Controversy aside, the film is pretty standard fare.
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It´s amazing how much social mores can change in just fifty years.
In 1958, Louis Malle´s "The Lovers" (1958) stirred up controversy in Europe and in America for its "frank" depiction of sexuality. Labeled obscene by some, the film´s exhibition led to multiple arrests and eventually to the landmark Supreme Court case which produced the now famous quote from Justice Potter Stewart who claimed that pornography was hard to define but "I know it when I see it." The line that followed isn´t quoted nearly as often: "and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."
Viewers today expecting a "frank" depiction of sexuality may well get to the end of the film and wonder what the hell happened to frank. The hubbub revolves predominantly around one scene in which Jeanne (Jeanne Moreau) and her new paramour make love; only the faintest hint of flesh is visible, but the real scandal was the film´s close-up on Moreau´s face as she begins to enjoy herself. As many feminist film critics have pointed out, there is nothing that outrages film censors and self-appointed moral leaders as much as the depiction of female pleasure on screen.
While this scene is tame by today´s standards (it wouldn´t even merit an R-rating), the film still has the power to provoke. Jeanne is the bored wife of a newspaper magnate who takes frequent trips to Paris to visit her friend Maggie (Judith Magre) and to carry on an affair with a devilishly handsome and sophisticated polo player named Raoul (José Luis de Villalonga.) This affair didn´t bother censors at the time; it was de rigueur in European culture and European cinema to have a dignified fling on the side.
The shocker arrives later when Jeanne´s husband Henri (Alain Cuny), suspicious of his wife´s infidelity, invites Maggie and Raoul to a dinner where, in effect, Jeanne is forced to choose between her husband and her lover. Instead, she opts for Door Number Three, Bernard (Jean-Marc Bory), the young archeologist who drove her back home after her car broke down. Their romance starts quite suddenly and rapidly flowers into hot, steamy passion. After one night with Bernard, Jeanne has no doubts left: she leaves her husband (and her daughter!) behind to run off to a new life.
If the film was made under the Hayes code, she would have to be horribly punished for her crime against society and the family unit, but Malle (who was having a real-life fling with Moreau at the time) evinces no disapproval whatsoever of Jeanne´s actions, nor any evidence that she will suffer for it. She has made her choice, and she is free. The viewer might be left wondering what happens to the poor daughter she left behind, but the point is that Jeanne exerts complete autonomy.
"The Lovers" was Malle´s follow-up to his smash-hit feature debut "Elevator to the Gallows" (1958) which also starred Moreau. Like "Elevator," "The Lovers" was a huge international hit, as distributors took full advantage of the film´s controversy to appeal to the public´s prurient interests: "Never before has the camera focused so intimately – so revealingly!" It also won a Special Jury Prize at Venice, despite, or perhaps because of, the strenuous disapproval of Italian religious authorities.
Controversy aside, the film is pretty standard fare. Moreau was already an established stage actress at the time, but the first two Malle films helped launch her film career and made her one of the central figures of the French New Wave and well beyond. Orson Welles allegedly called her the greatest actress in the world. I have to admit I´ve never quite understood her appeal. I am in a distinct minority in finding her performance in "Jules and Jim" utterly boring. Her enigmatic turn in "The Bride Wore Black" (more or less remade as "Kill Bill") is far more intriguing, but even there she functions mainly as a cipher, though I suppose it is this cool, mysterious quality that has made her a fetish figure for so many directors and cinephiles.
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