REVIEWED BY DAN STUMPF:


JULES AND JIM. Cinédis, France, 1962; originally released as Jules et Jim. Janus Films, US, 1962; subtitled. Jeanne Moreau, Oscar Werner (Jules), Henri Serre (Jim), Vanna Urbino, Serge Rezvani, Anny Nelsen. Screenplay: François Truffaut, based on the novel by Henri-Pierre Roché. Director: François Truffaut.

   A film seen recently for the first time in many Years: Jules and Jim, Francois Truffaut’s achingly elegiac look at Love and Friendship, and a film which vividly recalls for me some very dear and painful memories, which explains why a jaded, alopecic, former Cop should find himself blinking back tears once again to watch an old movie.

   Looking at the film objectively, I could note that some of the stylings that were daring and innovative when Truffaut did them in ’61 have become standard and even cliché by now, but I’d have to say they’ve never been better or more appropriately used since he first strutted them out. In particular, his monotone narrator is positively heart-rending at times. Of course the casting is a once-in-a-lifetime ensemble (whatever happened to Henri Serre?) and every bit player and future star gets shown off to marvelous advantage.

   Yet even I must admit there are one or two moments that don’t really work and –alas! — they are crucial moments indeed. They come, fortunately, too late to actually ruin the movie, but they vitiate its effectiveness more than a bit. So I’d have to put this one in a class with fine films like The Tall T or Johnny Guitar, a film of truly remarkable depth and feeling, if not of unalloyed brilliance.