Moderato cantabile (1960)

Moderato cantabile is a French romantic film drama first released in 1960, directed by Peter Brook.  The film stars Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Pascale de Boysson, Jean Deschamps and Didier Haudepin.  It has also been released under the title: Moderato cantabile.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


A bored housewife, Anne, witnesses the murder of a woman by her boyfriend in a bar-café.  By chance, she meets a man, Chauvin, a labourer, who shares her fascination with the murder.  As the two discuss the history of the tragic couple and speculate on the circumstances which led to the killing, Anne finds herself drawn to Chauvin.  Anne’s longing for her new friend intensifies and, in the end, becomes too much for Chauvin.  One night, Anne and Chauvin arrange a final meeting in the bar where the murder which brought them together took place.

A beautifully lyrical but sombre piece of cinema, Moderato Cantabile is an excellent example of the French new wave of the early 1960s.  It is a moving and eloquent study of the psychology of a bored, well-off housewife, trapped in a life of routine and predictability, whilst longing for some danger to give her life meaning.  We are on the same ground as Louis Malle’s earlier film, Les Amants, in which Jeanne Moreau again played the role of the bored housewife.  However, Moderato Cantabile gets further beneath the skin of the woman and the result is slightly more interesting and satisfying than Malle’s film.

The pairing of Jeanne Moreau and Jean-Paul Belmondo is a masterstroke.  Moreau’s tragic wistfulness plays perfectly off Belmondo’s sullen, contemplative persona.  There is something deeply tragic in an attractive woman who places herself in the hands of a taciturn stranger, who, for all we know might be capable of murdering her.

Jeanne Moreau plays the part with such conviction and solemnity that, in that scene where the camera is frozen on her face for a full ten seconds we almost seem to glimpse her soul.  In the final moments of the film when the housewife’s fantasies are extinguished and that soul is wrenched asunder we are left gasping.   Little surprise that she scooped the best actress award at Cannes for this performance.

The other striking thing about this film is the photography, which is impressive in its own right, but triumphs because it captures the mood of the subject so brilliantly.  Few films have used the wide-screen aspect to such great effect.  Almost every scene is a wide panorama, either filled with detail or disturbingly empty.  The location shots of the port and the woods are haunting in their bleakness and seem to provide a resounding echo for the dialogue between the characters Anne and Chauvin.

© James Travers 2000

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