Jules and Jim Changed My Life: Homage to Jeanne Moreau

She smouldered, she pouted and she sizzled. She was the ultimate Femme Fatale, the dangerous siren who lured men with her dazzling smile; her lilting voice and her sensuality. I first saw Jules and Jim when I was in my early 20’s — and I never looked back. From then on — it was Francois Truffaut, Jean Luc Godard and Louis Malle — and all the rest of that brilliant group that believed you could write stories with the camera. And they did — deconstructing gangsters and love stories with irreverance and that special French je ne sais quois that gave everything that extra — well — je ne sais quois…

Moreau starred long with Oskar Werner and Henri Serre in Francois Truffaut’s Jules and Jim as the pouty Catherine, the center of a love triangle that was as joyous as it was sad. The famous music in it became the soundtrack to my time in Paris — and while I could never manage her insouciant smile, don’t think I didn’t try it. I don’t remember the name of the film in which she played an older, worldly wise earthy femme fatale — but I do remember her dispensing tips on the right way to seduce a man. But then she didn’t actually have to give directions, she just had to be.

Someone recently compared her to Bette Davis but the comparison really doesn’t work, because unlike in America, France doesn’t require its actresses over 40 to become hideous gargoyles, caricatures of themselves like Hollywood did of its talents like Davis and Joan Crawford or even Garbo who probably knew what was coming and got out early.

Jeanne Moreau, who died at the age of 89 a few days ago, left behind a rich tapestry of films for us to revel in. Among them were Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows, Antonioni’s The Night and Bunuel’s The Chambermaid. But there are many, many more. She was Woman with a capital W. There are two quotes which stand out in some of the interviews being republished since her death. The Guardian quoted her saying when asked if she ever felt nostalgic for the New Wave: “Nostalgia for what? Nostalgia is when you want things to stay the same. I know so many people staying in the same place. And I think, my God, look at them! They’re dead before they die. That’s a terrible risk. Living is risking.”

And in a 2001 interview with The New York Times, she said: “The cliché is that life is a mountain,” she said. “You go up, reach the top and then go down. To me, life is going up until you are burned by flames.”

We were illuminated by that fire.