In the Seberg Style
2013; Issue: 90 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2562-2528
Autores Tópico(s)Literature Analysis and Criticism
ResumoPreviously unavailable on any format, the French Style (1963) was released on Columbia/Sony DVD in September 2011, but, alas, without a single extra feature. Made for $557,000, the film returned a small profit and earned generally good notices, but was quickly forgotten. Directed by Robert Parrish and written by Irwin Shaw for their Casanna Production Company, it yokes together two of Shaw's short stories: A Year to Learn the Language and In the French Style. The former provides the basis for the first half of the film; the latter, the second half. Essentially a coming-of-age story, the film has to do with Christina James (Jean Seberg), a 19-year old Midwesterner who comes to Paris for a year to study art and learn the language, only to get caught up in the jaded social scene. Staying on for three more years, she abandons her painting, does some modeling, and embarks on a series of love affairs before finally deciding to return home. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Appearing in nearly every scene, Jean Seberg is the main reason to see the film. Settling in Paris after her two films with Preminger flopped, she famously rode the crest of the New Wave in Godard's Breathless (1959) and de Broca's sophisticated comedy The Five-Day Lover (1961), fact, between 1958 and 1963, she practically owned the role of the American girl abroad in the French Style marks the culmination of this period in her career, and showcases one of her most affecting performances. Contemporary critics by and large regarded the French Style as ambitious but uneven, preferring the first half, which they found fresh and original. Gently comic in tone, it concentrates on Christina's romance with a charming, if opinionated French student (Philippe Forquet), and concludes with a nicely observed scene in which the two go to a hotel to make love for the first time. Unfortunately, things go wrong from the start. Their room turns out to be ice cold; the champagne they order, lukewarm. On top of that, Guy, the young man, hasn't brought along enough money. As he and Christina lie in bed, he berates himself for having bungled everything and makes a startling confession: he is not a 21-year old engineering student, as he had led her to believe, but a 16-year old lyceum (high school) student. With this admission, the mood of the scene darkens. How could I have been so inaccurate? Christina says ruefully, having been taken in completely. Confused and hurt, she asks him why he lied. Because you wouldn't have looked at me otherwise, he replies. Knowing this to be true, she cannot find it in her heart to be angry or turn him away. Following their lovemaking, Guy lies asleep by her side. However, she remains awake. Her eyes filled with tears, she knows their relationship is over. What makes the film's first half especially engaging is Seberg and Forquet's playing off each other--Guy's mixture of pomposity and charm is perfectly matched by Christina's mixture of decency, determination, and naivete. It is no coincidence that her last name is James, for she is the 20th century counterpart to Henry James' Daisy Miller: the proverbial innocent abroad who finds her values sorely tested. Thus, when Guy, in an angry snit, accuses her of caring only about her career and predicts that she will use sex to advance it, she fires back that she could have stayed in the States if it was sex she was after. And when in the hotel scene, he announces that the girl always undresses first, she declares emphatically, Not this girl. As Christina soon discovers, Paris is not just a place but an education, in which one learns more about life, love, and oneself. This education comes at a price, however: the loss of innocence. Indeed, in the film's second half, which opens with a rather awkward transitional sequence, we meet Christina three years later. Now the smashingest girl in town and breathtakingly beautiful, she is at her soigne best, having replaced her earlier smock and pony tail with chic evening wear and a stylish hairdo. …
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