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Jules et Jim by Francois Truffaut

By Anita Mathias

Jules et Jim by Francois Truffaut

Jules et Jim


A bitter-sweet film directed by Francois Truffaut based on an autobiographical novel by Henri-Pierre Roche. 


Two sweet spirited friends, a German, Jules and a Frenchman Jim become inseparable friends, sharing everything in common.


They meet a woman who embodies their shared fantasies. Jules marries Catherine, though Jim too loves her.


The marriage does not work. Catherine flirts with Jim, gets pregnant by him, while they both still live in Jules’ house. And so the cycle continues, she summons him, sends him back, summons him again.


He takes up with the woman who has faithfully loved him and waited for him for 20 years, experiencing some settled domestic happiness.


A man who resists and discards her is too much for Catherine to swallow. Her power lay in enchanting people, and dangling them like puppets on a string. 


Her life anyway lacks strong purpose or joy. She invites Jules on a joy-ride into the Seine–where they drown!


Jules, at the crematorium experiences a surge of relief.


The film is sensitively done with narration and voice-overs from the book.


Because of the unusual sweetness of spirit of the protagonists, it has a child-like wistfulness and gaiety to it.
* * * 


And here’s an account of the book on which the film was based


Jules and Jim

Jules and Jim
An Amorous Cyclone
Sex, art, and romance — some notes on the sources of Truffaut’s famous film
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Daria Galateria

Trans. A. K. Bierman

It is 1935. (Theodore) Adorno writes to Walter Benjamin, “With regard to your remark on fashion, the concept of the changeant (the changeable), of iridescent material, came to mind, surely tied to industrial practices. Perhaps you will dig into this problem.” Adorno urges Benjamin on, referring him to articles by Helen Hessel in theFrankfurter Zeitung, “whom we always follow with great interest.”
Helen Hessel is the woman in Jules and Jim, the 1953 novel by Henri-Pierre Roche, and of Truffaut’s 1956 film. “I am the girl who leaped into the Seine out of spite, who married his dear, generous Jules, and who, yes, shot Jim,” confesses Helen, after having attended, incognito, the film’s premiere.
She, with her mantle of blond hair often dangling like a helmet’s crest on a soldier’s coarse coat, is more athletic than the two other protagonists of this delicate, passionate triangle. Even if Roche once boxed in the ring with Braque, he was a tall, slim dandy, with “something languid about him.” Franz Hessel, the son of Jewish bankers, is small and rotund. He meets Roche in Montparnasse in 1906 and they became inseparable. One evening when Franz is describing the women in Munich to his friend, he excitedly sketches their profile on a small coffee table. Roche wanted to buy the table. He will, in fact, concentrate on art and earn a living as an art consultant to opulent collectors such as the astonishing Raj of Indor.
Jules and JimWhen the painter Marie Laurenen illustrates Hessel’s poetry, Roche edges into their intimacy; the two friends share women without rivalry. But when Hessel meets Helen Grund, a painter of Prussian origins, Franz advises Roche, “Not this one.”
World War I disperses the trio. But at the end of the conflict, Roche rushes to Helen and Franz, who have been married and live in a forest near Munich. Roche and Franz kiss each other on the mouth and immediately pick up their pre-war conversations; Helen is slightly embarrassed, which is the prelude to passion. The unusual knit of love and friendship prospers. Roche confides this story with meticulous shamelessness to his Notebooks during 1920-21, which will be immortalized in Jules and Jim.
The diary is Roche’s literary monument; he records his encounters, especially the amorous ones, from the first up to mid-century — all the copulations, told with endless wonder for the pleasure and gratitude for the inimitable women. From the first love for two English sisters — which will become the novel Two English Women and the Continent — to the period of relative normality when three substantial stories form the stable background of new incursions, Roche draws out the enigma of his buoyant and eternal availability on the superb pages of 346 notebooks.
On a New Year’s eve with the director Abel Gance, the writer (Blaise) Cendrars, who was left with but one arm after the war, engaged him in a tennis game with a blue ball; then under the shooting stars, invited him to dance; Roche is ready. He never refused anything. He writes with amiable impartiality about James Joyce, Picasso, Duchamp, Satie, Matisse, Picabia, Leger, Colette, and Truffaut, who met Roche when the latter was seventy-eight, and noted his pliant passion for the sweet life. Roche knew everybody and introduced everyone to everybody, according to Gertrude Stein. Roche is engaging, raged Picasso, but he’s only a translation.
The secretary Truffaut hired to transcribe the diary quit, scandalized by that sweet polygamy, which she thought was simply cruelty.
Jules and JimMeanwhile, Roche wants to stabilize his passion for Helen: he wants a child and a book from her. He wants Helen to write a diary; he wants a love described for the first time from two viewpoints. Helen’s Diary is a marvel of harshness, violent, a profusion of senses. Roche addresses the principles of amorous gestures, Helen the heat. “I clearly felt the margins of my heart,” she writes. In pain after discovering that Roche had just possessed her sister, Helen notes the need “to touch something I love with my finger. The letters of Rilke,” whom she knew. Then Roche violates her, and love is rekindled. To read both diaries together is a revelation, like the 1933 love stories by Leautaud and Marie Dormoy, orderly divided between bookkeeping and the maudlin.
In 1955, Francois Truffaut discovered Jules and Jim among a stall’s used books, and noticed that it was the first novel of a seventy-year-old. He understood that the lightness and grace of that burning story could have come only after a very long decanting, one that went on for half a century, and from the magic of the “telegraphic style of a poet who forgot his culture and lined up the words like a laconic, stolid peasant,” from whence the serial, limpid rhythm of the film. But at times Truffaut stopped a frame, transforming it into a photograph, to show that for all that vitality and spicy dash, we’re seeing memories. As happens to Truffaut at other times, he begins a film believing that it will be amusing, “and along the way I notice that only sadness can save it.”
Helen’s love ends when Roche reveals that he is married, and has children from two other women. Helen shoots him; but both will live very long lives; Hessel dies earlier, in 1941, in a French concentration camp. Perhaps because of this, in the novel and the film, we watch Helen and Franz die in a plunging automobile. Out of tenderness, Roche wanted, perhaps, to offer them revenge.
Actually, we possess a third point of view of the twentieth century’s most famous triangle, that of the distraught Pierrot, Franz Hessel. At the outbreak of World War I, Pierre went to America to weave his artistic and amatory dramas, while Franz, although exempt, volunteered in the German army. In the midst of the Great War’s massacres, he dreams of Paris, his elected city and country, which is the contemptuous object of war propaganda. His short novel (96 pages) is a romance (Paris Romance); it’s a rapt, gentle evocation that transforms the indomitable Helen into a quiet, swelling dissolve.
Whoever reads it — Roche will be astonished — can’t count how many kisses there are. Helen appears miraculously as a masked man at a festival, and when, at the end, she leaves, her face is marked with a smile that “is conventionally called archaic,” a smile that is imprinted on the face of the first Greek divinities, and on Leonardo’s Beato Angelico. In the novel — in the form of a letter to a friend, who is always Pierre — life dissolves into the memory of a dream; happiness is at a remove. Franz talks of Helen and Paris as if he must not see either again, although Helen is his wife and he will see her again in Paris in 1933 when he is forced to leave Germany.
In fact, he will write another book about his beloved city, about the years in which he translates Proust with Benjamin, who is writing about Paris in his Parisian (Passages, Alleys). Franz, too, writes about Paris (Parisian Diary), but in this love for the city, as for Helen, he writes as a distinterested observer, as a flaneur, a strolling idler, who gets lost in the modern city’s streets. It is Franz who spots the flaneur’s secret: “We see only what observes us. We become acquainted only with what we haven’t tried to know.”
The last Jules and Jim was not rediscovered: Le dernier voyage (The Last Tour). Franz Hessel wrote it during his years in exile and in the concentration camp. He is aged, light years away by now, recalling the cyclone of that mythical love triangle that “expanded the habitual scope of friendship and love.”
When, as giddy precursors, even before the ‘twenties, Hessel’s friends were “doing Freud” (merciless sets of questions, which were answered with an association of ideas), Helen objected: “But does everything lead back to sex?”
Note
Reprinted from la Repubblica, July 9, 1997. Translation copyright © A. K. Bierman. 


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Francesco, Artist of Florence: The Man Who Gave Too Much

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  • Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India. My new memoir
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If you'll forgive me for adding to the noise of th If you'll forgive me for adding to the noise of the world on Black Friday, my memoir ,Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India, is on sale on Kindle all over the world for a few days. 
Carolyn Weber (who has written "Surprised by Oxford," an amazing memoir about coming to faith in Oxford https://amzn.to/3XyIftO )  has written a lovely endorsement of my memoir:
"Joining intelligent winsomeness with an engaging style, Anita Mathias writes with keen observation, lively insight and hard earned wisdom about navigating the life of thoughtful faith in a world of cultural complexities. Her story bears witness to how God wastes nothing and redeems all. Her words sing of a spirit strong in courage, compassion and a pervasive dedication to the adventure of life. As a reader, I have been challenged and changed by her beautifully told and powerful story - so will you."
The memoir is available on sale on Amazon.co.uk at https://amzn.to/3u0Ib8o and on Amazon.com at https://amzn.to/3u0IBvu and is reduced on the other Amazon sites too.
Thank you, and please let me know if you read and enjoy it!! #memoir #indianchildhood #india
Second birthday party. Determinedly escaping! So i Second birthday party. Determinedly escaping!
So it’s a beautiful November here in Oxford, and the trees are blazing. We will soon be celebrating our 33rd wedding anniversary…and are hoping for at least 33 more!! 
And here’s a chapter from my memoir of growing up Catholic in India… rosaries at the grotto, potlucks, the Catholic Family Movement, American missionary Jesuits, Mangaloreans, Goans, and food, food food…
https://anitamathias.com/2022/11/07/rosaries-at-the-grotto-a-chapter-from-my-newly-published-memoir-rosaries-reading-steel-a-catholic-childhood-in-india/
Available on Amazon.co.uk https://amzn.to/3Apjt5r and on Amazon.com https://amzn.to/3gcVboa and wherever Amazon sells books, as well as at most online retailers.
#birthdayparty #memoir #jamshedpur #India #rosariesreadingsecrets
Friends, it’s been a while since I blogged, but Friends, it’s been a while since I blogged, but it’s time to resume, and so I have. Here’s a blog on an absolutely infallible secret of joy, https://anitamathias.com/2022/10/28/an-infallible-secret-of-joy/
Jenny Lewis, whose Gilgamesh Retold https://amzn.to/3zsYfCX is an amazing new translation of the epic, has kindly endorsed my memoir. She writes, “With Rosaries, Reading and Secrets, Anita Mathias invites us into a totally absorbing world of past and present marvels. She is a natural and gifted storyteller who weaves history and biography together in a magical mix. Erudite and literary, generously laced with poetic and literary references and Dickensian levels of observation and detail, Rosaries is alive with glowing, vivid details, bringing to life an era and culture that is unforgettable. A beautifully written, important and addictive book.”
I would, of course, be delighted if you read it. Amazon.co.uk https://amzn.to/3gThsr4 and Amazon.com https://amzn.to/3WdCBwk #joy #amwriting #amblogging #icecreamjoy
Wandering around Oxford with my camera, photograph Wandering around Oxford with my camera, photographing ancient colleges! Enjoy.
And just a note that Amazon is offering a temporary discount on my memoir, Rosaries, Reading, Steel https://amzn.to/3UQN28z . It’s £7.41.
Here’s an endorsement from my friend, Francesca Kay, author of the beautiful novel, “An Equal Stillness.” This is a beautifully written account of a childhood, so evocative, so vivid. The textures, colours and, above all, the tastes of a particular world are lyrically but also precisely evoked and there was much in it that brought back very clear memories of my own. Northern India in the 60s, as well as Bandra of course – dust and mercurochrome, Marie biscuits, the chatter of adult voices, the prayers, the fruit trees, dogs…. But, although you rightly celebrate the richness of that world, you weave through this magical remembrance of things past a skein of sadness that makes it haunting too. It’s lovely!” #oxford #beauty
So, I am not going to become a book-bore, I promis So, I am not going to become a book-bore, I promise, but just to let you know that my memoir "Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India," is now available in India in paperback. https://www.amazon.in/s?k=rosaries+reading+secrets&crid=3TLDQASCY0WTH&sprefix=rosaries+r%2Caps%2C72&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_10My endorsements say it is evocative, well-written, magical, haunting, and funny, so I'd be thrilled if you bought a copy on any of the Amazon sites. 
Endorsements 
A beautifully written account. Woven through this magical remembrance of things past is a skein of sadness that makes it haunting. Francesca Kay, An Equal Stillness. 
A dazzling vibrant tale of childhood in post-colonial India. Mathias conjures 1960s India and her family in uproarious and heart-breaking detail. Erin Hart, Haunted Ground 
Mathias invites us into a wonderfully absorbing and thrilling world of past and present marvels… generously laced with poetic and literary references and Dickensian levels of observation and detail. A beautifully written, important, and addictive book. Jenny Lewis, Gilgamesh Retold 
Tormented, passionate and often sad, Mathias’s beautiful childhood memoir is immensely readable. Trevor Mostyn, Coming of Age in The Middle East.
A beautifully told and powerful story. Joining intelligent winsomeness with an engaging style, Mathias writes with keen observation, lively insight and hard-earned wisdom. Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford 
A remarkable account. A treasure chest…full of food (always food), books (always books), a family with all its alliances and divisions. A feat of memory and remembrance. Philip Gooden, The Story of English
Anita’s pluck and charm shine through every page of this beautifully crafted, comprehensive and erudite memoir. 
Ray Foulk, Picasso’s Revenge
Mathias’s prose is lively and evocative. An enjoyable and accessible book. Sylvia Vetta, Sculpting the Elephant
Anita Mathias is an is an accomplished writer. Merryn Williams, Six Women Novelists
Writing a memoir awakens fierce memories of the pa Writing a memoir awakens fierce memories of the past. For the past is not dead; it’s not even past, as William Faulkner observed. So what does one do with this undead past? Forgive. Forgive, huh? Forgive. Let it go. Again and again.
Some thoughts on writing a memoir, and the prologue to my memoir
https://anitamathias.com/2022/09/08/thoughts-on-writing-a-memoir-the-prologue-to-rosaries-reading-secrets/ 
#memoir #amwriting #forgiveness https://amzn.to/3B82CDo
Six months ago, Roy and I decided that finishing t Six months ago, Roy and I decided that finishing the memoir was to be like “the treasure in the field,” that Jesus talks about in the Gospels, which you sacrifice everything to buy. (Though of course, he talks about an intimate relationship with God, not finishing a book!!) Anyway, I’ve stayed off social media for months… but I’ve always greatly enjoyed social media (in great moderation) and it’s lovely to be back with the book now done  https://amzn.to/3eoRMRN  So, our family news: Our daughter Zoe is training for ministry as a priest in the Church of England, at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. She is “an ordinand.” In her second year. However, she has recently been one of the 30 ordinands accepted to work on an M.Phil programme (fully funded by the Church of England.) She will be comparing churches which are involved in community organizing with churches which are not, and will trace the impact of community organizing on the faith of congregants.  She’ll be ordained in ’24, God willing.
Irene is in her final year of Medicine at Oxford University; she will be going to Toronto for her elective clinical work experience, and will graduate as a doctor in June ‘23, God willing.
And we had a wonderful family holiday in Ireland in July, though that already feels like a long time ago!
https://anitamathias.com/2022/09/01/rosaries-readi https://anitamathias.com/2022/09/01/rosaries-reading-secrets-a-catholic-childhood-in-india-my-new-memoir/
Friends, some stellar reviews from distinguished writers, and a detailed description here!!
https://amzn.to/3wMiSJ3 Friends, I’ve written a https://amzn.to/3wMiSJ3  Friends, I’ve written a memoir of my turbulent Catholic childhood in India. I would be grateful for your support!
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