attentiveness to the physical attributes of the various women he encounters--played by Fossey, Natalie Baye, and Nelly Borgeaud--result in his becoming a rather roguish ladies' man. Denner--unsmiling, helplessly leering, yet somehow charming--was a perfect choice for the role, and there's a lot more to the story than conquest. As Bertrand writes about his life, he discovers dissatisfaction at the heart of his enterprise, a revelation Truffaut turns into bittersweet irony. For a witty take on the frustrations of love, hang with "The Man Who Loved Women."

Somehow it's difficult to say anything useful about this film. It is so well made, so well told, that it leaves me merely with a sense of completeness. There is no real "plot", and it is senseless to give a pedestrian outline of what does or does not happen. I must have seen it when it came out, perhaps about 1977, and have not been able to forget it. It is, somehow, a perfectly made presentation of one man's life: insignificant yet universal, simultaneously realistic, surrealistic, artistic, fantastic, true yet imaginative. I was staggered to see that an apparently bone-headed remake by Blake Edwards, a clumsy and insensitive film-maker --- think of what a misuse of Peter Sellers' talents the Pink Panther series was! --- had attempted either to spoof it, or to exploit it. Well, I haven't seen his remake, but I can imagine it as the crudest possible American bludgeoning of French finesse. This masterpiece by Truffaut is an utterly fascinating account of the enigma of the male-female human relationship --- far, far superior in its own terms to anything produced in the English-speaking world.

Only a director's with TRUFFAUT's sensibility could actually manage to make an interesting movie with a subject like this.BERTRAND MORANE, the character like his creator had plenty of women in his life.Read the biography written by ANTOINE De BAECQUE for details.This film can be considered as his last personnal film, even if it is not related to the DOINEL series.It is not surprizing that TRUFFAUT likes the voice off device which reached it's zenith with TWO ENGLISH GIRLS and SUCH A GEORGEOUS KID LIKE ME.His ironic nature almost commands such a device.THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN is a medium TRUFFAUT ,worth seeing as a funny explorations of his themes.You can actually see the director rapidly passing by at the beginning of the movie.I would have liked BRIGITTE FOSSEY's character more fully developped.To resume TRUFFAUT in a simple way,one can say that he often created strong women characters over weak men who are often survivors or victims.But nothing is never that simple...

Francois Truffaut depicted a clever and brilliant sociological study about the huge emotional impact that one far descendent from Don Juan in the modern times caused in all the women he loved through his life. Despite the surrealistic plot, the smart dialogues illuminate the essential female soul.
Made in 1977 , this movie contains, nevertheless, the conceptual roots of the renewed New Wave and it's a very funny and carefully well made film. Oskar Werner and the always beautiful Brigitte Fosey give all their best so the whole cast.
Another triumph in Truffaut's career.

esta pelicula, usa recursos visuales, no hay tiroteos,no hay persecusionesm ni violencia, pero es genial, magnifica y tan diferente de estas peliculas americanas que solo sobresaltan la violencia y las persecusiones, es la simple historia de un hombre que ama a las mujeres, que las seduce y que escribe sobre ellas, cuando la empeze a ver, senti cierta temor a aburrirme porque no entendia frances, y noi queria leer, pero la pelicula me dejo literalmente pegado a la silla, por sus recursos visuales y por su simpleza, que es solo superficial, pues se trata mas que de un don juan, un estudio filosofico del protagonista. porque persigue el a todas las muejeres es algo innato, es celebracion caceria, sufrimiento¨? mi escena favorita es cuando pone un anuncio solicitando una ninera y cuando la muchacha llega a la casa le pregunta que donde esta el bebe que hay que cuidar y el responde yo soy el bebe..... esta pelicula es realmente excelente para quienes quieren dejar de ver las mismas cosas con diferentes caras...

LUIS MENDEZ crazzyteacher@hotmail.com

Bertrand Morane (Charles Denner) in Francois Truffaut's "The Man Who Loved Women" wants every woman he sees and usually gets and beds them and then writes a book about his conquests. And that's most of what happens in this amusing film by one of the great film directors. Morane is likeable and perhaps lovable and certainly is never cruel to the women he meets. He just is determined to continue making notches on his gun. There is some indication that he was hurt when Vera (Leslie Caron) broke up with him four, five years ago although we are never completely sure-- at least I wasn't-- as to why he seeks quantity over quality. Certainly, however, the women he gets involved with, if just for a night, are for the most part lookers.

The movie is beautifully filmed as we see frame after frame of women's gorgeous legs for Morane sees them everywhere. Both the beginning and ending are quite brilliant.

A pleasant way to spent two hours of your life.

François Truffaut's The Man Who Loved Women is a pornographic film masquerading as feminism. It is pornography in the etymological sense of "depicting women as harlots". All of the women portrayed in this film are harlots. They have little ambition but to be wanted by men and f***ed by men. They craft themselves, via their clothing and appearance and mannerisms, in such a way as to attact the attentions of men. When a man treats her badly, like a cut of meat, she responds with love, affection and gentle understanding. When she says no, she means yes, or likely even YES. She is not a real woman, but a patriarchal fantasy of what a woman should be. She is a sex doll that never complains, that wants nothing more than to fulfill the desires of men.

The film's hero is an everyman, Bertrand Morane, who stalks women in exceptionally creepy ways. Right at the beginning of the film, he catches a glimpse of a woman in a store, and runs outside to write down her license plate number. When he finds he cannot do so without grounds, he wrecks his car in a parking garage and files a claim. He finds out it was a rental, and tracks down the woman the car was registered to. When he calls her, and he explains how he tracked her, she smiles a giddy smile at all of this attention. A real woman would have called the police and obtained a restraining warrant, but there are no real women in this film. She agrees to meet him for lunch.

Bertrand Morane is decidedly ugly. And he is not someone to brag about his prowess or virility. As a character in the film says, he is no Don Juan or Casanova. The same is of course true for the men in hardcore pornography. Consider Ron Jeremy, for instance. One might reason that this is so that even the ugliest men can see themselves making the same conquests. That is probably true. But even more importantly, this is done to emphasize the lust of the "women", and to move patriarchy past the simple idea of men conquering women into a fantasy world where women themselves beg to be conquered. Bertrand, like any good pornographer, spends much of his time recording and thinking about these conquests. And when a woman does refuse to be conquered, he finds himself badly hurt, his ego shattered. How could any woman deny any man the pleasure of carnal access? In most cases, she does not. For most of the women in this film, Bertrand is the center of the world.

Perhaps the scene I found most disturbing was when Bertrand came across a little girl crying, and asked her whether she didn't feel a little pleasure in it. After some coaxing she agrees with him. Why did he ask her such a ridiculous question? And why did she give such a ridiculous answer? I can only understand this as the filmmaker's way of saying that when you treat a woman with cruelty, and she cries, you shouldn't feel too bad, because deep down inside she really liked it.