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Trois chambres à Manhattan
1965 Drama / Romance
Review
Although clearly a comparatively minor work when set along side Marcel Carné’s
earlier masterpieces, Trois chambres à Manhattan is nonetheless a striking
piece of 1960s cinema – a sombre, melancholic study of solitude and yearning set, for
the most part, in the forbidding barren streets of New York City. Above all else,
the film shows Carné’s willingness and ability to embrace modernity and make a
film which is just as relevant and contemporary as anything his rivals, the New Wave directors,
were able to come up with. The moody jazz soundtrack at the start of the film reinforces
the sense of isolation and pessimism and gives the film its timeless feeling of haunting
existentialist gloom.
Unfortunately, after a stunning and evocative start, the film has difficulty developing and soon shifts into a rather ordinary melodrama. This would doubtless have greatly weakened the film if it were not for the compelling performances from Maurice Ronet (who appears to be reprising his role from Louis Malle’s Le Feu Follet) and Annie Girardot (who was awarded the Grand Prize at Venice in 1965 for her role in this film). The film also marks the first screen appearance of Robert de Niro (aged 22) in a brief walk-on part. © James Travers 2002 Write a review for this film...User Comments
Those who love the novel by Georges Simenon this film is based on (always a bad omen) will
not love this film at all. It’s simply a mess. I know it’s a taboo to
compare a piece of cinema with the original piece of literature,
because it’s unfair to compare apples and oranges. But as it is a
truism that bad or boring novels inspire good films, it is also a
truism that you only can make a good novel a good film by changing the
plot drastically. 3 Chambres
à Manhattan is a good novel; the plot was changed
drastically; but it didn’t work at all in this case. The male character in the novel is not a still young man like Maurice Ronet in this role, but an actor of fifty in the crisis of his personal and professional life. Letting him have a neurotic love affair with a woman of his age (Annie Girardot was 34, Ronet 38 then), destroys the original nucleus of the plot completely. The role of François’ wife, in the novel of no importance at all, in the film is inflated to a big role just to give an overrated actress an opportunity to present her modest performing talent and some remarkable mid-60s fashion disasters. Miss Girardot is gorgeous as always but miscast: the Kay of the book is a highly complicated character, an amazing mixture of shy little girl and enterprising tramp – not the business for a strong, solid and confident character actress like Miss Girardot. Maybe Romy Schneider would have saved the film (the Kay in the novel is from Austria and speaks French with a German accent). What spoils it all is the irritating and pushy jazz soundtrack (in the novel, written in 1946, it’s just some songs from the juke box in a whisky bar) that gives the film a tinsel touch of false modernity. A big story of love and loneliness in the Big City (as a metaphor for an incoherent life) with a very tender and surprising pianissimo happy ending was changed into a lacquered zeitgeist flick lacking any recognizable sense. Those who love Marcel Carné’s masterpieces of the 1930s will be disappointed while watching this downfall of a former genius of cinema. 3 rooms in Manhattan was one of the last films Marcel Carné directed. OldBlueIris ( Essen, Germany) How do you rate this film? |
Director:
Marcel Carné
Starring: Annie Girardot, Maurice Ronet, O.E. Hasse, Roland Lesaffre, Gabriele Ferzetti Synopsis
When his wife leaves him, a young French actor, François Combe, moves to New York
to work for a television company. One evening, he meets an attractive young woman,
Kay Larsi, in a bar. She is as lost and unhappy as he is, alone after her friend
and flatmate Jessie left her. François and Kay become lovers, initially renting
a room in a hotel before moving into François’ apartment. When François
finds out that Kay is not only the wife of a diplomat, but also a wealthy countess who
ran off with a gigolo, he begins to have doubts about the relationship. Then Kay
announces she must return to her home in Mexico to visit her sick daughter...
Credits
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