Comments on: Thérèse Desqueyroux (France 2012) https://globalfilmstudies.com/2013/08/07/therese-desqueyroux-france-2012/ An introduction to global film for teachers and students Sat, 17 Aug 2013 09:17:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: keith1942 https://globalfilmstudies.com/2013/08/07/therese-desqueyroux-france-2012/comment-page-1/#comment-309 Sat, 17 Aug 2013 09:17:44 +0000 http://itpworld.wordpress.com/?p=9206#comment-309 I was interested enough by the film to read the François Mauriac’s novel, Thérèse (1927, translation by Gerard Hopkins). The novel is divided into four sections or stories, all relating to Thérèse Desqueyroux. The opening story, Thérèse Desqueyroux, commences at the end of a trial [also part of the film’s plot]. On her way home Thérèse remembers “Such lovely summer days! … Seated in the little train which now at last had started to move, she admitted to herself that she must go back in thought to them, if she was ever to see clearly what happened.”
In the film’s linear narrative the childhood scenes open the film, and rather than illuminating the subsequent events they seemed to make them more ambiguous. The blurb on the back of this paperback quotes Mauriac, “She took form in my mind as an example of that power -…. – of saying “No” to the law which beats down on them …” The author’s project in the novel seems fairly clear. My sense of the film was that this was never clarified. Thérèse’s motivations remain clouded and ambiguous.
I noted the quote by Claude Miller that Roy pointed too. However, linear narratives can be just as conventional as flashbacks. I have not seen Franju’s 1962 film version. However, according to James Stevens “Whilst the film time-shifts Mauriac’s novel (originally set in the 1920s) to the present day and adopts only one point of view (that of Thérèse), it is in all other respects faithful to its source. In writing his novel, Mauriac claimed he was strongly influenced by cinema and employed many cinematic devices (such as the narrative flashback and sudden opening) to give his book a modern touch.” I wondered if Miller was influenced by the idea of taking a different tack from the earlier version?
To give the film its credit, there is a British literary period adaptation also on release, Summer in February. The setting is Cornwall in 1913 and it supposedly presents an artistic colony without the taboos under which Thérèse suffers. In fact the film also contains a misjudged marriage, a less than pre-possessing husband figure and a more sympathetic lover figure. There the similarities end. The French film is much better than its British equivalent.

]]> By: Roy Stafford https://globalfilmstudies.com/2013/08/07/therese-desqueyroux-france-2012/comment-page-1/#comment-308 Fri, 09 Aug 2013 14:03:33 +0000 http://itpworld.wordpress.com/?p=9206#comment-308 In reply to keith1942.

I’m guessing that you meant that altering the novel structure does NOT completely work? If so, you should check out the Press Pack (link in the post). Miller says in response to the question about why he changed the structure: “Today flashback structure has really become a structure for Saturday night made‐for‐TV movies. And this story was absolutely tellable in linear form. It even made it more powerful. It allowed us to feel closer to Thérèse”.

]]> By: keith1942 https://globalfilmstudies.com/2013/08/07/therese-desqueyroux-france-2012/comment-page-1/#comment-307 Fri, 09 Aug 2013 13:18:35 +0000 http://itpworld.wordpress.com/?p=9206#comment-307 I also enjoyed the film and it looks and sounds good.
However I think altering the structure from the novel does not completely work – I think this contributes to the lack of clarity for the motivation of Therese – and that leads on to a certain ambiguity around the way her marital relationship develops.
I was especailly aware of this as Claude Miller uses a non-linear structure so effectively in betty Fisher & Other Stories.
I wondered how much this is down to the producers as opposed to the director?

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