Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville • 1950 • France
Starring Nicole Stéphane, Edouard Dermithe
Writer Jean Cocteau and director Jean-Pierre Melville joined forces for this elegant adaptation of Cocteau’s immensely popular, wicked novel about the wholly unholy relationship between a brother and sister. Elisabeth (a remarkable Nicole Stéphane) and Paul (Edouard Dermithe) close themselves off from the world by playing an increasingly intense series of mind games with the people who dare enter their lair, until romance and jealousy intrude. Melville’s operatic camera movements and Cocteau’s perverse, poetic approach to character merge in LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES to create one of French cinema’s greatest, and most surprising, meetings of the minds.
Up Next in Michael Cunningham’s Adventures in Moviegoing
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Michael Cunningham on LOLA MONTÈS
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Lola Montès
Directed by Max Ophuls • 1955 • France, West Germany
Starring Martine Carol, Peter UstinovLOLA MONTÈS is a visually ravishing, narratively daring dramatization of the life of the notorious courtesan and showgirl, played by Martine Carol. With his customary cinematographic flourish and, for the ...
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Michael Cunningham on PATHER PANCHALI