Word: julien
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...week; any book would be easier going. The Red and the Black deals exam period diversion a death blow. Claude Autant-Lara has allowed himself to be carried away with the pathetic figure of a poor downtrodden peasant of the French Empire. He fails to recall that Stendahl saw Julien Sorel's answer to constricting French society as understandable, but not laudable. Sorel is no hero of the poor, he is simply the unfortunate...
Certainly, Stendahl had no intention of showing Julien exciting this mortal coil to the unconstrained accompaniment of a chorus of screeching voices, dominated by vibrating sopranos who soar higher and higher. Again, Stendahl had no intention of letting the weather conspire with the gods on the day of Julien's execution to show cloudiness and blue, the spacious firmament. Sorel strode to his death all right, but not to the majestic rumble of five symphonies' worth of kettle drums...
...climber's position is not so much his own fault as that of society. And some of society's offenders appear more sharply in this light than they do in the book. The gruff nature of M. de Renal, for one, is brilliantly emphasized, providing a clear motive for Julien's well meditated social ascent. Then, too, the seduction scenes are fine stuff, exhibiting some well coordinated pussyfooting from bedroom to bedroom...
...Mole's admonition to his daughter and Julien, "Don't be so romantic, you are both fools," is all too apt. There is a limit to the number of sighs, passionate leers, and little boy looks that even the French can get by with. There is also a limit to an audience's toleration of the naturally objectionable Julien, made even more objectionable by 137 minutes of technicolor...
...Dostoevsky's characters and settings emerge with much of the brilliance they possessed in the novel, but for the most part, because of obvious time and filming limitations, this is not the case. The most noteworthy of the successes is that of Julien Carette who plays the part of Pierre Marcelin--the film's counter-part of Dostoevsky's unforgettable Semyon Zaharovitch Marmeladov. In his small role, Carette is funny, ridiculous in the grand Dostoevskian manner and yet elicits the viewer's pity and affection with his overwhelmingly human predicament...