Paul Guers

Quote:
Bay of the Angels (La Baie des anges) stars Jeanne Moreau as a middle-aged Parisian gambling addict who leaves her husband and children and heads for the roulette tables of Nice. There she meets young and handsome Claude Mann–a meeting which coincides with Moreau’s first winning streak. She latches onto Mann in the belief that he’s a good luck charm, and remains with him even when she starts losing heavily. Mann, emotionally drained, walks out of the relationship. The film ends with Mann entreating Moreau to return with him to the bourgeois existence that she’d escaped in the first scene. Bay of the Angels was directed by Jacques Demy, just before he achieved international fame with his musical films Young Girls of Rochefort and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.Read More »

Another case rather isolated in the background of Italian cinema during 60s is Paolo Spinola, who made the best debut as a director in 1964: “La fuga”, a movie which Spinola shot aged 35 after a long activity as assistant director and scriptwriter. It’s the first Italian movie explicitly and fully based on a psychoanalytic plot. “La fuga” (which is also the best script written by Sergio Amidei during 60s and the best acting performance by Giovanna Ralli, who won the Nastro d’Argento prize as the best leading actress of that year thanks to this movie) suggests an attentive and meticulous investigation of a neurosis suffered by Piera, a typical woman from the Italian affluent society, wife of a successful engineer and living a ménage seemingly with no worries.Read More »

from filmsdefrance.com:
Summary
Paris, 1315. The Tour de Nesle, a guard tower on the banks of the Seine, has become a symbol of mystery and fear. Each morning, at its base, the bodies of handsome young aristocrats are found floating in the river, all butchered by sword or arrow. One evening, two noblemen, Buridan and Philippe d’Aulnay, find themselves in the infamous tower, lured there on the expectation of a night of unbridled passion. Little do they realise that they are to be the next victims of a woman who is determined to take revenge against all men – Margaret of Burgundy, the present Queen of France. Although Philippe is killed, Buridan escapes, and intends to blackmail the Queen. Unless she makes him her prime minister, he will expose her crimes to Philippe’s brother and her husband, King Louis X. When she moves to eliminate Burdan, Margaret makes a terrible discovery…Read More »

Synopsis:
The story follows the decadent heir Henri de Marsay, who becomes enamored of the eponymous beauty, Paquita Valdes, and plots to seduce her. He succeeds but becomes disillusioned when he discovers she is also involved with another lover and so plots to murder her. When he arrives to kill her, he discovers that she is already dead by the hand of her lover, his half-sister. She declares that Paquita came from a land where women are no more than chattels, able to be bought and used in any way. In the last lines of the story, de Marsay tells a friend that the girl has died of “something to do with the heart.”Read More »