Jules and JimTrue friendship cultivates trust and support, a harmonious camaraderie. Love, on the other hand, is real when it is more concerned with honesty over flattery, and is prone to suffering when the fabrications of vanity have been swept aside. Jules and Jim is the story of a love triangle, between two long time friends in France--a travelling Austrian named Jules (Oskar Werner) and his French ally, Jim (Henri Serre)--and a young woman they meet named Catherine (Jeanne Moreau). Although Jules lays claim to her and marries Catherine, her untamed spirit wanders into Jim's life, and the two become lovers.
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Jules and Jim is regarded as a hallmark of the Nouvelle Vague--the French New Wave style of filmmaking. François Truffaut adapted the film from the novel of the same name by Henri-Pierre Roché, a story drawn in part from the author's own personal experiences. It is a love story, but more than that, it is the story about friends who love one another. It is set during the earlier part of the 20th century, just prior to World War I, and ending prior to its successor. Jules and Jim are established as companion souls, the formation of their friendship sped past at the start, since it is more important that they are friends and what that means in the scheme of the story. They are single men, whose social events concern their romances with women, as though they are blissfully collecting conquests in their youthful days. Jules keeps pictures of the women he adores, and Jim maintains a level of distance from his romantic nights with his lover, Gilberte (Vanna Urbino), citing "rules" he sticks to. Catherine's emergence coincides with the young men's journey to the Adriatic Sea to seek out a statue of feminine beauty they both admired, as though it were the siren's call to guide them into Catherine's orbit. Once Jules sets eyes on the young lady, he is committed to making her his, and even goes so far as to advise Jim, "but not this one". It is so crucial of a sentiment that the words emerge on the screen to emphasize the proclamation, the real fracture in Jules and Jim's seemingly unshakable trust and unity.
Catherine quickly falls into the company of Jules and Jim, and their initial playing carries a genuinely childlike gaiety to it, as though they were discovering the world new again. This is not the world weary heartache which would come later, when age sets in and the deeper yearnings for commitment and security come with it, but a joie de vivre that carries promise. Yet for Jules' apparent conquest of Catherine, there is the sense that Jim's sentiments toward his new friend are unresolved, with the seed of jealousy and desire planted in the soil. The onset of World War I makes national enemies of Jules and Jim, but their friendship holds like a steel bar across the years and distance; it is Catherine who tests its mettle. The reunion of the trio, and Jules and Catherine's daughter, reveals how Jules has become somewhat weary, resigned to Catherine's apparent infidelities; but regardless of his suffering, Jules doesn't want to lose Catherine in his life. When Catherine and Jim become romantically closer, Jules understands the relationship and paradoxically offers his blessing, not wanting to sacrifice his best friend or his love at all, willing to compromise in an attempt to keep both. I believe that people's reactions to the affair between Catherine and Jim will vary, as many people watching Jules and Jim will identify more with Jules or Jim (or Catherine for that matter). Perhaps I identify with Jules then, and recognizes the struggle one feels when they are forced to acquiesce, requiring humility when one realizes they cannot tame the thunderstorm or steer a tidal wave. But what sorrow Jules feels comes with the wisdom that even Jim warned him of his impression of Catherine from the start, and Jules did not heed his warnings, too taken by his pursuit to let reason take hold. For those who suggest that the three share an "open" relationship--as hollow a phrase as ever crafted--one must realize that the specter of distrust is always present once Catherine has her sights set on Jim, as she had with other men, leading to moments with private conversations and clandestine meetings for all parties--secrets, in other words, the antithesis of trust. For what should be joyous and uplifting, the presence of love--as proposed by Catherine--seems only to leave sorrow in its wake, heartache which is at odds with the simple pleasures which made their mutual friendship so rewarding from the start.
It has been said before, but it is noteworthy that although Jules and Jim is named for the two central men in the story, Catherine is in the center, right where she wants to be. Catherine: the object of affection for many men, whom Jules describes as a "queen", ruling over the drone-like males who serve her, who both Jules and Jim describe as a "little Napoleon", always getting her way by spite or seduction--and sometimes both. Catherine is many things, sometimes changing dramatically at times. She is impulsive, reckless, selfish, conniving, determined, and so on. She plays by her own rules to a game that is never spelled out for the other participants. She talks of how she slept with a lover on the eve of her marriage to Jules to "settle a score", so as to begin their relationship with a "clean slate". Catherine uses infidelity as a weapon--not even so much as a threat but as a justification to answer her feelings. She claims that she doesn't want to be understood, but there is the sense of the very opposite at work, that by acting out she reveals that she craves acceptance. She tells Jim that she hoped to cure Jules of his insecurities, but what bothers her more is that they mirror her own. Doesn't it seem as though Catherine tries to be an independent spirit just a bit too hard? She precedes contemporary feminism; ironically, she embodies some of the best and worst aspects of the movement. Jim is hurt when he returns from Paris to "say farewells"--including sleeping with Gilberte--to find that Catherine has done the same with their friend, Albert (Serge Rezvani); but isn't this the kind of double standard often brought up when it comes to claims of gender equality? Perhaps what makes Catherine so attractive to intellectual men like Jules and Jim is that she is a liberated woman, and they appreciate her brains and wit more than just her physical beauty. Catherine is the focus of the movie, the very center of the universe, and her gravity is like the Sun, and everyone else is forced to revolve around her, never to escape.
Recommended for: Fans of a romantic drama about friends and love--the delicate balance between the two and how easily one can be perceived as the other. It is also a period piece which portrays the kinds of dramatic changes occurring at the start of the 20th century.
Catherine quickly falls into the company of Jules and Jim, and their initial playing carries a genuinely childlike gaiety to it, as though they were discovering the world new again. This is not the world weary heartache which would come later, when age sets in and the deeper yearnings for commitment and security come with it, but a joie de vivre that carries promise. Yet for Jules' apparent conquest of Catherine, there is the sense that Jim's sentiments toward his new friend are unresolved, with the seed of jealousy and desire planted in the soil. The onset of World War I makes national enemies of Jules and Jim, but their friendship holds like a steel bar across the years and distance; it is Catherine who tests its mettle. The reunion of the trio, and Jules and Catherine's daughter, reveals how Jules has become somewhat weary, resigned to Catherine's apparent infidelities; but regardless of his suffering, Jules doesn't want to lose Catherine in his life. When Catherine and Jim become romantically closer, Jules understands the relationship and paradoxically offers his blessing, not wanting to sacrifice his best friend or his love at all, willing to compromise in an attempt to keep both. I believe that people's reactions to the affair between Catherine and Jim will vary, as many people watching Jules and Jim will identify more with Jules or Jim (or Catherine for that matter). Perhaps I identify with Jules then, and recognizes the struggle one feels when they are forced to acquiesce, requiring humility when one realizes they cannot tame the thunderstorm or steer a tidal wave. But what sorrow Jules feels comes with the wisdom that even Jim warned him of his impression of Catherine from the start, and Jules did not heed his warnings, too taken by his pursuit to let reason take hold. For those who suggest that the three share an "open" relationship--as hollow a phrase as ever crafted--one must realize that the specter of distrust is always present once Catherine has her sights set on Jim, as she had with other men, leading to moments with private conversations and clandestine meetings for all parties--secrets, in other words, the antithesis of trust. For what should be joyous and uplifting, the presence of love--as proposed by Catherine--seems only to leave sorrow in its wake, heartache which is at odds with the simple pleasures which made their mutual friendship so rewarding from the start.
It has been said before, but it is noteworthy that although Jules and Jim is named for the two central men in the story, Catherine is in the center, right where she wants to be. Catherine: the object of affection for many men, whom Jules describes as a "queen", ruling over the drone-like males who serve her, who both Jules and Jim describe as a "little Napoleon", always getting her way by spite or seduction--and sometimes both. Catherine is many things, sometimes changing dramatically at times. She is impulsive, reckless, selfish, conniving, determined, and so on. She plays by her own rules to a game that is never spelled out for the other participants. She talks of how she slept with a lover on the eve of her marriage to Jules to "settle a score", so as to begin their relationship with a "clean slate". Catherine uses infidelity as a weapon--not even so much as a threat but as a justification to answer her feelings. She claims that she doesn't want to be understood, but there is the sense of the very opposite at work, that by acting out she reveals that she craves acceptance. She tells Jim that she hoped to cure Jules of his insecurities, but what bothers her more is that they mirror her own. Doesn't it seem as though Catherine tries to be an independent spirit just a bit too hard? She precedes contemporary feminism; ironically, she embodies some of the best and worst aspects of the movement. Jim is hurt when he returns from Paris to "say farewells"--including sleeping with Gilberte--to find that Catherine has done the same with their friend, Albert (Serge Rezvani); but isn't this the kind of double standard often brought up when it comes to claims of gender equality? Perhaps what makes Catherine so attractive to intellectual men like Jules and Jim is that she is a liberated woman, and they appreciate her brains and wit more than just her physical beauty. Catherine is the focus of the movie, the very center of the universe, and her gravity is like the Sun, and everyone else is forced to revolve around her, never to escape.
Recommended for: Fans of a romantic drama about friends and love--the delicate balance between the two and how easily one can be perceived as the other. It is also a period piece which portrays the kinds of dramatic changes occurring at the start of the 20th century.