Le Rouge et le noir (1954)

This 1954 film from director Claude Autant-Lara is probably the most well-known and finest adaptation of Stendhal’s complex literary masterpiece, Le Rouge et le noir.   Beautifully filmed in Eastmancolor, with captivating acting performances and a script that vividly evokes Stendhal’s celebrated novel, the film exemplifies the French quality period drama for this decade.

The film features 1950s French heart-throb Gérard Philipe, yet again playing the flawed romantic hero, and the magnificent Danielle Darrieux.  Whilst Philipe is clearly older than the character he plays in the film (by at least 10 years), the actor plays his part with a heart-rending conviction, combining seductive charm, child-like vulnerability and roguish impudence to make his portrayal very different to the conventional romantic hero and hence thoroughly fascinating.   Darrieux is equally mesmerising, particularly her moving scenes towards the end of the film, which remind us of her remarkable performance in Max Ophül’s Madame de...

Although this adaptation of Le Rouge et le noir runs to three hours, it cannot really hope to fully capture the scale and power of the original novel.   Yet, even though a lot of the content from the novel has been dropped or simplified,  the film still manages to retain much of its impact – not just in  the central narrative about the ill-fated Julien, but also in the wider social messages, such as the injustices of class divisions and the double-standards of Church leaders.  One of the best sequences in the film involves a group of trainee priests sitting down to eat a boiled egg – a simple and amusing scene, yet one which seems to somehow capture the whole of spectrum of human behaviour.

© James Travers 2002

Write a review for this film...