The Eternal Return
French Poetic Realism
•
1h 53m
Directed by Jean Delannoy • 1943 • France
Starring Jean Marais, Madeleine Sologne, Jean Murat
Jean Cocteau—who wrote the script in his typical blend of the dreamlike and the mythic—and director Jean Delannoy transpose the immortal tale of Tristan and Isolde to 1940s France in this rhapsodic romantic fantasy starring the dashing Jean Marais as Patrice, a young man who falls in love with his uncle’s fiancée Nathalie (Madeleine Sologne). When she decides to go through with the marriage anyway, Patrice falls for another woman named Nathalie, but can’t get the first one out of his head.
Up Next in French Poetic Realism
-
La tête d’un homme
Directed by Julien Duvivier • 1933 • France
Starring Harry Baur, Valéry Inkijinoff, Alexandre RignaultJulien Duvivier’s meticulously crafted adaptation of a novel by legendary crime writer Georges Simenon stars Harry Baur as the author’s most indelible creation, Inspector Jules Maigret, who he...
-
Children of Paradise
Directed by Marcel Carné • 1945 • France
Starring Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre BrasseurPoetic realism reached sublime heights with CHILDREN OF PARADISE, widely considered one of the greatest French films of all time. This nimble depiction of nineteenth-century Paris’s theatrical demimon...
