Colin Firth as Valmont & Meg Tilly as Madame de Tourvel
It is a truth universally acknowledged that in any film starring Colin Firth, there will be sex and nudity, and he will either end the movie dead or unhappy in love - both, if he can manage it.
It's been a long time since I saw Forman's wonderful Amadeus, but he's obviously in love with the style and sweep of the period. And it *does* appear as though such considerations intrude between him and his subject matter in Valmont. Look at those lovely, romantic shots - pigeons flying away, views across water, views of the market, the opera, etc.
But still, Valmont the movie has its charms - it has more sex and eroticism by far than Dangerous Liaisons. Whatever you think of Madame Benning, she looks pretty sexy when she gets out of her bath in that filmy, soaking wet peignoir and undulates her way across to the bed, spreading her legs in a business like manner and waiting for Valmont to take action. (And no wonder that he doesn't!) Or the famous seduction of Cecile - gorgeous young flesh, very sexy moment.
I liked the fact that Forman used such young protagonists, though he moved further from the spirit of the novel in doing so. Colin was almost childlike - eg, his tantrum when he tipped Benning out of the bath. A wonderful moment, but so un-Valmont. Fairuza Balk was utterly charming. - And it is her movie, really.
I've been talking about the possibility of Cecile being the true focus of Valmont. In the scene where Valmont playfully fences with Cecile, more than one reading is possible. He is meeting her here as 'child to child'. Those of you who have seen Sense & Sensibility will recall a scene where Edward ("Hang dog Hugh") Ferrars fences with Margaret, the youngest sister. The only subtext there is "what a nice chap that Edward must be". In Valmont, overtly, the same might be said. But there is the creepy moment when one of the women comments on what a shame it is that Valmont has no children of his own. Place this is in the context that, (i) he is soon to take Cecile's virginity, and (ii) he will be a father - but with Cecile as the mother.
However, something else happens in this scene: Cecile "kills" Valmont. There is no duel scene at the end of the movie, where you might expect to see Valmont's death at the hands of Danceny. And yet, here before our very eyes is the duel and the death of Valmont. The scene ends with him squishing strawberries on his stomach, and dramatically falling down dead, while Cecile shrieks with delight at her triumph, and places one foot on the 'corpse'. "I've killed him. " And so, in the end, she has - through the lesser agency of Danceny, her lover.
Thus, Cecile is placed even more centrally in Valmont's story.
The story was gentler, softer than I recall - it took off some of the sheer nastiness of the relationship with Tourvel. (Which, by the way, is dramatically *very* powerful in Dangerous Liaisons on stage and on film. ) I have directed Les Liaisons Dangereuses for the stage, and found the process of working on it intensely fascinating, as did the actors, trying to come to terms with their characters' motivations.
Apart from the manifold delights of Colin, the most interesting thing about Valmont for me lies in its artistic choices (script, direction, performance) and the way that they diverge from Dangerous Liaisons. Colin Firth is on record somewhere as saying that if you changed the characters' names and altered the era a little, you would never recognise them as the same story. An exaggeration, but there is more than a little truth in it.
Intentions
The two films have different intentions, and I want to look at the choices of opening sequence to try to determine what these choices are. Valmont (directed by Milos Forman) opens with the sweet, pure sound of young girls singing, and we quickly discover we are in a convent, where young Cecile Volanges has been completing her education, shut away from the world. Her mother has come to tell her the name of the man she is to marry - a man she has never met. Does that strike you as an odd opening choice for a film named after its sexually active hero? Surely this movie is about Cecile, and what she learns from her elders. The film ends (more or less) with Cecile's marriage, and our understanding that she is now wise to the ways of the world, and is fitted to 'play the game', having learnt her lesson well from Valmont. Forman has made this point himself in a documentary on his work.
Compare Dangerous Liaisons (director Stephen Frears), which has an elegant and clever opening sequence, very pointed in its intentions: John Malkovich (Valmont) and Glenn Close (Madame de Meurteil) are discovered in their (separate) bedchambers, being dressed for the day by their servants. They begin with their 'natural' selves, and we watch the careful, layering of corsets, wigs, powder, patches, hooped petticoats, constraining garments. Clothes that transform them completely. There is a wonderful moment when Malkovich covers his face with a mask while a servant applies powder to his wig. The imagery is of disguise, concealment, art and artifice - and this is the general direction of the movie.
Malkovich as Valmont is cynical, calculated in every move, sexually a predator, with flickering tongue and lascivious mouth and looks. He 'wins' with his words and his quick wit as often as with any overt sexuality. Colin's Valmont is younger, softer, sweeter - clearly a practised womaniser, but one who charms his way through life with sunny smiles, romantic gestures (such as the whole sequence with the horse, arrow and musicians he devises for Madame Meg Tilly), and a clear understanding of how to approach each of his proposed conquests. There is both great charm and a measure of repulsion in the scene where he plays childish sword games with Cecile, whose virginity he is later to take. The ultimate scene which establishes his technique is the delicious sequence where he flirts and dances with four women. The key to this character, for me, is that he kisses and flirts with his ancient aunt (the delicious Fabia Drake) as well as with young, conventionally attractive women.
Cecile is a pawn in Malkovich's game - he sneaks into her room and rapes her, and then later teaches her the sort of sexual tricks "one would hesitate to ask of a professional" as part of the plan to humiliate her future husband. The game with Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer) is the ultimate challenge. A virtuous maried woman whom he wants to surrender completely to him while she retains all her morals. He plays dangerous: he deliberately allows her to see him kissing a known prostitute in his room, and is able to easily lie his way out of the situation. Danger and challenge are his life blood. In this version, the most devastating scene is one when he callously gives her up, she crawls across the floor, completely debased by her desperate need for him, and he rigidly maintains that it is all "beyond his control". Rivetting. Pfeiffer's character goes on to waste away and die, and this gives Valmont reason for losing his duel with Danceny.
Forman doesn't seem sure of his direction for the story. Madame Meg doesn't die - scarcely seems touched by what has happened to her. The death of Valmont disintegrates in cheap comedy - almost knockabout farce - and remotemness. Apart from jolly humour, what is the point of the bit where he yells "sit!" to the dogs, and the peasant supporters all sit down? We don't even get a close up of the duel, or see his death. Just the aftermath, the pure body in a coffin, with the real focus on Cecile\'s news that she is carrying Valmont's baby (the legend lives on . . . )
There are some very sexy scenes in Valmont. But the relationship between Merteuil and Valmont never seems to have a history, or depth - they are more like colleagues than former lovers, and there is little ambiguity between them. I remember long rehearsal discussions when I directed the play about whether Valmont actually loved Tourvel or Meurteil - or neither. That never seemed an issue here. The great moment when he tipped her out of her bath just seemed like the act of an aggrieved little brother. Funnily enough, I didn't think the scenes with Madame Meg were particularly sexy, though they were very sweet.
But I adore Colin Firth and his lambent looks, his delicious smiles, his delicacy, his delight in the game.
And I like this film on its own terms. Enjoyed the comedy of Cecile and Danceny enormously - especially that very funny scene when they are left alone together in a boudoir, and they rush to exchange letters, and he sings.
I recently rediscovered an old copy of Plays & Players that has a review of Les Liasisons Dangereuses - the first stage production, starring Alan Rickman. He is described in similar terms to the way we may see John Malkovitch in the role - or at least, the way I did describe Malkovitch in one of my other Valmont posts:
"Alan Rickman plays a haughty, wry monster who undermines our contempt by a sharp wit and his very human response to the irritations involved in his task. His posture cleverly alternates between that of the young rake and that of a reptile insinuating itself toward its prey in a hypnotic fashion. The performance is mesmeric. "
Apart from the fact that the Dangerous Liaisons film role so clearly should have gone to Rickman, not to Malkovitch (who, to be fair, is very good in that style), we can see the way that the character of Valmont is placed in this version of the story. Clearly, Milos Forman was not at all interested in pursuing this line when he made his film. I do wonder what he thought the heart of the movie actually was. He says, in the Forman documentary, that he sees it essentially as a story about Cecile and Danceny, and what they learn from the older characters of deceit and playing the game. But the fangs and sting and bite of the story have been removed.
By Dafuut
