THE MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT
UK, 1969, 134 minutes, Colour.
Katharine Hepburn, Danny Kaye, Yul Brynner, Donald Pleasence, Charles Boyer, Richard Chamberlain, Edith Evans, John Gavin, Oscar Homolka, Paul Henreid, Margaret Leighton, Giulietta Masina, Nanette Newman. Directed by Bryan Forbes.
The Madwoman of Chaillot is an adapted version of Jean Giraudoux's fantasy play. Produced and directed by Bryan Forbes, a talented producer-director-writer of notable British films of the 60s (The Angry Silence, The L-Shaped? Room, King Rat, The Whisperers), it is an ambitious attempt to make a star-studded significant film. It generally received unfavourable reviews from the critics who did not even like much Katharine Hepburn's portrayal of the Madwoman.
The story concerns a gently insane lady, Aurelia, who is shocked at a scheme hatched by a politician, a general, a communist, a broker, a clergyman, and a speculating prospector to destroy Paris for the oil underneath it. She visits them in turn (which provides satirical social comment on each of these pillars of the establishment) and tricks them into double-crossing one another. With her friends (the mad, the poor, the oppressed, the young lovers), she conducts a trial and condemns them. This sequence features a virtuoso performance by Danny Kaye as the Ragpicker delegated to take the place of the defendants. His acting out of their defence is an intense and moving dramatic interlude.
The film has many excellent ingredients, but most audiences expecting a masterpiece will feel let down. If an audience is led to expect an intelligent fantasy-satire on modern ills and human nature, which is clearly based on a play, is talkative and generally slow-moving, they will probably appreciate it.
1. The film opens with a prologue stating that in the film good overcomes evil - so that it is obviously a fantasy. is this a just comment on the film?
2. How mad is the Madwoman? What was the cause of her madness? remember the fantasy sequence with Richard Chamberlain after he had been rescued from the Seine; also the soliloquy of Aurelia as she rests before the trial and imagines Chamberlain as Alphonse. What is the point of Aurelia and the waitress being interchanged in these fantasy sequences? In what way is the waitress an image of Aurelia?
3. How mad are her friends? What was the nature of their madness? Why did they live in the past? What effect did the present have when it registered on the madwoman?
4. A sermon device in drama is for characters to speak telling truths when they are in disguise or when they feign madness or are truly mad. How is this device used in the film
- in the madness of Aurelia and her friends?
- the statements Aurelia made to the broker, the general, etc?
- the disguise of the trial scene?
- the disguise of the Ragpicker as the villains? What is the nature of the truth here?
5. List the villains; choose the scenes where they are shown in action -e.g. the Russian at the Party meeting, and his turning of the tables on the Secretary; the clergyman at his Mass Rally; work out why these men are considered, hypocrites.
6. How does each of these villains expose and make a fool of himself during the Madwoman 'a visit? What aspects of modern society, establishment, and hypocrisy are being satirised?
7. Comment on the cafe scene where each of the villains describes something mean and immoral that he has done. Why did they make these confessions? Why did they then trust one another?
8. What is the significance of introducing the young rebels into the film - just for a love story? Did it throw light on Aurelia’s experience? To show how young enthusiasts are exploited and used by unscrupulous older people? Other reasons?
9. Why is the trial scene important? Did it fit harmoniously into the film? Was Danny Kaye's 'defence' convincing and moving? The Rag-picker said he was able to judge people from the type of garbage they threw away. How did this qualify him for his role in the trial?
10. Was the film an effective satire on the troubles of the modern world? Do you think people would be changed by it? Why? Why not?
