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VALMONT
Abstract: Valmont (Colin
Firth) and Merteuil (Annette Bening) are members of the eighteenth century
French upper class, who amuse themselves by controlling those around them.
They involve themselves too deeply in their own plotting, however, and
end up paying for their malicious designs.
Summary: Milos Forman's
VALMONT, with a screenplay by Jean-Claude Carriere, is the fourth treatment
of Choderlos de Laclos' 1782 novel, LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES, to make its
appearance in the last two years. Christopher Hampton's 1987 play DANGEROUS
LIAISONS become Stephen Frears's 1988 film of the same name; Roger Vadim's
1959 film LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES, 1960, a modernization of Laclos, was
revived following the success of the Frears treatment. Particularly given
both the critical and commercial success of DANGEROUS LIAISONS, and the
magnitude of its cast, comparisons between Frears's film and VALMONT are--as
borne out by the press--inevitable.
While Forman's film
shifts not only the focus of its action and its morality but also several
plot elements, the basic story remains the same. VALMONT opens with the
Marquise de Merteuil (Annette Bening), a worldly young widow, accompanying
her cousin Madame de Volanges (Sian Phillips) to the convent to retrieve
Volanges's fifteen-year-old daughter, Cecile (Fairuza Balk). The girl has
been promised in marriage to a mysterious aristocrat, who has sought to
ensure her purity by paying for her convent education. Volanges expresses
her hope that Merteuil will take Cecile under her wing before the marriage
and teach her to be "as innocent as she is ... as wise as you are."
The mischievous Merteuil
enjoys the irony, and she quickly wins Cecile's clumsy affection. Yet at
Cecile's presentation to society, Merteuil discovers that it is her own
lover, Gercourt (Jeffrey Jones), who is to be Cecile's husband. As revenge,
she decides to arrange Cecile's premarital loss of virginity--a move that
will render Gercourt, who had so carefully protected his future bride's
virtue, the laughingstock of society.
To perform this despoiling,
she chooses her ex-lover, the Vicomte de Valmont (Colin Firth), whose whole
life is a game of sexual conquests and subsequent betrayals. Yet Valmont,
whom she finds in the country at the estate of his aunt, Madame de Rosemonde
(Fabia Drake), is instead intent upon seducing the virtuous Madame de Tourvel
(Meg Tilly). Irritated, Merteuil bets him that he cannot win Tourvel. If
she proves right, Valmont must enter a monastery, but, if she loses, she
herself will become his prize.
Fortunately for Merteuil's
goal, Cecile has fallen in love with her seventeen-year-old music teacher,
the Chevalier Danceny (Henry Thomas). Merteuil helps the girl respond to
Danceny's love letters and sets up a meeting for the two in a private boudoir,
which ends unconsummated when the enraged Volanges discovers that her daughter
is missing. After this failure, Merteuil persuades Volanges to take Cecile
to Madame de Rosemonde's estate. It is there, finally, that Valmont disinterestedly
seduces the girl while helping her compose a letter to Danceny.
It is during this visit,
as well, that Valmont breaks down Tourvel's resistance to the point that
she flees for Paris. Following her, he seduces and then abandons her. Triumphant,
he goes to Merteuil to collect his prize, but she laughs and says that
the stakes were unreal. Enraged, Valmont declares war upon her.
Now that Merteuil has
ensured Cecile's impurity, she is eager to see her married and Gercourt
shamed. Valmont, however, in his fury, wishes to deny her that triumph
by convincing Cecile to marry Danceny. He acts as their go-between and
turns Danceny against Merteuil by telling him that Merteuil is trying to
ensure Cecile's marriage to Gercourt.
In the meantime, Tourvel,
nearly mad after Valmont's betrayal, has taken to shadowing him. Finally,
Valmont takes her in, but the next morning it is she who disappears. Seized
with some ambiguous emotion, Valmont goes after her only to find that her
husband has returned from his business journey; the affair is plainly at
an end. The same emotion sends him to Merteuil, who weeps and tells him
she still loves him, and then laughs and throws open her bedroom door to
reveal Danceny in bed. Danceny, whom Merteuil has now turned against Valmont
by telling him of Cecile's seduction, challenges Valmont to a duel.
Valmont, who spends
the night before the duel drinking, is killed by Danceny. Cecile marries
Gercourt while carrying Valmont's child, much to the delight of Madame
de Rosemonde, who grieves for her nephew. The film ends with a stony Merteuil,
still shaken from Valmont's funeral, watching as Danceny flirts with a
group of girls at Cecile's wedding and Tourvel places flowers on Valmont's
grave before being handed into a carriage by her silent husband.
Because Forman and Carriere
handle the characters so differently from those in Frears's film, VALMONT
has a moral ambiguity when compared to the sharp closure of DANGEROUS LIAISONS.
Several critics noted the film's lack of punishment: In the novel and Frears'
treatment, for example, Tourvel dies. Similarly, Frears's Valmont and Merteuil
(played, respectively, by John Malkovich and Glenn Close) go through moral
epiphanies at the end, each mourning the havoc he or she has wrought. Forman,
however, has never been satisfied with simple fables. The complexity with
which he treats his characters (often noted as his "humanity") has become
a trademark, visible in some of the most critically and commercially successful
films of the last two decades, including Oscar-winners ONE FLEW OVER THE
CUCKOO'S NEST (1975) and AMADEUS (1984). Similarly, Carriere is most noted
in the United States for his sophisticated adaptation (with Philip Kaufman)
of Milan Kundera's THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING (1988).
Part of the complexity
of VALMONT stems from Forman's casting. In order to emphasize youthful
ignorance over adult cold calculation, Forman chose a much younger cast
than did Frears, one more in line with the ages of Laclos' characters.
In a trademark move, his cast was composed of little-known actors. While
superstar Glenn Close plays DANGEROUS LIAISONS replete with breast beating
and an intricate sexual strategy, Bening's Merteuil reacts as much as she
acts, permitting the events around her to unfold with a frightening inevitability.
Similarly, Firth's Valmont is a subtle mix of self- delusion,
studied callousness, and youthful indifference, far from the near villain
that Malkovich portrays. Although Michelle Pfieffer gave the standout performance
in DANGEROUS LIAISONS as Tourvel, Tilly's interpretation of a naif is ultimately
more believable and contextual than Pfieffer's hyper-religious leap into
sin. Also notable is the work of Balk as Cecile and Thomas (who earned
fame as little Eliot in Steven Spielberg's 1982 blockbuster, E.T.: THE
EXTRA- TERRESTIAL) as Danceny. Both bring to their characters an innocent
passion and vulnerability lacking in the peasant sensuality of Uma Thurman's
Cecile and the affectlessness of Keanu Reeves's Danceny in DANGEROUS LIAISONS.
As proven by his previous
films, especially such period pieces as AMADEUS and RAGTIME (1981), Forman
is a master of mise en scene: His meticulous production values meld with
the performances to give VALMONT a notable realism. Because most of the
film is composed of long shots in deep focus, each frame is an opportunity
for exquisite detail. In one scene, for example, Gercourt fences, while
in the background riders practice impeccable dressage. Another scene, plainly
included as a visual study, follows Tourvel to market and focuses less
on her than on the goods and merchants. Although many critics dismissed
such techniques as digressive, they prove a rich context that renders DANGEROUS
LIAISONS, shot primarily indoors and in close-up (perhaps because of Frears's
beginnings in television), comparatively static.
The most interesting
thing about VALMONT, however, has to do with why, in the late twentieth
century, it should be brought to life and join three other treatments of
an obscure, epistolary eighteenth century French novel. Although few critics
asked this question, the ones that did answered it with one word: AIDS.
If liaisons in the 1980's are dangerous, however, VALMONT offers a very
different subtext from the more popular DANGEROUS LIAISONS. While the latter
gleefully ends with its willful protagonists as their own hapless victims,
the ambiguity of VALMONT emplaces a tiny flash of hope with Cecile's pregnancy,
Danceny's laughter, the tenderness of Madame de Tourvel's gesture, and
even Merteuil's stoicism. Whether the revival of Laclos' story was a response
to the sexual paranoia of the decade, Forman's complex handling of Carriere's
screenplay confirms his status as, among other things, a director with
"humanity." (Reviewed by Gabrielle J. Forman.) Country of Origin: France
and Great Britain
Release Date: 1989
Production Line: Raul
Rassam and Michael Hausman for Claude Berri and Renn Productions; released
by Orion Pictures
Director: Milos Forman
Cinematographer: Miroslav
Ondricek
File Editor: Alan Heim
, Nena Danovic
Additional Credits:
Production design - Pierre Guffroy
Art direction - Albert
Rajau - Loula Morin - Martina Skala
Special effects - Garth
Inns - Michel Norman
Makeup - Jean-Pierre
Eychenne - Paul Lemarinal
Costume design - Theodor
Pistek
Choreography - Ann Jacoby
Sound - Chris Newman
Music - Christopher
Palmer
MPAA Rating: R
Run Time: 137 minutes
Cast: Valmont - Colin
Firth
Merteuil - Annette Bening
Tourvel - Meg Tilly
Cecile - Fairuza Balk
Madame de Volanges -
Sian Phillips
Gercourt - Jeffrey Jones
Danceny - Henry Thomas
Madame de Rosemonde
- Fabia Drake
Review Sources: Commonweal.
CXVI, December 1, 1989, p. 670 , Life. XII, Spring 1989, p. 70 , The New
Republic. CCI, December 11, 1989, p. 24 , The New Yorker. LXV, November
27, 1989, p. 105 , San Francisco Chronicle. December 22, 1989, V, p. 1
, Variety. November 15, 1989, p. 20 , The Village Voice. November 21, 1989,
p. 92
Named persons in Production
Credits: Raul Rassam , Michael Hausman , Claude Berri
Studios named in Production
Credits: Renn Productions , Orion Pictures
Screenplay (Author):
Jean-Claude Carriere , Choderlos de Laclos
Color
Video Available.
Genre: Drama, Romance
Award Citations: AA_Nomination_Costume
Design_Theodor Pistek
Copyright (c) Magill's
Survey of Cinema by Salem Press. All Rights Reserved.
VALMONT., Magill's Survey
of Cinema, 01-01-1994. |
