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Looking at Bernardo Bertolucci’s career has always reminded me a bit of The Rolling Stones. Starting off strong and quickly progressing into a period of awe inspiring brilliance that no-one, especially himself, could top; and then finally the aftermath of continually attempting to live up to the standard he had set so high for himself. From his first feature, 1962’s The Grim Reaper through his third, 1968’s Partner, Bertolucci would show himself as an amazingly assured and inventive director who had obviously taken a lot from Pasolini, whom he had assisted, and Godard, whom he idolized. 1970’s Spider Stratagem would prove the major turning point, his Beggar’s Banquet if you like, marking a turning away from the overtly Godardian Partner. It would begin an five year-three film run that would perfect and alter the cinematic landscape in a way that few films, and filmmakers, ever had. The Conformist is one of the great films, viewing the recent Paramount DVD release it is hard for me to think of a more perfectly structured and layered film. Everything from the lovely Vittorio Storaro cinematography to George Delerue’s haunting score to the iconic casting is as good as cinema can possibly get. The film has moments like the first close up of Dominique Sanda and the chilling last shot of Trintignant that cause an almost physical reaction in me everytime I watch the film. I’m jolted by it, in the way that I wish more horror films would. I appreciate the film and how unique it is more and more as we get further away from it. It is one of those films, like Citizen Kane or Three Colors Red, that while watching it I have hard time convincing myself that it’s not the greatest film ever made. Bertolucci would follow this impossible to top film with a second masterpiece that would immortalize and crush Bertolucci at the same time. Much has been written about Last Tango In Paris and I think that the film’s notoriety has taken away from just how powerful an experience it actually is. I will write more on this film that I revisit at least once a year at a later date. Watching it today is, to continue my Stones comparison, at bit like listening to Sticky Fingers, It is the work of someone in complete and total control of his craft, a virtual greatest hits film marriage of direction, cinematography, music, editing and of course acting. Much liked The Conformist where Bertolucci symbolically killed off Godard this film would do the same to Truffaut, and Bertolucci would no longer be compared to anyone else. So much has been written about Brando’s monumental performance that the work of Maria Schneider has long been overlooked. The recent re-releasing of Antonioni’s The Passenger restores her as one of the great figures of seventies cinema. Her Jeanne, form Tango, is a performance that has long been unfairly ignored but it is impossible to think of a more luminous and troubling presence in cinema. Something happened to Bertolucci after Last Tango In Paris, something changed in him and his films. Certainly the storm that greeted Tango, getting arrested for obscenity and realizing that he had made not one but two of the greatest films ever in a row all had to weigh on him. It would take him nearly five years to get another film in theaters but 1900 would turn out to be his Exile On Main Street, a sprawling five hour epic that veers on the edge of disaster but somehow works. In scene after scene Bertolucci delivers a film as large and bold as it’s subject. Nothing about it worked as well as The Conformist and Last Tango In Paris though. The stitches were really coming apart through it and it’s noticeable. Everything from the look of the film to the casting choices would fall just short of the standards he had set earlier. Still, at it’s most hypnotic and audacious, it is one of the great films of the seventies and one that most directors wouldn’t have even attempted. The film would immediately be subjected to cuts and censorship problems. Much like Sergio Leone’s equally epic Once Upon A Time In America it would be a film many would see first in a compromised and raped version. Bertolucci’s next two films, Luna and Tragedy Of A Ridiculous Man, were both much smaller scaled and had more in common with his early films rather than his seventies masterworks. He would again enter epic territory and sweep the Oscars with The Last Emperor but I don’t feel that this film has the power of his greatest work. It is a film made of great parts but it is Bertolucci himself that seems missing. Suddenly a wild visionary revolutionizing cinema was just a great craftsman. The Last Emperor is a fine film that deserved the acclaim it received but I don’t think of it as a great Bernardo Bertolucci film. The Sheltering Sky seemed to be an attempt to return to the more personal feel of his early seventies work but poor casting and studio interference hurt the film. The critics would turn on Bertolucci after The Sheltering Sky and suddenly one of cinema’s great masters would be treated with disdain. I found this particularly distasteful. Little Buddha and Stealing Beauty might have been flawed works by an aging master but they both have moments that are sublime and powerful. Stealing Beauty especially, with it’s subversive take on class warfare and repressed sexuality, is worth another look. Still one has to wonder if working with a leading actress, talented Liv Tyler, who was unaware of his past work made Bertolucci feel a little out of time. Besieged would find him continuing trying to channel his early groundbreaking work on sexuality but it would prove to be possibly his weakest and least ambitious film since Luna. It felt like the work of a man who was at the end of his creative rope and after seeing it I had a doubt Bertolucci would return.
I remember very clearly the first trailer I saw for 2003’s The Dreamers. To say I was excited about the film is a bit of an understatement. The idea of Bertolucci making a film about the French Student riots of 1968 and paying tribute to the original New Wave heroes of his youth got me more excited about a film than I had been in a long time. I had bad timing with The Dreamers, it was released the same week I had a bad car accident and it took me several weeks to see it. My mental state really affected how I felt about the film and I came out incredibly disappointed. I wanted to see something that would kick start a revolution, if not in cinema at least in me, but all I could think about in the theater was how worried I was about driving home. The beauty and power of The Dreamers alluded me on that first viewing. Even something as obvious like Bertolucci finding someone as mesmerizing and interesting as Maria Schneider, in young Eva Green, went past me. I would wait well over a year to revisit The Dreamers, it would be an eye opening and exhilarating experience the second time though. In repeated viewings it becomes a more and more powerful film about what it is to be young and alive. It is a film about ideas, sex and ultimately a passionate love of cinema. It might not be one of Bertolucci's greatest works but certain scenes, from the kids running through the museum intercut with Godard's Bande A Part to Eva Green channeling Garbo, have a magnificently redemptive quality about them. The Dreamers isn't the work of an old man trying to just relive old glories, but one of our last masters regaining his power. Watching The Dreamers is a bit like watching that last Ali fight where he suddenly starts dancing in that 8th round. Just in that moment when you think everything is just a shadow and a memory, something remarkable suddenly happens and that forgotten arm comes out of nowhere and delivers a near knock out blow. Bertolucci is planning his follow up to The Dreamers with Bel Canto, an adaptation of Ann Patchett's novel about a South American gorilla group. I believe Bertolucci has at least one more great masterpiece left in him. The Dreamers seemed to remind people and critics of his power and the last 2 years have been filled with incredible special edition DVDS of some of his finest work. There may never be another film made as perfect as The Conformist, but isn't it great to realize the one person who might be able to deliver it is still trying?
Antonioni is currently represented on DVD with a scattering a truly fine discs, a couple of decent ones and then a handful of very collectible out of print items. While most of his best films are represented, a couple of his most important are still unavailable. Here is a brief guide for those interested. This is more of a look at the quality of the dvds and not the films themselves. STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR: (1950) This is the earliest work by Antonioni currently available and it is put out by the great No Shame dvd company. No Shame has been one of the most exciting companies to emerge in the past few years and this disc was most welcome, even if it is not among the maestro's best works. The print is a bit worn, which isn't surprising considering the age of the film, but NoShame have done a decent job with it. The most notable thing about this disc is the welcome second disc of extras that include an interview with cinematographer Guiseppe Rotuno, actress Lucia Bose and a handful of others connected to the film. Antonioni is himself seen at a touching modern screening of the film. No Shame's set is a valuable addition to anyone film lovers dvd library. LE AMICHE (1955): This is another one of the few of his early films that is currently available. While not among his greatest works this film is well worth searching out even though the dvd is disappointing. While not the disaster of some of Image's dvds, the print offered here isn't anything spectacular but is reasonably clean and sharp. The disc's biggest drawback is that no extras are offered to put this film into any kind of historical perspective. IL GRIDO (1957): This is one of his first truly great films which makes it all the more disappointing that Kino's bare bones disc is all that is currently available. The print used here is actually a little worse that LE AMICHE which makes this disc a real missed opportunity. Many of Antonioni's reoccurring themes really kick into gear with this film and it is an essential work. L'AVVENTURA (1960): Arguably his first great masterpiece, although IL GRIDO could make that claim as well, L'AVVENTURA is available in a remarkable set from Criterion. The picture is miraculous looking for the most part with just some very minor damage and the extras are exhaustive. They include an informative commentary by Gene Youngblood and a William Arrowsmith essay on the first disc while an hour long documentary takes up most of the second disc. My favorite extra on Criterion's great set is Jack Nicholson reading some of the master's writings. Nicholson is very reverent and his unmistakable voice reading these is wonderful to hear. Criterion's double disc set is essential. L'ECLISSE (1962): Criterion again presents another Antonioni masterpiece in a great two disc set that features an incredible looking print of the film including an authoritative commentary by Richard Pena on disc one while disc two contains the great Italian documentary THE EYE THAT CHANGED CINEMA. Also included on disc two is a fascinating interview with Antonioni friend Carlo di Carlo that really manages to give some real insight into the man. Like Criterion's L'AVVENTURA, their set of L'ECLISSE is highly recommended. I actually prefer L'ECLISSE to the more celebrated L'AVVENTURA with special mention going to both Alain Delon and Monica Vitti. LA NOTTE (1963): Unfortunately Criterion didn't put out Antonioni's next feature, the striking LA NOTTE starring Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau. Fox Lorber's disc is terrible. The print hasn't been restored properly, it feels overly digitized at times and annoyingly shaky at others. No extras are included. One can only hope that Criterion eventually puts out this important film and gives it the kind of quality release it deserves. RED DESERT (1964): How is it that one of the greatest films ever made is currently absent on dvd? Image's dvd , featuring a hazy and messy widescreen transfer, is a bare bones and very out of print affair that is currently going for up to $300.00 dollars on Amazon and Ebay. I love this film so much and treasure my Image disc even if it is a bit of a disaster. RED DESERT is one of the major must get re-released discs on the market. BLOW-UP (1966): While Criterion had put this massively important film out on laser disc, Warner Home Video are responsible for this disappointing dvd. The picture quality is solid for the most part but the sound is a mess. This film is so dependant on it's sound design and Warner's disc is mixed way too low. I always have to crank my speakers when watching this disc and it is extremely irritating. Even more disappointing is the lack of extras, if ever a film demanded a good set of extra features it is BLOW-UP. The only supplement offered is a pointless commentary by critic Peter Brunette (who wrote the valuable book THE FILMS OF MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI) that I have still not managed to make it all the way through. Along with Richard Schickle's irritating ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA commentary, it is one of the most unlistenable I have ever heard. BLOW-UP is a hugely exciting film and it deserves an engaged and informative commentary, it's a shame that Brunette didn't deliver a better one. A Criterion set of this film would be a major release. THE PASSENGER (1975): A fine and welcome release, Sony's dvd offers a beautifully restored print of one of the maestro's greatest works. More extras would have been welcome, I would love to see an interview with the miraculous Maria Schneider but the disc does offer two fine commentaries. The track by screenwriter Mark Peploe assisted by journalist Aurora Irvine is informative and entertaining but it is Jack Nicholson's track that is the real stunner. Not too many stars of Jack's stature would bother with a little European Art film they made over thirty years ago but it is obvious listening to this track that this is the film Jack is most proud of. His stories are fascinating, his love for Antonioni is infectious, and one gets the feeling he would go to the end of the earth for this film. It's one of my favorite commentaries of all time and it couldn't have been featured on a better film. BEYOND THE CLOUDS (1995): Like RED DESERT, this dvd has slipped out of print and now fetches huge prices. Antonioni's erotic and undervalued late period film features Sophie Marceau and Irene Jacob among others. Image's hard to find dvd offers just a decent print of the film and the audio is strangely missing some of the voice over narration but it is notable in that it includes the great documentary TO MAKE A FILM IS TO BE ALIVE. This film, while not one of his greatest, is an extremely valuable addition to his filmography and is in need of a re-release. EROS (2004): Antonioni's final film is a short in this flawed anthology film. His short is the best to my eyes and the disc also includes his remarkable short EYE TO EYE, which is even better than his main contribution to the film. The disc is fine even though outside of the extra short is bare bones.
This was just a listing of dvds that have been, or are currently available, in the United States. My apologies if I have overlooked any. Many more discs are available throughout Europe including box sets and a special edition of RED DESERT that I am dying to see. Hopefully soon we will see some more quality releases of his work as I am really holding out for Criterion to pick up LA NOTTE, RED DESERT and BLOW-UP. The most notable absences right on DVD, outside of his early work in the fifties, are ZABRISKIE POINT (1970), the documentary CHINA (1972), THE MYSTERY OF OBERWALD (1981) and his last truly great film (although I love BEYOND THE CLOUDS) IDENTIFICATION OF A WOMAN (1982). It is frankly ridiculous that a director of Antonioni's stature has so many holes with his filmography on the DVD market. With some luck that will hopefully begin to change very soon.
"I met a new me at 8 am, the other one got lost, this was not a trade in, although I wouldn't believe the cost. I woke up crying as we said goodbye, me an my old self, each day he vanished more and more as I became someone else." -Lou Reed, Trade In-
"I am the passenger I stay under glass I look through my window so bright I see the stars come out tonight I see the bright and hollow sky." -David Bowie, Iggy Pop, The Passenger-
When thinking about Antonioni's greatest film it is RED DESERT that typically pops into my mind. However I find as I am getting older it is his 1975 feature THE PASSENGER that I return to more and more. I first saw THE PASSENGER just after I got my drivers licence when I was sixteen. There was an Evansville video store that had a small foreign section and it was here that I found Antonioni's masterpiece in one of those oversize clam shell boxes that was covered in dust. The cover shot of a beautifully bruised and tragic looking Jack Nicholson standing in a doorway was incredibly evocative and I have been sorry to not see it used more. While I admired the film on that first viewing, I think I was perhaps too young to completely appreciate what it was that Nicholson's David Locke was running from. Add that on to the fact that that old full frame and faded VHS copy did everything it could to drain all the artistic life out of Michelangelo's film. Although I saw this film several times in this way throughout my teens and twenties, I didn't truly experience it until I saw it a couple of years back at a Louisville theater for it's re-release. That theatrical experience was interesting. The theater was surprisingly crowded and there have only been a handful of films that I had ever been more excited to see. I have also never been more personally offended by a series of walk outs in a film, as there were a few. Seeing THE PASSENGER restored and on a big screen was for me a remarkable and hypnotic experience. There were several things that jumped out at me that afternoon in the theater. The color of the sky in the opening shots of this film in indescribable and throughout the picture Luciano Tavoli's color photography is nearly too beautiful to look at. It literally was like seeing a different film than that old VHS copy. Another thing that stood out was Maria Schneider, the sometimes maligned LAST TANGO IN PARIS star is so effective in this picture as the girl who might be controlling much more than anyone can imagine. The shot of her standing in the car with her arms outstretched as the treetops envelope her from behind is one of the most remarkably composed shots of Antonioni's career, and Schneider looks like one of the great lost Art House icons of all time in it. A few other thoughts I had were that Jack Nicholson, easily one of the greatest American actors, has never been better in a role. There is such an intensity to his performance in this film and I can think of very few American stars who would have been willing to play a role like this, and even less who could have done it so beautifully. The final thought I had about the film, and it came to me shortly after the astonishing seven minute long one shot take that still baffles me even though I have heard it explained. The thought was this, that THE PASSENGER was the closing chapter to the great European Art House movement. That's not to suggest that there haven't been other art house films, or films as a completely pure and sacred art form (Kieslowski's THREE COLORS TRILOGY certainly springs to mind) but after 1975 things did surely change. Much like RAGING BULL and BLOW-OUT feel like the furious last gasps of the American film movement of the Seventies, then indeed THE PASSENGER seems like a hypnotic coda to a remarkable period when it wasn't just possible to make a film like this but also a time when anyone would bother. The only other time I can remember being so hypnotized by a theatrical experience was when I saw the restored print of Peter Weir's PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK in the mid nineties. Coming out of the theater that afternoon the sun felt positively blinding and I was so wiped out emotionally that Islept for what felt like hours when I got home that afternoon. I think it wasn't just Michelangelo's remarkable direction of THE PASSENGER that got me so much but it was a real personal connection to the lost David Locke. In the past decade I have felt more and more like that character, who wants nothing more than not only a new life but the ability to erase his old one (or as David Bowie would put it two years after this film, "A New Career In A New Town). Antonioni finally suggests that perhaps finding this way out, this trade in, might not be all its made out to be. Maybe we are all in our own way looking for a our own personal trade in but sometimes just going along for life's ride is the only way out. I don't know, I find it difficult to express my emotions about David Locke and Antonioni's film, all I know is that there are few films that have spoken to me more about the increasingly disconnected nature of my life that this one. THE PASSENGER might not ever be held in the same esteem as the trilogy of black and white films Antonioni shot in the early sixties but I suspect it will continue to grow in prestige. It is a remarkable film that is, much like the man who made it, truly timeless.
La Baby Sitter, the final feature film from legendary French director Rene Clement, is a somewhat sluggish and occasionally compelling film from 1975 featuring two of the most memorable screen beauties of the seventies, Maria Schneider and Sydne Rome. Clement was way past his prime when he directed his clunky final feature at the age of 62 and it had been nearly ten years since his last truly successful feature, Paris is Burning, and fifteen years since his last bona-fide masterpiece, the startling Purple Noon. While La Baby Sitter is a marked improvement over the works leading up to it like Death Scream (1971) and Hope to Die (1972), it is indeed a far cry from the works that made Clement one of the most popular post-war French directors. Working from a convoluted script from the pen of prolific Italian screenwriter Nicola Badalucco, Clement fails to ever find a consistent tone with La Baby Sitter, a work that never really comes together despite the splendid turns given by both Schneider and Rome.
Iconic Maria Schneider was just a few years past her jaw-dropping turn opposite Marlon Brando in Bertolucci's astonishing Last Tango in Paris when she shot La Baby Sitter. She had just finished up her fascinating performance for Antonioni in The Passenger when Clement cast her as the lead in his film and she turns in a really solid performance for the aging director. Had personal problems not derailed her for a time in the late seventies and early eighties, the career of Maria Schneider might have really took off, as she remains one of the most distinctive, if often undervalued, talents of her time.
American born Sydne Rome is just as good as the disfigured actress who becomes embroiled in a strange kidnapping and ransom scheme. A prolific if often overlooked actress, the charming Rome was especially good in Polanski's comedic What (1971), and she delivers a surprisingly resonate dramatic turn for Clement in La Baby Sitter, although it is a shame that one of her best dramatic performance wasn't in a better film.
Despite the very solid work from his two leads, not to mention able support from everyone from Vic Morrow to Robert Vaughn to Renato Pozzetto, La Baby Sitter is ultimately a disappointing work that is only sporadically interesting. Whereas Clement's early triumpths were studied and deliberately paced, La Baby Sitter is draggy and downright boring at times. Clement's direction is frustratingly detached and La baby Sitter is lethargic when it should be suspenseful. At times Clement's final feature feels like it would fall completely apart if it weren't for his memorable cast and the lovely and disquieting score composed for him by the tremendous Francis Lai.
Clement's flawed and flat direction of La Baby Sitter is helped immeasurably by the talents of Italian cinematography Alberto Spagnoli, whose work photography the film makes it feel much more distinguished than it actually is. The Italian born cinematographer, who began his career as Antonioni's assistant director on Red Desert, is probably best remembered for his work on such memorable Italian thrillers such as The Lady in Red Kills Seven Times and Mario Bava's Shock. The talented globetrotting Spagnoli wasn't limited to just thrillers though as his lovely work on Peter Bogdanovich's Daisy Miller in 1974 shows so clearly.
La Baby Sitter is one of those distinctly European co-productions that only the seventies produced. Despite the partial American cast, French star and director, it finally feels more Italian than anything else, although it can't hold a candle to the many Giallo and Poliziotteschi films that were coming out of Italy at the time. Rene Clement's final film is ultimately just an obscure curiosity, more than anything else, worthy of a look if mostly to serve a reminder to how undervalued Maria Schneider was in the seventies.
Clement's final little flawed thriller has been available all over the world in numerous versions including a VHS version in the eighties under the title Raw Edge. Currently out in numerous grey market and public domain sets, I am not aware of a decent and official remastered DVD but if anyone knows of one I would be curious to hear about it.
Maria Schneider, a truly great European Film Icon, has reportedly passed away at the tragically young age of just fifty-eight. Maria, whose performances in Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris and Antonioni's The Passenger are the stuff of legend, was one of my favorite actors and I am so saddened to hear this news this morning. I will be posting a full tribute in the upcoming days but I did want to take a moment to pass along my best to her friends and family.
She was truly unique and brought something extremely special to every film she appeared in throughout her iconic career.
What in the hell was Monique van de Ven doing in Starsky and Hutch? After all, it had only been a few years since van de Ven's Oscar-worthy work in Paul Verhoeven's Turks Fruit (1973) and Keetje Tippel, so seeing her play opposite Antonio Fargas' Huggy Bear in "A Body Worth Guarding." was one of the oddest sights of the late seventies.
Van de Ven had been on a television set before, but the Dutch miniseries Sil de strandjutter (1976) was a much more serious affair than an American cop show. "A Body Worth Guarding" had not gone unnoticed back in van de Ven's home country. In a July 1978 edition, De Telegraph noted that the episode was a waste of time for a highly talented actress and "worthless" in general. Starsky and Hutch would prove to be a most inauspicious American debut for Van de Ven, but a much more significant role awaited her back in The Netherlands as the seventies drew to a close.
Starsky and Hutch had indeed been a 'worthless' step in van de Ven's noteworthy career and would prove a tragic foreshadowing of later attempts to breakthrough in the American market. Van de Ven had no way of predicting the future in 1978, but she knew scripts like "A Body Worth Guarding." were a waste of her considerable talents. Van de Ven's other roles in 1978 were thankfully much more exciting and included Brian Trenchard-Smith's Australian cult oddity Stunt Rock and Ate de Jong's Inheritance. They were fine films, but Van de Ven's passion project was a script she had on Starsky and Hutch's set. She would tell Algemeen Dagblad in July of 1978 that the script's title character had already wholly taken her over and cameras hadn't even begun rolling yet.
Van de Ven was reportedly so excited about the new project that she had turned down a major Hollywood film to make it. This would prove nearly disastrous when van de Ven discovered the film's writer and director had second thoughts about her casting as she was concerned the 26-year-old actress was too young for the role. A panicked van de Ven refused to be denied the part and persevered, even going so far as threatening legal action, as the film's producer had promised her the role.
The plum role Monique van de Van refused to let slip away was as Eve in Een vrouw als Eva, the groundbreaking work from the pen of the film's director, Nouchka van Brakel. Telling the story of a lonely wife of an uncaring husband who falls in love with another woman, Een vrouw als Eva was poised to be one of the great films of the period, and van de Ven knew it.
Born in the spring of 1940 in Amsterdam, Nouchka van Brakel had been a part of the exploding new Dutch film wave that had begun to take shape throughout the sixties. A fading photograph in a September 1963 issue of Het Parool, marking Cinestud - Amsterdam International Student Film Festival, showed a young Van Brakel pictured with a number of her peers who would help revolutionize Dutch cinema, including Pim de la Para and Wim Verstappen.
Van Brakel had been around artists all of her life. Her parents were musicians who were as passionate about left-wing politics as art, and both would surround the young Van Brakel, although film and theater would spark her passion, not music. Inspired by her mother's feminist ideals, Van Brakel became the first-ever woman accepted to Nederlandse Filmacademie, the prestigious Netherlands Film Academy. Just as crucial to her blossoming career was the group she would host at her house, the influential Dutch Feminist organization, Dolle Mina.
Formally established in 1969, Dolle Mina's origins went back to pioneering Dutch Feminist Wilhelmina Drucker, who argued for women's equal rights throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. A key group of Feminism's second wave, Dolle Mina, was dedicated to equal pay, rights, and protections for women. The group's, at times, absurdist political acts and demonstrations not surprisingly attracted much press attention as the seventies dawned.
De Volkskrant covered one of Dolle Mina's first significant demonstrations in January of 1970 at the men's only Nijenrode Castle. The paper noted the calamitous protest was a campaign "for equal rights for women." Trouw would feature the event in a relatively long piece that featured quotes by Dolle Mina's representation:
"The man is still in charge. Only on election day are a husband and wife equal. A real emancipated woman is not the rule but an exception. This ruling is for the account of the action group 'De Dolle Mina,' which met yesterday afternoon in the Atheneum News Centre to inform the 'outside world' of the motives that led to its creation a month ago and its future activities. The organization, born out of a group of 'troubled girls,' currently has more than 40 members and believes that women in this society are continuing for the lesser part of the man, that she is not completely, evenly matched. 'Most girls have a worse education than the boys. After school, they become typists or waitresses or go into a store. They wait for a man to pick them out, and then they get married. And that's where she's waiting, the rut, which deprives her of any opportunity to develop her talents: "And when she goes to work, she pays more tax than he does. She earns less for the same job. The group advocates a change of mindset for both men and women so that 'they become aware that women have as many and equal rights as the man.' There will be a tough action, including "a call for a general cooking strike against oppression by men," an action for free nurseries, and an action for public toilets for women."
More demonstrations followed and more press coverage. Het Parool summed up the group in the headline, "Doll Mina to Fight Against A Man's World." The article summed up the group's adventurous protest stylings:
"The emancipation of women will be dealt with considerably this year.Dolle Mina has had enough of petitions and pamphlets. Mad Mina's going out on the street to demand public urination right also for women. Dutch housewives are advised to hold a cooking strike tonight. Dutchmen should now feel that the female is against oppression. She no longer wants to play the slave that's ready for sir, who cooks for sir, who irons, sews, dishes for sir. Dolle Mina wants equality in 1970. The action group consisting of thirty housewives, young mothers, and students, assisted by ten men who share these ideas, took action yesterday. The Nijenrode training institute, which is only accessible to men, was stormed by Dolle Mina. It came to a slight collision, but eventually, a conversation was reached. Dolle then entered Mina Amsterdam to burn a corset at the statue of her patron Wilhelmina Drucker. This symbolized the elimination of oppression of women."
As the seventies began, Van Brakel became known for her Dolle Mina role. Het vrije volk featured her in a piece on the Feminist group just a few days after 1970 had begun. Van Brakel had been active in the Dutch film world throughout the sixties in various capacities, and her activities with the group would inform her film work. Her directorial career began with several short narrative and documentary films. Van Brakel's intelligence, love for cinema, and fiery left-wing politics made her one of the most fully-loaded filmmakers of the seventies. This would become especially apparent with the early seventies documentary she directed, Ouder Worden. De tijd noted the film concerned "the division of roles imposed on boys and girls in primary school." It was a startling documentary, and Van Brakel talked about it to the Dutch paper:
"Women are victims of a complicated indoctrination process. Whether you are born as a boy or as a girl depends on chance. But the girls have to play their role as human beings differently from the boys. The simple fact that you have become a boy or a girl immediately robs you of a piece of freedom."
Ouder Worden garnered much attention for a short documentary and would help Van Brakel finance her first narrative feature. Finally, after more than fifteen years working in the Dutch film world, Van Brakel's first feature, Het debuut, appeared in 1977 to great acclaim and controversy. The film would introduce audiences to one of the most exciting young actresses of the period, Marina de Graaf, and solidified Van Brakel as one of the premier filmmakers in The Netherlands.
Het Debuut became one of the most discussed Dutch films of the seventies, and it made a star out of de Graaf. The film's success paved the way for Van Brakel's equally ambitious follow-up, which she began scripting with the Dutch poet and fellow Dolle Mina's figure, Judith Hertzberg. The two defiant feminists would take a concept (inspired by a real-life court case) by fellow Dutch screenwriter Carol Donck and transform it into Een vrouw als Eva (A Woman Like Eve).
While van de Ven was struggling to retain her lead role in A Woman Like Eve, Van Brakel began assembling what would turn into a most extraordinary cast. The choices included Peter Fabar as Eva's selfish husband, Ad, and the extraordinary Renée Soutendijk in a critical supporting role. Along with the title character, Eve's lover Liliane would be the most challenging part to cast, and the perfect actress turned out to be French, not Dutch.
Parisian Maria Schneider had just turned twenty-five when the script for A Woman Like Eve was sent to her. The embattled Schneider was having a very rough time personally and professionally by 1978. The worldwide fame attached to her landmark role in Last Tango in Paris (1973) proved too much for the young woman, and she had increasingly turned to drugs and alcohol for relief. After working with Antonioni on his masterpiece The Passenger (1975), Schneider's choices became more militantly feminist and less commercial. Tinto Brass had just fired her from Caligula (1979) for refusing to appear nude in the film when A Woman Like Eve came her way. The role of Liliane would turn out to be amongst the finest of Maria Schneider's career, but her emotional problems were apparent on the set and onscreen. Fresh from rehab, a briefly sober Schneider was an exposed nerve on the set of A Woman Like Eve, but her performance ultimately made her casting worthwhile.
Van Brakel recalled in 2020 that she and van de Ven had been friends, and she greatly admired the young actress. Her hesitancy in casting her only had to do with her age. She recalled arriving home from a scouting trip in Paris to find stacks and stacks of letters from fans pleading that she cast van de Ven in the role. Thankfully the two finally realized they could make it work, and Monique van de Ven's place as the title role in A Woman Like Eve was finally situated shortly before the film went into production. While the film's cast was the focus of much press attention, the near-all female crew was just as fascinating. For the film's cinematography, Van Brakel and producer Matthijs van Heijningen turned to another strong female, Palestinian-born Nurith Aviv. A future filmmaker in her own right, Aviv would be just one of several strong women working on A Woman Like Eve, including another future director working as the film's editor, Ine Schenkkan.
One of the critical names working behind A Woman Like Eve's scenes was composer Laurens van Rooyen, who supplies the film with its remarkable soundtrack. It was one of two masterful scores van Rooyen would deliver in 1978, as his Mysteries appeared shortly after A Woman Like Eve. Van Rooyen's gorgeous score guides the film's emotional impact but is never intrusive or overwhelming.
A Woman Like Eve's shooting was fraught with difficulty. Schneider was brilliant but challenging and a mess on the set. Van Brakel noted in 2020 that being "complicated and difficult" could be a positive and that it can make "someone special and exceptional." Van Brakel found Schneider a bit impenetrable and struggled with what she saw as compromised love scenes due to the actress, noting that the scenes in Blue Is The Warmest Color were more what she had in mind.
Schneider's problems were minute compared to the day a radical lesbian group threatened the cast and crew during filming at an outdoor festival. Angry that van de Ven was cast because she wasn't a real-life lesbian, the group threatened Monica with violence and attempted to destroy the crew's camera. Van Brakel and Aviv were particularly hurt and shocked by the misguided protest. Van Brakel remembered in 2020 the sight of a raging Aviv screaming at the protesters that they were making the film about and for them.
The rest of the shoot was thankfully calmer, and the film got tons of press attention, primarily thanks to the cast. Het Parool featured a full-page profile of Schneider discussing her drug abuse, emotional issues, and her recent rehab stint:
"Maria Schneider, born 26 years ago in Paris, her father is still a valued stage actor there, talks with little emotion about a period in her life that must have been very profound. In Italian boulevard magazines at that time, 1974, articles appeared that Maria had voluntarily been locked up in a psychiatric hospital with her friend. At the beginning of this year, persistent rumors that Maria had been hospitalized for narcotics in a clinic in Sweden to rest so that she could work with a complete commitment on the film A Woman like Eva, for which she has been in the Netherlands for several weeks now. The film will be made in Haarlem and the South of France. Maria stays in a large Amsterdam hotel until the beginning of September.
Now, after seven years, Maria Schneider says of the Last Tango period, 'It was hell. I was just 19 when Bertolucci picked me out of many girls for the role. I was a model and had played some minor roles in meaningless movies. I was incredibly naïve, without any experience. Exactly what Last Tango in Paris was about only dawned on me much later. Working with Marlon Brando was great, a fine man, never difficult. In fact, for me, the big blow came after the shoot, when the film was released. The reactions were really horrendous. I was called a whore, Marlon, a child molester. Whereas the movie wasn't about that at all. It was just a relationship between two people, like the one that flourishes almost daily in the world. I really freaked out about all those people who had an opinion of me. I just couldn't go out on the street without being harassed.
Yesterday, director Nouchka van Brakel characterized the content of A Woman like Eva. Nouchka denied it will be a feminist film. 'I don't like stamps like that. It's just a movie made by women. The only important man is Eva's husband (Peter Faber). I even chose a woman for camera work (Nurith Ariv) because she has the same way of looking at things. Women usually look at certain situations less aggressively. Men jump on everything much more quickly. I know I'm generalizing now, and I'm not a man-hater. I'm not saying I'm sending a message with this movie; people have to see for themselves what they want to do with it." Monique van der Ven, who takes on the role of the approximately 35-year-old mother, was quite angry during the Amsterdam Central Station meeting about the stories about the argument she would have had with Nouchka van Brakel. 'We discussed the problems of that role very quietly. There was no argument. I feel very suitable for motherhood. It's very good with that role.'
'How do you know about the clinics,' Maria asks in a soft voice when I ask about the background of all the stories published about her. 'I hardly ever give interviews; everything in the Italian magazines about me is a lie. In Sweden I stayed with a very good friend who has a farm. It's none of your business whether or not I've been in institutions, those are private matters, and I don't talk about that. It's just none of your business, and that's it. I'm not going to give you an explanation of what I'm doing. The only thing I got from Last Tango in Paris is that I was offered prominent roles and could make much money. From my role in Last Tango in Paris, I have earned almost nothing. Marlon Brando. got $20,000, and I got $2,000, while I had to work harder because I was more in the movie. I never took a role for the pennies. It's was to work with Michelangelo Antonioni. Together with him, I will make an extraordinary film in the future that I can't tell you about yet - because nothing is fixed yet. Oh, yes, why I'm in A Woman like Eva, that was the question. A few months ago, I worked on a movie where only women participated, apart from some unimportant male technicians. The woman who did the camera work also works for Nouchka van Brakel. That's how I got in touch with her. I'm not an outspoken feminist, but I enjoy working with women. I believe that women do many things, for example, making a movie. I liked the script Nouschka made me read. A 35-year-old woman who livesin a commune in France and begins an affair with a young girl. The story ends well. The two women decide to stay together and separate the oldest woman from her husband. Kind of a love story.
This is the 20th movie I'm doing. I started at 16, so that would be two movies a year. But sometimes I don't work for a while. I lived in America for three years: I didn't do anything. I could afford it. I either work hard, or I rested. That's my way of life. I don't have my own house or anything. I've lived in hotels for ten years. Well, no, that's not boring. The advantage is that in the big hotels all rooms around the world are the same, so you don't notice where you are at some point. If the recordings last longer than a month, I usually rent an apartment or a house near the set. Gradually I start to feel the need for a place for myself. I've been planning to buy a home in the countryside in central France for a while. Sometimes a person has to come to his senses. Filming is a tough job where people are not taken into account. Some people have to fight for years to get recognition, and some are just thrown out. Take Marlon Brando; that man has been successful since he was 20. What's he got to lose? He's only acting for 101. With Jack Nicholson, it's very different. That's a complicated man. He often thinks he's not taken seriously, that they don't appreciate him as an actor. That's because he had to fight for recognition for twenty-five years.
In A Woman like Eva, I'm going to sing for the first time. That way you always learn something. I don't have any movie plans after A Woman like Eva. First, I go to Japan to record an advertising video about engines, and then I plan to take a course for sound engineer. I'm intrigued by the technical side of filming. In my spare time, I still photograph sometimes. So far, I've always played an independent young woman's role: A little confused sometimes. That's another aftermath of Last Tango in Paris. I want to get rid of that, but how, that's another question. With this role, I realize that I only build on that image."
Press coverage continued as the film's production wrapped. Most of the attention remained on Van Brakel and her two lead actresses, but actress/singer Marijke Merekens was also profiled in the pages of Het Parool, where she discussed the filming:
"It was a bit uncomfortable for me with the movie A Woman like Eva, which was not rehearsed. I also didn't get the script until three days before the recordings started. Nouchka van Brakel left us every freedom to do whatever we wanted. We weren't bound by the text either. I thoughtthat was quite a dare; I missed something because I was used to a tight director's hand. But when I saw the movie, the result wasn't bad for me. You can't imagine how panicked I was when I went to watch. I didn't feel like I was working for a moment during the filming. It was like I was a little out of it. After all, we also had a serving task: we were there for Monique van de Ven, who is strongly central to the film. I don't mean that meanly. It's just like that. After all, the only interesting scene in my role, a scene with Peter Faber, wasn't shot. There is now no indication in the film of a growing contact between Peter and me. I'm sorry about that. Everything is about Eva. Nouchka van Brakel did not intend to make a lesbian or other typical "women's film." She is concerned with Eva's emancipation, about the woman who separates herself from her routine existence, thereby causing herself many difficulties, but persevering, finding herself, and finally becoming free. There's much love in A Woman like Eva. Nouchka does not do so for commercial reasons. She has great integrity. During the recordings, I constantly had a great admiration for the professionalism of Monique, Maria, and Peter."
After well over a year of rumors and speculation, A Woman Like Eve was finally released in January 1979 to tempered acclaim. Leeuwarder courant called it an "excellently filmed story" and especially praised van de Ven's performance. NRC Handelsblad had problems with the film, and especially Schneider, but praised van de Ven and Renée Soutendijk. Algemeen Dagblad commended the cast and called it a decidedly "unadulterated Dutch film."
Van Brakel continued to defend and promote the film throughout 1979. Interviewed by De Volkskrant, she discussed the film and the difficulty of filming sex scenes:
"That's why I thought about Monique for a long time before I could decide: ok, we'll do it, the story is solid, and we need to be able to work it out together. And I have to say; I don't regret it. I think Monique did a great job.
I see making love much more as something tender, something erotic and not so: boom, clothes off and making love • and that's it. I had only worked with children myself at the time, so I didn't have those problems there. For this film and The Debut, I had to do love scenes, and I have to say that I find it very difficult. I know what I don't want, but I find it very difficult to explain - especially with a whole crew of people around it.
I expected a little more support from Maria in this film, because she knows the situation of making love to women. But yes, it turned out that the ladies both had as much trouble with it as I did. So it's a pretty tricky situation. I tried not to do it in too much detail, but mainly to let the warmth between two women come across. Show that it is not scary, but very sweet, very warm, very tender, very close to each other. And I like that first love scene, the very first time Monique overcomes her embarrassment. I think that's very nicely filmed, too. I find the scene on the stairs, when they first hug each other, much more poignant, also much more erotic."
Viewed more than four decades after its release, A Woman Like Eve stands as one of the seventies' most groundbreaking and influential films. A trailblazing and tender work, A Woman Like Eve, has much in common with another of 1979's best, Robert Benton's Kramer Vs. Kramer (1979). Van Brakel's dramatic piece is one of the most critical chapters in the history of LGBTQ filmmaking. A beautifully realized, performed, directed, and written work, A Woman Like Eve is an important film. Its relatively unassuming and subdued quality makes it a truly transformative experience rare in the world of modern cinema. Van Brakel's film is a genuine masterpiece, on par with the great films centered on family and fractured relationships. Submitted but ultimately rejected for that year's best foreign film at The Academy Awards, A Woman Like Eve has gone unseen for years, making this new release from Cult Epics so genuinely noteworthy.
Cult Epics' new special edition of A Woman Like Eve features the following specs:
New HD Transfer & Restoration (from original 35mm print)
Original LPCM 2.0 Mono track
New DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono track
Interview with Nouchka van Brakel by journalist Floortje Smit at Eye Filmmuseum HD 2020 (40 Mins)
Theatrical Trailers
Some minor print damage doesn't distract from a terrific-looking and sounding presentation. The forty-minute chat with Van Brakel is terrifically informing, and the photo gallery is surprisingly moving. A Woman Like Eve is the first of three Van Brakel titles coming from Cult Epics, as The Debut and The Cool Lakes of Death will be released soon. More information on all three discs can be read here.
BLOG CREATED, EDITED and WRITTEN BY JEREMY RICHEY: Began in DEC 2006. The written content of all posts (excepting quotes from reviews, books, other publications) COPYRIGHT JEREMY RICHEY.
