Charlotte et son Jules (1960) - film review

Charlotte returns to visit her ex-boyfriend Jean, who lives in a small room in Paris.  Before she can say a word, Jean launches into a rambling tirade, alternately lambasting her for walking out on him and then saying he cannot live with her.  All that Charlotte can do is wait, pull faces and giggle, until she can deliver the final put down Jean deserves.

Charlotte et son jules is an excellently crafted short film, acerbic in its wittiness and thoroughly absorbing in its playfulness.  It was made by Jean-Luc Godard, an infamous young film critic who would go on to become one of the most influential creative forces in French cinema history.

The film illustrates Godard’s flair for originality and desire to re-direct cinema down new avenues, almost from the very first scene.  The film is essentially a monologue, which in itself was a major innovation at the time.  Those who are familiar with the bedroom scene from Godard’s subsequent tour-de-force, A bout de souffle, will see that scene in prototype form in this film.  The intelligent, wandering dialogue, flirting between the existentialist and the mundane is an equally important component of both films.

The most striking parallel with A bout de souffle is the presence of a young Jean-Paul Belmondo as the lead character.  Belmondo had previously appeared in half a dozen or so films, in minor roles, but it is clear he was destined for greater things.  Today he is recognised as one of the most popular of French film actors.

It is interesting to note that Belmondo was unable to provide his voice for the film’s dubbing.  Shortly after the film was shot (on a very modest budget in a small hotel room), he was rounded up by the French army and forced to serve out his term as a paid up soldier.  (A few years earlier, Belmondo had joined the army, but had been invalided out on a pension after sustaining an injury.)  With his star posted in Algeria, Godard dubbed Belmondo’s dialogue with his own voice.  Unfortunately, this would later rebound on Belmondo.  Having seen Charlotte et son jules, director Jacques Becker decided against casting the actor in his film Le Trou because of his awful voice, little realising that that awful voice actually belonged to Jean-Luc Godard.

© James Travers 2000

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