La Chamade (film)

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La Chamade
La Chamade Poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAlain Cavalier
Written byAlain Cavalier
Françoise Sagan
Produced byMaria Rosaria
StarringCatherine Deneuve
Michel Piccoli
CinematographyPierre Lhomme
Edited byPierre Gillette
Music byMaurice Le Roux
Distributed byLes Artistes Associés (United Artists)
Release dates
  • 30 October 1968 (1968-10-30) (France)
  • 27 July 1969 (1969-07-27) (USA)
Running time
103 minutes
CountriesFrance
Italy
LanguageFrench

La Chamade (Heartbeat) is a 1968 French romantic drama film written and directed by Alain Cavalier and starring Catherine Deneuve and Michel Piccoli.

Plot[]

Based on the 1965 novel La Chamade by Françoise Sagan, the film is about a beautiful woman who is mistress to Charles, a rich, good-hearted businessman who provides for all her material needs, but for whom she has no true love. When she meets a charming young man her own age, Antoine, she falls in love. He finds her a menial job in a publishing firm, but she can not or will not hold it down. Soon she becomes pregnant with his child. But Charles helps her through her crisis by funding her abortion – against the wishes of Antoine, who nevertheless accepts, even though he planned on moving out of his bachelor flat, the three of them into a soulless concrete block, money being short. In the aftermath, her feelings for the younger Antoine fade. Eventually, she returns to the good-hearted businessman who has patiently waited for her.

Cast[]

Production[]

La Chamade was filmed on location in Paris and Nice.[1]

Filming took place in April 1968 and was interrupted by riots in Paris.[2]

Reception[]

Upon its theatrical release, La Chamade received generally positive reviews. In his review in The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, "Cavalier may have created a practically perfect screen equivalent of the novelist's prose style."[3] In addition to praising the performances by Deneuve and Piccoli, Canby writes:

La Chamade (literally "the heartbeat") is a movie of technical skill and pure images that capture the textures of things—whitewashed walls, a piece of modern sculpture, cut flowers, flesh tanned in the sun—all of which give reality to a narrative line from which everything nonessential to the affairs of the heart has been refined. The extraordinary thing is that, in this day and age, it not only works but also seems somehow urgent, at least while it is going on.[3]

References[]

  1. ^ "Locations for La Chamade". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 12 March 2021.
  2. ^ Suzy Says: Only the Beginning, Chicago Tribune, 30 April 1968, p. B1.
  3. ^ a b Canby, Vincent (July 28, 1969). "Heartbeat (1968)". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 March 2021.

External links[]

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