THE WIDOW COUDERC

France, 1971, 92 minutes, Colour.
Alain Delon, Simone Signoret, Ottavia Piccolo.
Directed by Pier Granier- Defarre.

The Widow Couderc is based on a celebrated novel by Georges Simenon, the creator of Inspector Maigret.

The setting is 1954 but the focus is on a widow who has been abused by a father and son on a farm, working there since she had been a young woman and throughout World War One. Now a widow, she manages the farm – but an escaped prisoner, Alain Delon, helps her with the farm and moves in. He has an affair with a young woman in the village – but raises the anger of the family across the river from the widow. This leads to the police raiding, shoot-outs.

The film is seen as an allegory of France – with the widow herself symbolising France and the abuse that she experienced. The villagers are also symbolic of the French capacity for denouncing those that they did not approve of in order to make their lives comfortable.

The film is dramatic, has two of France’s best stars in Simone Signoret and Alain Delon.

1. The quality of this film and its impact as human drama? Political drama?

2. The cinematic techniques and quality?

3. The importance of atmosphere, the film’s attention to detail of place? Our knowledge of the village, of the widow’s house? Our being immersed in this atmosphere and experiencing the people, feelings, the times?

4. The importance of atmosphere: the detailed presentation of the times, France in the 1920s? Audience involvement in the spirit of these times?

5. The importance of the film as a piece of history? The immersion in the times and the significance of the ending in focussing on dates, places and people? The response to this in later decades?

6. How was the film a character study of France in the 1920s? Rural and village France? How important is such a study via film?

7. The portrayal of France and fascism? The detailed attention to France, yet the universal appeal and the universal significance?

8. The widow as symbolising France, her background, poverty, raped? A widow involved in work, simplicity, running her house, being attacked, loving and being unloved?

9. The widow and her family? Her attitudes towards her husband, father-in-law? A tough woman, yet sensitive and soft? Again, as a symbol of France?

10. The importance of the widow’s feelings, the stances she took, the significance of her death? An accident yet significant?

11. Jean: as a symbol of young France and changing France? The background of prison and crime, work, helping the widow, knowledge, lust and love? The stances that he took, his not wanting to stay and face injustice, his fleeing, his own death and the fact that he caused death? What insight into political and social France?

12. The character of the father-in-law? The detail of its development, his relationship to the widow, to Jean, to the rest of the family? How much insight into this type of character?

13. The portrayal of the relations? Audience lack of sympathy for them? Their mean mindedness, especially as regards the widow, the father-in-law? The fact that they informed, their motivation? The political connections? The importance of Felicia? Her relationship with the widow, with Jean? The contrast of lust and love?

14. The portrait of the farm, the work, the incubators etc.? Why was the attention to detail important in the work sequences?

15. The detailed atmosphere of the town, shops, church, the bus?

16. The epitaph as highlighting this film as significant drama?