281 Jules and Jim

[manicsounds]

Looks like the "error" from the previous DVD has been corrected.

[feihong]

I'm really surprised by how many people I read on this site hating Jules et Jim; disliking Jules et Jim; dismissing Jules et Jim. Every so often the film gets mentioned on a thread in some context, and immediately someone drops in to hate the film, and it seems to happen every time the film is mentioned. That doesn't happen to most of the films mentioned on the board. Not that it's an invalid reaction; but I'd definitely like to understand why it is that it engenders such ire. It's my favorite Truffaut film, and one of the movies I'd highly recommend to people wanting to get into movies that aren't American...and in recent years I have heard from friends that they dislike the film as well. But no one ever explains their dislike to me. How can you actually hate this film?


Also I second mfunk9786's appraisal of the box. A thing of beauty.

[knives]

I can't speak for everybody and for me it is more apathy than hate, but while the film has some positives (silent in widescreen is an interesting concept) it really feels like the first major step to Truffaut becoming the hohum director he would grow to be with a weak story featuring poor characterization that leaves the themes feeling hallow. The greatness, for me, of those first two films is how he really makes you feel fully as the characters when he wants you to. Here it is more like observing shallow people being shallow and thinking they're cute or romantic or some such. After Truffaut did still manage some great films, but here is the first film that really felt like it was coming from somebody who didn't feel the need to contribute anything to the medium artistically again.

[feihong]

That's very interesting. For myself, I've always found it easy to get swept up in the feelings of the characters in Jules et Jim; I find their characterization just as immersive as that of Antoine in The 400 Blows or Charlie in Shoot the Piano Player. So what is it that makes you feel the characters in Jules et Jim are shallow?

[hearthesilence]

Wow, do people here really dislike this film? My tastes for his work has changed over the years (by that, I mean I value some of his overlooked films a lot more now while others I liked in high school - such as Small Change and Day for Night - have fallen way out of favor), but Jules et Jim is still my favorite, my opinion of it hasn't diminished one bit.

[manicsounds]

Would Jules & Jim also qualify as an early "manic pixie dream girl" movie?

[domino harvey]

Spoiler

Only if saving a guy now means killing them!

[mfunk9786]

Manic pixie nightmare girl

[movielocke]

I know I loved this as a teenager, but I haven't seen it in a long time. I'm surprised it engenders hate, I thought it was pretty haute shit back then.

[jindianajonz]

Would Jules & Jim also qualify as an early "manic pixie dream girl" movie?

The guy who coined the phrase thinks so.

[feihong]

I read lots of people on here who don't like the movie, and I've also read a lot of what I might call faint praise for the film, making large of the notion that the principle characters in the film are foolish/irresponsible, etc. I feel as if the situation of this film seems to pick of every moral condemnation modern people can muster. There's a lot of special frustration and hate set aside for Catherine--as if she is a particularly odious figure. I do think you can read Catherine as the "villain" of the piece--the woman who aspires to drive a wedge betwixt these great friends--but to me that's an oversimplification of Catherine which ignores her unique qualities, her larger ambitions, talent, vivacity, warmth...she needs to feel the depth of the impression she leaves, and she does seem to see Jules and Jim's friendship in the way of that. It doesn't make me hate her.

[Red Screamer]

Dr. Svet says,"Jules and Jim Blu-ray truly is a masterpiece with perfect scores all around making it a contender for best Blu-ray ever"

[MichaelB]

Dr. Svet says,"Jules and Jim Blu-ray truly is a masterpiece with perfect scores all around making it a contender for best Blu-ray ever"

Where does he actually utter that sentence? I can't see it in the review.

[domino harvey]

Click on Overview, it appears just below the first set of screencaps at the top:

[MichaelB]

Fair enough - I only read the main review.

[pro-bassoonist]

Dr. Svet says,"Jules and Jim Blu-ray truly is a masterpiece with perfect scores all around making it a contender for best Blu-ray ever"

Where does he actually utter that sentence? I can't see it in the review.

The sentence is actually not part of the review. I like this disc a lot, but not that much. I will check with the developers, but I am pretty sure that this is a system-generated text.

[Gregory]

It must be. Search results show the same sentence attached to Benjamin Button, Taxi Driver, Godfather Collection, Thin Red Line, On the Waterfront, The Leopard, Lawrence of Arabia, Tess, Marketa Lazarova, Investigation of a Citizen, Autumn Sonata, Titanic, Sound of Music, Wall*E, Seventh Seal, Third Man, Voyage to Italy, Heaven's Gate, Medium Cool, Game of Thrones 3rd Season, Double Life of Veronique, Blade Runner, and Star Trek.

[Red Screamer]

Ah that makes sense.
My apologies

[Yaanu]

It must be. Search results show the same sentence attached to Benjamin Button, Taxi Driver, Godfather Collection, Thin Red Line, On the Waterfront, The Leopard, Lawrence of Arabia, Tess, Marketa Lazarova, Investigation of a Citizen, Autumn Sonata, Titanic, Sound of Music, Wall*E, Seventh Seal, Third Man, Voyage to Italy, Heaven's Gate, Medium Cool, Game of Thrones 3rd Season, Double Life of Veronique, Blade Runner, and Star Trek.

That makes 24 total. Clearly, there can only be one.
Clearly, we must organize a tournament to determine the best of the best.

[domino harvey]

How did Heaven's Gate get a near perfect with so few supplements?

[otis]

Search results show the same sentence attached to Benjamin Button, Taxi Driver, Godfather Collection, Thin Red Line, On the Waterfront, The Leopard, Lawrence of Arabia, Tess, Marketa Lazarova, Investigation of a Citizen, Autumn Sonata, Titanic, Sound of Music, Wall*E, Seventh Seal, Third Man, Voyage to Italy, Heaven's Gate, Medium Cool, Game of Thrones 3rd Season, Double Life of Veronique, Blade Runner, and Star Trek.

Hence Brando's classic line: "I coulda been a contender for best Blu-ray ever."

[MichaelB]

Dr. Svet says,"Jules and Jim Blu-ray truly is a masterpiece with perfect scores all around making it a contender for best Blu-ray ever"

Where does he actually utter that sentence? I can't see it in the review.

The sentence is actually not part of the review. I like this disc a lot, but not that much. I will check with the developers, but I am pretty sure that this is a system-generated text.

Yes, you don't normally go in for that kind of hyperbole, which is why I was instinctively suspicious!

[hoggle]

Jules and Jim was the first film I watched by a New Wave director other than Godard, and I was very much taken aback by how Old Wave it felt. It made me wonder if the aspects I love about Godard, and which I believed to be part of the New Wave makeup -- formal experimentation, political radicalism, an intense desire to create something New -- were limited only to him.

If I watched Jules and Jim on its own terms, I might have found some sort of enjoyment in it, but as a teenager expecting more excitement out of the New Wave, it was incredibly disappointing to me. I always thought of returning to it, but after watching such flat, forgettable films as Fahrenheit 451 and Shoot the Piano Player, it's hard to see the point. From my experience, Truffaut mainly made entertainments, very little close to (pop) art, which would be fine with me if his films were more entertaining. I do like the the 400 Blows and Small Change -- it seems Truffaut worked well with children, and sympathised with them more than his fellows --, but they've been growing worse in hindsight, coloured as they are by what surrounds them.

Or maybe I just didn't care for it because love triangles don't do anything for me.

[zedz]

How did Heaven's Gate get a near perfect with so few supplements?

Correction:

How did Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate Directed by Michael Cimino and Reviewed by Michael Cimino, from an Original Idea by Michael Cimino get a near perfect with so few supplements?

[domino harvey]

Too soon