Amants, Les (1958)

Director:

Louis Malle

Writer:

Louise de Vilmorin (dialogue)
(more)

Release Date:

26 October 1959 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

The most talked-about and fought-about film!

Plot:

Bored with her husband, bored with her polo-playing lover, will the middle-aged heroine go away with...

Plot Keywords:

Husband Wife Relationship | Workaholic | Sex | Secret Lover | Car Breakdown

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Jeanne Moreau	...	Jeanne Tournier
Alain Cuny	...	Henri Tournier
José Luis de Villalonga	...	Raoul Flores (as José Villalonga)
Jean-Marc Bory	...	Bernard Dubois-Lambert
Judith Magre	...	Maggy Thiebaut-Leroy
Gaston Modot	...	Coudray
Michèle Girardon	...	La secrétaire
Claude Mansard	...	Marcelot
Georgette Lobre	...	Marthe
Patricia Maurin	...	Catherine, fille de Jeanne
Lucienne Hamon	...	Chantal
Pierre Frag
Gib Grossac
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jean-Claude Brialy	...	Un garçon a manège (uncredited)

Directed by
Louis Malle

Writing credits
Louise de Vilmorin		(dialogue)
Dominique Vivant		(novel "Point de Lendemain") uncredited

Cinematography by
Henri Decaë

Film Editing by
Léonide Azar

Production Design by
Bernard Evein

Set Decoration by
Jacques Saulnier

Costume Design by
Coco Chanel

Makeup Department
Gisèle Jacquin	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Irénée Leriche	....	production manager
Hubert Mérial	....	unit manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Alain Cavalier	....	assistant director
François Leterrier	....	second assistant director

Art Department
Charles Merangel	....	property master

Sound Department
Pierre-André Bertrand	....	sound (as Pierre Bertrand)

Camera and Electrical Department
Vincent Rossell	....	photographer
André Villard	....	camera operator

Editorial Department
Madeleine Bibollet	....	assistant editor
Kenout Peltier	....	assistant editor

Other crew
Francine Corteggiani	....	script girl

Production Companies

• Nouvelles Éditions de Films

Distributors

• Lux Compagnie Cinématographique de France (1958) (France) (theatrical)
• Zenith International Films (1959) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Criterion Collection, The (2008) (USA) (DVD)
• Kinokuniya (2005) (Japan) (DVD)
• New Yorker Films (1996) (USA) (VHS)
• Video Film Express (2006) (Netherlands) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Poste Parisien  sound post-production

Also Known As:

The Lovers (UK) (USA)

Runtime:

Argentina:90 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16

Filming Locations:

Burgundy, France

Company:

Nouvelles Éditions de Films

Trivia:

After screening this film, Nico Jacobellis, manager of a motion picture theater in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, was charged with and convicted of possessing and exhibiting an obscene film. He appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court, which overturned the convictions, ruling that the film was not obscene. In a concurring opinion, Justice Potter Stewart made his famous pronouncement concerning what was pornography: "I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring).

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Mau Mau Sex Sex (2001)

Soundtrack:

Streichsextett No. 1

A love thornbird still searching her destination

Crazy about French movies ever since I started watching them. The black and white is more appropriate than colour for French film, very captivating and unreal.

What can you say about the French people? Desperados and aficionados of romance and love. Hopelessly romantics.

Simple story told like a poem regardless of any moral criticism, there is no such thing call moral or immoral in the realm of art. Art is a rival to moral, it allows all sorts of existences. In this movie, the sin is adultery but no one cares to condemn it, the pursuit of love takes it all. The love scene might be stunning to the audience in late 50s France, but definitely not today. Jeanne Moreau somehow took a bold step. Anyway, she is radiating gloriously in superb cinematography.

Jeanne Tournier married to a well-off provincial newspaper owner for eight years. She has a daughter, a polo-playing lover and a big bunch of acid-tongued snobbish Parisian friends. Nevertheless, she is bored about living in such a polite society. Finally when Bernard, a young student whom she has known just for a few hours, enters into her life, just after solely one night's time in her husband's villa with him, she decides to leave with him into the uncertain future the very next morning.

Several lyrical scenes impress me a great deal. Their nightly accidental encounter at the garden. Jeanne is illuminating the dimness, she looks like a mystic fairy seducing Bernard. Another one is the astonishing look of her friend when she sees them leaving together. The most memorable is the very last scene, they drive and drive into uncertain.

The map shown at the beginning and the voice-over at the end may be something like a warning. However, when two lovers in love that they can sacrifice everything for the romance in such a desperate fashion, nothing is threatening. Feminists or women who are fighting for their freedom would be clapping their hands… she's got guts.