SYNOPSICS
Les Parents Terribles (1948) is a French movie. Jean Cocteau has directed this movie. Jean Marais,Josette Day,Yvonne de Bray,Marcel André are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1948. Les Parents Terribles (1948) is considered one of the best Drama movie in India and around the world.
When Michel, who's 22, tells his parents he is in love, his mother Yvonne is distraught, believing she will lose his love (which is the center of her life), and his father Georges is distressed because it is Georges' mistress, Madeleine, who his son loves. Yvonne and Georges financially and emotionally depend on Michel's maiden aunt, Léo, who was once engaged to Georges but gave him up to her sister. Léo resolves to help them separate Michel and Madeleine, choreographs an elaborate meeting at Madeleine's flat where Georges concocts a lie that Madeleine feels she must embrace, and the lovers part. Aunt Léo then has a change of heart and tries to put everything right.
Same Actors
Les Parents Terribles (1948) Reviews
Mother,you had me and I always had you but...
The parents have rarely been more selfish and nastier than in this Cocteau play.Only Tennessee Williams's Mrs Venable in "suddenly last summer" can compete with Yvonne.Over-possessive to the power of 100,under her bourgeois mask,she is absolutely terrifying.And what about the father?He has an affair with Madeleine,who -coincidence- is in love with his son Michel.And when there's somebody who must sacrifice himself..it won't be him. The play was ideal for cinema because the atmosphere is stifling,a constant huis clos where the characters are often filmed in close-ups:the parents 'faces exudes meanness,fear of getting old and ugly.Their apartment is deservedly called "la roulotte"(the trailer)as it seems as tiny as their occupants' heart.The only generous person is aunt Leo (Gabrielle Dorziat,dazzling as ever) who tries to save the young couple,because she knows what an unfulfilled life means;when she was young,she used to love her brother-in-law,Yvonne's now husband and she sacrified herself for her ungrateful sister. Michel (Jean Marais ,a bit too old for the part but his gusto and his dynamism easily makes up for it) and Madeleine (Josette Day,who had already teamed up with Marais in classic "la belle et la bête") are unfortunate victims of the boy's old folks . It 's untrue to say,as a precedent user mentions,that the nouvelle vague was rebelling against Jean Cocteau.He was never a target for them as was for instance,Jean Delannoy(who teamed up with Cocteau several times :"l'éternel retour"(1943) and "la princesse de Clèves" (1961).) Cocteau is a monstre sacré.His works will outlive most of Godard's farces.I do hope they will.
A fun tragi-comic farce from one of the cinema's best poets.
Jean Cocteau was one of the few artists capable of bridging the gap between reality and the wondrous magic of existence. His "La Belle et la Bete" (1946), and even more so "Orphee" (1949), were masterful and inventive suspensions of reality for the sake of something infinitely more real.. "Les Parents Terribles" was not constructed in the same vein and is a rather simple story of a young man and his terrible parents. The endearing but doofus-like young man is played by the well-sculpted Jean Marais. Somehow, at 35, he looks younger in this film than he did in the 1943 "L' Éternel retour," which was also based on a Cocteau screenplay. The plot revolves around the young man's naive love for a girl who's been having an affair with his dad. Yvonne de Bray (somehow reminding me of Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard") gives an excellent incestual performance as Marais's clingy mother. The story's melodrama chugs along smoothly and only falters for me during one of the last scenes, where it spills too far over the top. Ultimately, the movie is a very enjoyable farce, even if nowhere near Cocteau's true wizardry.
Stifling, overwhelming.
Claustrophobic melodrama in which the son wishes to marry the father's mistress and everyone tiptoes around trying not to spill the beans. Very well acted but stifling in its lack of exteriors and guaranteed to drive you into the arms of the nearest bartender.
One of the talkiest movies ever made
The (five) characters in "Les Parents Terribles" never stop talking for a minute. Sure, some of the talk is interesting, and all of it is very well acted, but it's quite exhausting. You get no respite from the talk, talk, talk. A few cinematic touches by Jean Cocteau cannot camouflage the fact that you are basically watching filmed theater; the film is based on Cocteau's own play and takes place entirely in four or five rooms, with no external shots whatsoever. There are some strong moments. **1/2 out of 4.
Non Les Enfants Terribles.
Recently buying Les Enfants Terribles,I started reading up online about the project from auteur icons Jean-Pierre Melville and Jean Cocteau. Making plans for films to view for an ICM poll on the best movies of 1948,I was surprised to learn from a DVD seller that the name of Melville's work was a reference to a '48 Cocteau,which led to me meeting the terrible parents. View on the film: Starkly standing out from his first three films, writer/director Jean Cocteau and cinematographer Michel Kelber trim the distinctive Surreal/ Fantasy stylisation for cramped, stage-bound locations. Following each person along as if they were cross to a different part of the stage, Cocteau allows his casts to fully explore their relationships in extended takes,with the addition of icy close-ups closing in on the vile from the parents. Doing a second adaptation of his own plays in 1948, Cocteau superbly uses the isolated apartment to pull open the hateful views of Georges and Yvonne,who spit pure nihilism at the wide-eyed innocence of their son Michel. Reuniting from their magical Beauty and the Beast, Jean Marais and Josette Day proved they have not lost a drop of chemistry as Michel and Madeleine,via Marais threading Michel's passionate love for Madeleine between the fury of his family (played by the outstanding Yvonne de Bray/ Marcel André and Gabrielle Dorziat) and Day having Madeleine jump with giddy unease over meeting Les parents terribles.