Le Beau Serge

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Le Beau Serge
Le Beau Serge 1956 film poster.jpg
Film poster
Directed byClaude Chabrol
Written byClaude Chabrol
Produced byClaude Chabrol
StarringJean-Claude Brialy
Gérard Blain
CinematographyHenri Decaë
Edited byJacques Gaillard
Music byÉmile Delpierre
Release date
  • 1958 (1958)
Running time
99 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
BudgetFFR 37,000,000

Le Beau Serge (French pronunciation: ​[lə bo sɛʁʒ], meaning "Handsome Serge") is a French film directed by Claude Chabrol, released in 1958. It has been cited as the first product of the Nouvelle Vague, or French New Wave, film movement. The film is often compared with Chabrol's subsequent film Les Cousins, which also features Jean-Claude Brialy and Gérard Blain.

Plot[]

François, a successful yet sickly young man, returns to his home town Sardent after a long absence. He finds that his friend Serge has become a wretched alcoholic, dissatisfied with his life in the village. Serge had hoped to leave the village to study, but had to stay to marry Yvonne when she became pregnant. The death of their stillborn child did not help. Serge has become an angry, bitter figure not unlike the roles of James Dean, refusing to face reality and adulthood.

Yvonne is again pregnant. François finds himself at odds with provincial village life yet compelled to help Serge. The fact that they are both entangled sexually with Yvonne's sister, Marie, makes things more complicated. Finally, the birth of Serge and Yvonne's second child seems to provide some possibility of happiness.

Cast[]

Production[]

Chabrol had originally intended to shoot Les Cousins first, but due to its Paris setting, it would have been twice as expensive to film. He chose instead to shoot in Sardent, a village where his mother lived before moving to Paris and where he often spent the summer with his grandmother. The film was shot over nine weeks in the winter of 1957-8 on a budget of 32 million old francs.[1] It was financed from his first wife's inheritance. The film initially ran to 2 hours and 35 minutes, though Chabrol cut a great deal of quasi-documentary material to reduce the running time, a decision he later regretted.[2]

References[]

  1. ^ Dudley Andrew (1999). Claude Chabrol. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 13.
  2. ^ Dudley Andrew (1999). Claude Chabrol. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 14.

External links[]

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