MADAME BOVARY

France, 1991, 141 minutes, Colour.
Isabelle Huppert, Jean- Francois Balmer, Christophe Malavoy, Jean Yanne, Lucas Belvaux.
Directed by Claude Chabrol.

Madame Bovary is one of many screen versions of Gustave Flaubert’s classic novel. It was made by Hollywood in 1949 with Jennifer Jones, James Mason and Louis Jourdan. There was a British television miniseries in 2000 with Frances O’ Connor as Madame Bovary.

Madame Bovary seems a strange choice for writer-director Claude Chabrol. For almost fifty years he made a series of crime thrillers, psychological thrillers looking beneath the surface of French respectability. To that extent, of course, Madame Bovary is material for Chabrol. However, he has made very few period films.

Isabelle Huppert had worked a number of times with Claude Chabrol including Violette Noziere and A Story of Women. She is an ice-cold character as Madame Bovary, trapped in a loveless marriage, ambitious to move out of her provincial town, unscrupulous in her dealings with people.

Critics said that the film did not do justice to the novel – although it was filmed in actual locations, has a strong sense of time and place, is strong on costumes and décor and a sense of period. Because the original is a strong literary work, the director has to make the image do the work of the words. To that extent, Chabrol is a master.

1. The classic of Flaubert’s novel? The French atmosphere? The universal themes?

2. Transferring a classic novel to the screen? The work of Claude Chabrol, his thriller techniques, delineation of characters, creation of social atmosphere, his moral fables?

3. The strength of the period décor, costumes? The village, the city of Rouen? The 19th century French atmosphere? The 19th century-style classical score?

4. The title, the focus on Emma? Isabelle Huppert as a French screen icon? Embodying Emma Bovary?

5. The focus on Emma, not on Charles (as in the novel)? The use of the voice-over, the subjective eye of the camera, inviting audiences to watch and listen, to make them complicit in the plot?

6. Bourgeois life in the 19th century, the village, stultifying for a person like Emma, her boredom? The significance of wealth and social status? Yet the emptiness of lives? The desire to escape – but no escape, even feeling trapped?

7. Emma and her father, the relationship, his leg, Charles as the doctor, seeing Charles as a means of escape, her social prestige as Madame Bovary? The ball and her excitement?

8. Emma’s petulance, wilful, girlish, irresponsible, cruel? Her lack as a wife, as a mother?

9. Life in the town, Charles in himself, a quiet character, devoted, not understanding his wife, committed to his work? Monsieur Homais, work, the birth? His relationship with his mother?

10. Emma and Leon, her wanting to leave her husband, her being idle, the relationship? Her taking up with Rodolphe? Her deceits, passion? The repercussions of these affairs on her life at home?

11. The operation, the disaster? Rodolphe and his not leaving? Collapse?

12. Leon, Rouen, the affair and the passion? Leon as a character? Trustworthy or not? In comparison with Rodolphe?

13. The expenses, the merchant Lheureux? Urging her, debts, the devices to pay, power of attorney, her going to Rouen?

14. Her debts being called, the property? Leon and Rodolphe refusing to help her? Lheureux and his vindictive attitude?

15. The suicide, the consequences for Charles?

16. The portrait of a 19th century bourgeois woman, her place in society, wilful, self-centred, destructive?