LA FEMME INFIDELE
France, 1969, 98 minutes, Colour.
Stephane Audran, Michel Bouquet, Maurice Ronet.
Directed by Claude Chabrol.
The Unfaithful Wife is one of the key films by writer director Claude Chabrol. One of the Nouvelle Vague directors, with Francois Truffaut in the late fifties, he made a number of striking dramas during the early sixties. By the late sixties he was beginning to make a series of crime melodramas with the influence of Alfred Hitchcock whom he admired greatly and wrote about extensively. Starring his then-wife Stephane Audran, the film showed the French bourgeoisie, marital relationships and entanglements, crimes of passion and questions of guilt, responsibility, expiation.
Other films in this series include The Butcher, This Man Must Die, Just Before Midnight, Blood Wedding. They form a series of distinctive films which explore some of the deeper areas of the human soul but within a contemporary context. They are all in attractive colour photography with classical score-style background. During the seventies Chabrol continued, his interest in crime but moved to a variety of areas including French twentieth history and French Canadian settings.
Chabrol was still directing this kind of film into the 21st century. Adrian Lyne remade La Femme Infidele as Unfaithful with Diane Lane, Richard Gere and Olivier Martinez.
1. The film as a portrait of a husband and wife character study? A portrait of French society in the sixties? A portrait of crime, guilt and responsibility? Morality? The significance of the exploration of crime in itself? As symbol of the behaviour of French society?
2. The work of Claude Chabrol - his role in the French New Wave, his interest in Hitchcock and his using of Hitchcock like plots, themes? How does he make these distinctively his own?
3. The Paris and countryside setting? The home of the Bourgeoisie? Affluence, comfortable life style, work? The beauty of the colour photography? The composition, the establishing of mood and atmosphere? Editing and pace? Camera movement and shifts focus and audience feeling? The classical style-score?
4. The title and its ironies? The fact of Helene's infidelity? Its contrast with the introduction to the film and the loving relationship with Charles? Charles and his fidelity to his wife? the consequence of violent crime? Fidelity and infidelity in terms of guilt, punishment, atonement?
5. The way in which the film establishes the home life of the family, its pleasant atmosphere, behaviour? Michele and the devotion of his parents to him? Meals, relaxation? affection of relationships? Expressions of affection and intimacy? Travelling, in the car, visits to the office, the extensive sequence of the outing to the nightclub and Helen's gratitude to Charles? The surface appearance of fidelity? The hints of Infidelity, Helene's being surprised on the phone, her arranging trips in the car, her arriving late at home, her not being at the beauty parlour when Charles phoned?
6. Charles and his routine - his age, behaviour at home, limited interests, relationships with people, at work? Restrained and affectionate? His moral viewpoint? wanting to make his wife happy? However, his suspicions and the hiring of the private detective
7. Helene and her charm, love for her husband? Why did she take the lover? Deceive her husband and so smoothly? Her love for her son and her inability to live without him?
8. The portrait of the lover - the actual sequences of Helene with him, the story of his marriage, their meeting, the meetings during the week? The ease with one another? The openness about the marriages? The audience judgement on Helene and on the lover? Audiences seeing Charles hiring the detective? The information given? The surprise of Charles' visit? The frank exchange about Helene? The civilized manner of the visit? Charles looking around the apartment?
9. The sudden burst of passion and fury and murder? The release of pent-up emotion? Could the audience understand why Charles burst out? The reality of the murder - objective and subjective judgements? The meticulous detail of Charles' tidying up? The bundling of the corpse in the car, the long trip, the accident? His calm on his return home to the children's party? The visits of the police?
10. The background of police work, routine, investigations and questions? Seeing it from the point of the view of the police and their detective work, from the point of view of Helene and her concealing the relationship, from the point of view of Charles and the truth?
11. Helene and the discovery of the photo in Charles' coat, the impact of this knowledge, her decision to protect him, her appreciation of his love for her? Charles and his realization of Helene's knowledge? His final declaration of mad love for her? The interview with the police? The glimpse of Charles with the police, the tracking shot of Helene and Michel standing? What was the audience left with in focusing on these characters and reflecting on what had happened, what was to happen?
12. These visual symbols - the house, meals, television, work, Charles's assistant and her sexy flightiness, the crossword puzzle and the family tension, Michel's detecting the tension between mother and father and reacting, the garden?
13. Portraits of credible characters? Of basic situations of passion, love and violence ? Themes of deceit, fidelity, guilt, punishment?
