Les amants [The Lovers] (1958)

(On Cable TV, April 2022) If you’re looking for the film that originated the famous Supreme-Court-approved “definition” of pornography, “I know it when I see it,” then Les amants should be on your viewing list. (For the record, the writer of that statement, Justice Potter Stewart, meant that the film was not pornography.)  It should also be there because it’s an early effort from French director Louis Malle and it’s a splendid exemplar of French cinema in all of its specific sensibilities. Moving away from the film noir style of his debut film Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, Malle here goes to that old French cinema chestnut: the married woman having an affair to emancipate herself. That recognition that women may find contentment away from inattentive husbands probably fuelled much of the American outrage about the film – seen from a twenty-first century perspective, Les amants has mellowed into an unremarkable drama of adultery, with a short moment of nudity to make it clear they’re not playing pattycakes. The film features Jeanne Moreau in a star-making role and she does deserve the attention she got – she’s at the centre of the film, and her performance spans quite an emotional range. As for the film itself, it’s now far more conventional than it was back then. Some episodes are still amusing (such as the sequence that brings the protagonist in contact with her lover, and then makes it clear that he’s not going away as quickly as she hoped for) and the feel of a French drama taking on matters of happiness, sex and love remains very distinctive. If you don’t know the film’s storied history in the United States, you may find yourself lulled into complacency about the very familiar result. But let’s cut Malle some slack here: Les amants predates almost all of the French Nouvelle Vague, so what was provocative then soon passed into comfortable norms within years of its release.