Word: valmont
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangerous is the tale of two aristocrats, Valmont and the Countess Juliette, who plot the seduction of several young women including Cecile Volanges and Madame de Tourvel. Cecile has a jovial middle-aged fiance, a source of some amusement as he bumbles about. She also has a young flame, Danceny. Valmont and Juliette each plan to seduce a member of the young couple while Valmont tackles, as an extra challenge, the pure Marianne. Juliette and Valmont are married in Vadim's version, as is Marianne, who has a young daughter, these facts make the levels of jealousy...
Much of Dangerous Liaisons 1960 takes place at a beautiful ski resort where the characters smoothly glide about, manipulating each other in a highly artful fashion. Valmont manages to slyly keep Marianne's glass full of wine at a New Year's Eve party and then uses the excuse of midnight to steal a none-too-chaste kiss. The film makes ample use of symbols in its framing of the shots, particularly those of the food. The characters also find themselves mirrored and foreshadowed by a series of very suggestive paintings...
...done with suggestive fade-outs and oblique, not quite discernable, soft-focus close-ups that are more erotic than today's obligatory nudity; they reveal the source of some of the original furor over the film. In fact, a number of the scenes look familiar, and one, which has Valmont calling Marianne while he is lounging on the bare Cecilia doing her homework, is paraphrased in the later film...
Such a lovely couple, these two provocateurs of passion. Her salon is a school in which girls may unlearn their innocence. And he is the ideal professor for a young lady's sentimental education. Just now Valmont has two pupils in mind: a naive, eager teenager (Uma Thurman) and the beautiful, pious Mme. de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer), who keeps resisting Valmont's purring declarations of love. And then, to his astonishment, he realizes that he means them. In a rake, sincerity is lethal. He who has lived by the word will die by the sword. And Mme. la Marquise will...
...almost see the fop sweat. Then gradually he learns to trust the intimacy of Frears' close-up camera style. The lizard eyes crease with desire; tiny curlicues of smirk rise from the corners of his mouth; the wispy voice locates the moral malaise at the heart of Valmont's debauchery. He embodies the cynical wisdom of this excellent film: life is one big performance art, and sex is a little death...