In 1962, just as "The Birds" was in post-production, French director Francois Truffaut interviewed Alfred Hitchcock in his offices, talking at length about the latter's extensive filmography. Hitchcock was held in very high regard by the filmmakers of the French New Wave;had it not been for the feverish support of the Cahiers du cinema crowd, the director might not have gotten the attention he deserved. This conversation clearly had a lasting impact on Truffaut, and in 1968, he made a picture designed exclusively as an homage to the Master of Suspense: "The Bride Wore Black".
The film opens with a woman trying to commit suicide and doesn't improve much from there. The same woman spends the next two hours tracking down and murdering five men who have done something horrible to her. It's a familiar tune: only a year before this came out audiences were treated to watching Lee Marvin kick ass and take names in "Point Blank". But there are a handful of factors that elevate 'Bride'. The first, and absolutely the foremost, is star Jeanne Moreau. She seems less stoically single minded in her revenge than simply lost in the slow, inevitable cycle of grief one can only know from surviving a personal disaster. She's got one of those faces that was made for the movies; every line in her face, every downcast glance seems to betray an intimate, unknowable sorrow. It's also with Moreau that Truffaut makes his first main diversion from Hitchcock. Hitch by and large preferred immaculate blondes (see: Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedren, etc), but Moreau could not be farther from that archetype. Stunning as she is, her beauty is as ethereal as it is flawed. There are no glamour shots in "The Bride Wore Black". There is no happy prologue or cathartic end. There is just Moreau and her drive for justice.
It's truly a film that must be discovered for itself; borne of both New Wave ingenuity and an overwhelming respect for Hitchcock, 'Bride' is an elegiac, brutal, and ultimately tragic revenge saga that transcends both its influences and its genre. A genre, I might add, has become increasingly widespread, almost to the point of cartoonishness (looking at you, "Taken"). But take two hours, do yourself a favor, and watch this picture. Trailer below:
Note: the film is apparently on YouTube in its entirety.
The film opens with a woman trying to commit suicide and doesn't improve much from there. The same woman spends the next two hours tracking down and murdering five men who have done something horrible to her. It's a familiar tune: only a year before this came out audiences were treated to watching Lee Marvin kick ass and take names in "Point Blank". But there are a handful of factors that elevate 'Bride'. The first, and absolutely the foremost, is star Jeanne Moreau. She seems less stoically single minded in her revenge than simply lost in the slow, inevitable cycle of grief one can only know from surviving a personal disaster. She's got one of those faces that was made for the movies; every line in her face, every downcast glance seems to betray an intimate, unknowable sorrow. It's also with Moreau that Truffaut makes his first main diversion from Hitchcock. Hitch by and large preferred immaculate blondes (see: Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedren, etc), but Moreau could not be farther from that archetype. Stunning as she is, her beauty is as ethereal as it is flawed. There are no glamour shots in "The Bride Wore Black". There is no happy prologue or cathartic end. There is just Moreau and her drive for justice.
It's truly a film that must be discovered for itself; borne of both New Wave ingenuity and an overwhelming respect for Hitchcock, 'Bride' is an elegiac, brutal, and ultimately tragic revenge saga that transcends both its influences and its genre. A genre, I might add, has become increasingly widespread, almost to the point of cartoonishness (looking at you, "Taken"). But take two hours, do yourself a favor, and watch this picture. Trailer below:
Note: the film is apparently on YouTube in its entirety.
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