A Man and a Woman, dir. Claude LeLouch, with Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant.
In 1966 I was out of the country and missed the chance to see this beautiful film when it first was shown in theaters, and by the time I came back, the psychedelic revolution had taken place, and few people I knew were interested in it. It, and everything outside the psychedelic revolution, seemed to have disappeared entirely, condemned as mere old-hattery (old hats had ironically come back into fashion, temporarily) and vieux jeu.
And since there was no such thing, back then, as VCRs or DVDs, only a few rerun and artfilm houses showed films that were no longer first-run, so even if you had thought of this film and sought it out you would not easily have found it playing, except, perhaps, now and then in a few of the very largest cities.
Now, coming up on 45 years after its initial release, I finally watched it, for the first time, on DVD. I was astounded at the beauty and the complex simplicity — no other way to characterize it — of the film. It, like many of the French New Wave films, has aged well and still seems fresh — Anouk Aimee’s stunningly simple-seeming precision haircut has even come around into fashion again, not because of the film, but in the ordinary cyclings of fashions — while the 1960s and psychedelia nowadays seem vieux jeu, mere old-hattery.
This award-winning film is shot beautifully — one of the most photographically beautiful of all films — some parts in black and white, even sepia, some in color. In an interview on the disc, LeLouch tells us that he could not afford color film at first; during the shoot he found a sponsor who wanted color for television, so he shot parts of the film in color. And of course, you’ll recognize its theme music.
Whether you’ve seen this film before or not, see it now, as soon as you can. It is moving, poignant, triumphant. It is emotionally satisfying in a way that few films over the years have been. Even the ‘extras’ on the disc are well worth watching; they include a making-of film shot during principal photography, and an interview with Claude LeLouch decades later.
