女仆日记

Title: The Diary of a Chambermaid

Year: 1946

Country: USA

Language: English

Genre: Drama, Romance

Director: Jean Renoir

Screenplay: Burgess Meredith

based on the play of André Heuzé, André de Lorde and Thielly Norès

adapted from the novel by Octave Mirbeau

Music: Michel Michelet

Cinematography: Lucien N, Andriot

Cast:

Paulette Goddard

Francis Lederer

Hurd Harfield

Burgess Meredith

Judith Anderson

Reginald Owen

Irene Ryan

Florence Bates

Almira Sessions

Sumner Getchell

Rating: 7.5/10

English Title: Diary of a Chambermaid

Original Title: Le journal d’une femme de chambre

Year: 1964

Country: France, Italy

Language: French

Genre: Crime, Drama

Director: Luis Buñuel

Writers:

Luis Buñuel

Jean-Claude Carrière

based on the novel by Octave Mireau

Cinematography: Roger Fellous

Cast:

Jeanne Moreau

George Géret

Michel Piccoli

Françoise Lugagne

Jean Ozenne

Daniel Ivernel

Gilbert Géniat

Muni

Jean-Claude Carrière

Dominique Sauvage

Bernard Musson

Rating: 7.9/10

A double-bill of two films transmuting Octave Mirbeau's source novel LE JOURNAL D’UNE FEMME DE CHAMBREonto the celluloid, made bytwo cinematic titans:Jean Renoir and Luis Buñuel, 18 years apart.

Renoir’s version is made in 1946 during his Hollywood spell, starring Paulette Goddard as our heroine Celestine, a Parisian girl arrives in the rural Lanlaire mansion to work as the chambermaid in 1885, barely alighting from the train, Celestine has already been rebuffed by the haughty valet Joseph (an excellently surly Lederer), and confides to the also newly arrived scullery maid Louise (a mousy and dowdy Irene Ryan) that she will do whatever in her power to advancing her social position and firmly proclaims that love is absolutely off limits, and the film uses the literal diary-writing sequences as a recurrent motif to trace Celestine’s inner thoughts.

The objects of her tease are Captain Lanlaire (Owen), the patriarch who has relinquished his monetary sovereignty to his wife (Judith Anderson, emanating a tangy air of gentility and callousness); and Captain Mauger (a comical Burgess Meredith, who also pens the screenplay off his own bat), the Lanlaire's goofy neighbor who has a florae-wolfing proclivity and is perennially at loggerheads with the former on grounds of the discrepancy in their political slants, both are caricatured as lecherous old geezers with the death of a pet squirrel prefiguring the less jaunty denouement.

In Renoir’s book, the story has a central belle-époque sickly romantic sophistication to sabotage Celestine’s materialistic pursuit, here her love interest is George (Hurd Hatfield), the infirm son of the Lanlaire family, a defeatist borne out of upper-crust comfort and has no self-assurance to hazard a courtship to the one he hankers after. Only when Joseph, a proletariat like Celestine, turns murderous and betrays his rapacious nature, and foists a hapless Celestine into going away with him, is George spurred into action, but he is physically no match of Joseph, only with the succor from the plebeianmob on the Bastille Day, Celestine is whisked out of harm’s way, the entire process is shrouded by a jocose and melodramatic state of exigency and Renoir makes ascertain that its impact is wholesome and wonderfully eye-pleasing.

In paralleled with Buñuel’s interpretation of the story, Renoir has his innate affinity towards the aristocracy (however ludicrous and enfeebled are those peopled) and its paraphernalia, the story is less lurid and occasionally gets off on a comedic bent through Goddard’s vibrant performance juggling between a social-climber and a damsel-in-distress.

The same adjective“comedic”,“vibrant” certainly doesn’t pertain to Buñuel’s version, here the time-line has been relocated to the mid-1930s, Celestine (played by Jeanne Moreau with toothsome reticence and ambivalence) more often than not, keeps her own counsel, we don’t even once see her writing on the titular diary, she works for Mr. and Mrs Monteil (Piccoli and Lugagne), who are childless but live with Madame’s father Mr. Rabour (Ozenne, decorous in his condescending aloofness), an aristo secretly revels in boots fetish in spite of his dotage. Here the bourgeois combo is composed of a frigid and niggardly wife, a sexed-up and henpecked husband (Mr. Piccoli makes for a particularly farcical womanizer, armed with the same pick-up line), a seemingly genteel but kinky father, and Captain Mauger (Ivernel), here is less cartoonish but no less uppity, objectionable and erratic; whereas Joseph (Géret), is a rightist, anti-Semitic groom whose perversion is to a great extent much more obscene (rape, mutilation and pedophilia are not for those fainted hearts).

Amongst those anathemas, Celestine must put on her poker face, or sometimes even a bored face to be pliant (she even acquiesces to be called as Marie which Goddard thinks better of in Renoir’s movie), she is apparently stand-offish but covertly rebellious, and when a heinous crime occurs (a Red Riding Hood tale garnished with snails), she instinctively decides to seek justice and tries insinuating her way into a confession from the suspect through her corporeal submission, only the perpetrator is not a dolt either, unlike Renoir's Joseph, he knows what is at stakes and knows when to jettison his prey and start anew, that is a quite disturbing finale if one is not familiar with an ending where a murderer gets away with his grisly crime. But Buñuel cunningly precedes the ending with a close-up of a contemplating Celestine, after she finally earns her breakfast-in-bed privilege, it could suggest that what followed is derived from her fantasy, which can dodge the bullet if there must be.

Brandishing his implacable anti-bourgeoisie flag, Buñuel thoughtfully blunts his surrealistic abandon to give more room for dramaturgy and logical equilibrium, which commendably conjures up an astringentsatire laying into the depravity and inhumanity of the privileged but also doesn’t mince words in asserting that it doesn’t live and die with them, original sin is immanent, one just cannot be too watchful.

Last but definitely not the least, R.I.P. the one and only Ms. Moreau, who just passed away at the age of 89, and in this film she is a formidable heroine, brave, sultry and immune to all the mushy sentiments, whose fierce, inscrutable look is more than a reflection of her temperaments, but a riveting affidavit of a bygone era’s defining feature.

referential points: Renoir’s THE RIVER (1951, 7.1/10), FRENCH CANCAN (1955, 7.0/10), ELENA AND HER MEN (1956, 5.2/10) and THE RULES OF THE GAME (1939, 8.4/10); Buñuel’s SUSANA (1951, 6.9/10), EL (1953, 7.6/10), THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962, 7.9/10) and THE MILKY WAY (1969, 6.3/10).

《女仆日记》

Le journal d'une femme de chambre

年代：1964年

国家：法国、意大利

导演：路易斯·布努埃尔

主演：让娜·莫罗、乔治·热雷、丹尼尔·伊韦内尔

适宜人群：文艺青年

聊到这部电影时你可以谈论以下话题

《女仆日记》的灵感是来自于法国作家奥克塔夫·米尔博的同名小说。1945年，让·雷诺阿曾经把它搬上过银幕，主演是宝莲·高黛。

布努埃尔开拍《女仆日记》的动机，则是因为他的女神让娜·莫罗。

布努埃尔曾在自传中大赞莫罗走路的方式好看极了。她在《通往绞刑架的电梯》里漫步的镜头令布努埃尔着迷，“走动的女人及她们的目光总是让我感到激动。”

《女仆日记》可以看做是《维里狄安娜》的姊妹篇，两者的故事都是发生在一个贵族庄园里，主角也都是无法抗拒人性欲望的漂亮女性。

在影片前半部分，女仆塞雷斯汀初到庄园，便跟身边的男性全都搞好关系，包括年长的豪宅主人、老人的女婿蒙泰尔、马夫约瑟夫、邻居莫泽尔等。

这些男人也都对塞雷斯汀投以暧昧，老主人有恋脚癖，总让她试鞋子；蒙泰尔曾主动求欢，但被拒绝；约瑟夫假装冷淡，其实对她一见钟情。

而当老主人暴毙之后，塞雷斯汀曾被遣走，但随着一桩少女谋杀案的发生，塞雷斯汀又肩负新的寻凶任务，而这个任务的成功完成，成为了她提升阶级地位的阶梯。

所以后人很难对这个女性进行评价。可以说她是表面清纯的心机婊，也可以说她是牺牲自己来追寻正义。

尽管争议很大，但老布抨击资产阶级的堕落伪善和虚伪荒谬的传统，却始终不曾改变。

这部电影的故事比较耐人寻味，但是在布努埃尔的电影里只能算是水准之作，倒是莫罗凭借该片获得卡罗维发利电影节的影后。

全片最精彩的部分是这两处

亮点1

第40分钟，老主人要求塞雷斯汀穿着他送的靴子，在房间里走两步，然后还亲自帮她脱鞋。

布努埃尔曾经描述过这段镜头中，让娜·莫罗的步伐：“她行走时，脚在鞋跟上面微微颤动，使人觉得不稳。”

“她是个天生的演员，在拍摄时我只能跟着她，几乎是跑着跟她。她向我展示了对于角色的把握，对此我是深信不疑的。”

亮点2

第92分钟，在车夫约瑟夫因杀人嫌疑而被捕之后，镜头随之一转，塞雷斯汀竟然很快就跟莫泽尔结婚了。

这时她的身份也随之发生了巨大逆转，她可以躺在床上，要求莫泽尔给她拿毛巾了。

这时的她，终于成为了过去侍候过的那种主人。

故事描绘了一个毫无正义可言且虚伪透顶的资本主义社会画卷。最有杀人嫌疑的男仆拿所谓的爱国（政治正确）来自证不可能杀人和说谎，这居然还能被死对头的有钱邻居所认同；就连最具所谓正义感的女仆居然靠栽赃陷害来伸张正义，伸张正义是假，其实质是靠标榜自己的“善良”来吸引有钱男人的好感，并排除掉自己上位的拦路石男仆，男仆为了阻止其上位，总是说其坏话，以至其在老男主人去世时一度想打退堂鼓离去，但小女孩的死让其看到了希望。男仆的真恶和女仆的伪善是一回事，实质都是假借伸张正义（爱国、缉凶）之名来实现自己利益最大化之实。这一招，伪君子美帝屡试不爽，为了石油霸权，栽赃伊拉克搞生化武器推翻萨达姆，现在又为了维持自己的霸权地位，栽赃华为，疫情上栽赃中国。