37°2 le matin

Plot synopsis:
Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) is a 34-year-old aspiring writer making a living as a handyman for a community of beach houses in the seaside resort at Gruissan on France's mediterranean coast. He meets 19-year-old Betty (Béatrice Dalle), a volatile and impulsive young woman, and the two begin a passionate affair, living in his borrowed shack on the beach. After a row with him where she tears apart and smashes up the house, she finds the manuscript of his first novel, reads it in one long sitting and decides he is a genius. However, after another argument with his boss, she empties the shack and burns it down. The two decamp to the outskirts of Paris, where her friend Lisa (Consuelo de Haviland) has a small hotel. Betty laboriously types out Zorg's novel and submits it to various publishers. They meet Lisa's new boyfriend Eddy (Gérard Darmon), and the four have many fun times, often fueled by copious amounts of alcohol. They find work in Eddy's pizzeria but a fight erupts in which Betty stabs a customer with a fork. Zorg tries to slap her back to her senses.
Though Zorg hides the rejection letters Betty finds one and, going to the publisher's house, slashes his face. Zorg induces him to drop charges by threatening him with violence, saying she is the only good thing in his life and she is all he has. Eddy's mother dies and the friends go to the funeral in Marvejols. There, Eddy asks Zorg and Betty if they will live in the dead woman's house and look after her piano shop. Zorg enjoys the quiet provincial life and makes friends with the grocer Bob (Jacques Mathou), his sex-starved wife Annie (Clémentine Célarié) and various offbeat characters, but Betty's violent mood swings are a concern. One day, after an irritable comment from Zorg, she punches out a window with her bare hand and goes on a screaming flight through the town. Happiness seems on the horizon when a home test suggests Betty is pregnant, but a lab test is negative and she sinks into depression and tells him she is hearing voices talking to her in her head. Zorg, masquerading as a woman, robs an armored cash collection van delivery headquarters, holding the guards at gunpoint and tying them up. He attempts to use the money to buy Betty's happiness, but she fails to respond and enacts yet another prosecutable offense by luring a small boy away from his mother and taking him to a toy store. Zorg finds her and they both flee from the authorities as they rush to rescue the boy.
One day Zorg comes home to find blood all over the place and Betty gone. Bob tells him she has gouged out an eye and is in the hospital. Rushing there, Zorg finds her under heavy sedation and is told to come back the next day. Going home, he receives a phone call from a publisher accepting his manuscript. On his next visit to the hospital, he finds Betty restrained and catatonic. He becomes agitated and a doctor tells him she will need prolonged treatment and may never recover her sanity. Zorg reacts by blaming her illness on the medication being administered and physically attacks the doctor. He is forcefully ejected from the hospital after a violent struggle with three orderlies. Returning in disguise, he whispers his farewells and smothers Betty with a pillow. Going home, he sits down to start his next book.

Tags: insanity, cult

Review:
The same intensity that drives her sexuality and her love for Zorg is, ultimately, her downfall.Over the course of the movie, which is quite long (I saw the 178 minute director's cut), Zorg goes to increasingly frantic lengths both to please Betty and to protect her from herself.
As well as providing a narrative that may be read and interpreted on several levels, _Betty Blue_ is an exceptionally beautiful film in terms of cinematography and mise en scene.
Landscapes, city scenes, interiors are all set up and filmed beautifully.A tale of love, sex and obsession not to be missed..
A happy-go-lucky odd job man (Jean-Hugues Anglade as Zorg) falls in to a relationship with a slightly unhinged -- but very sexy/sexual -- French teenager named Betty (Béatrice Dalle in her debut role.) There are very few films that are totally different from anything you have seen before.
While sexually explicit -- it is far from objectionable because the two parties are in love and passionate about one another.Betty Blue/37°2 le matin doesn't really fall in to any one category -- going from farce to tragedy, stopping off at oddball.
Also what an amazing debut by the Dalle, although her later life has shown that she has plenty of the Betty Blue in her for real.(Was this script written with her in mind?
Even Jean-Hugues Anglade strolls around with it all on show -- thankfully he looks like he has kept up his gym membership.The scene in which Betty throws the whole of the fixtures and fittings of the beach apartment out of the window was stolen by a famous car advert (in the UK) and it really is a stretch of the imagination in that Zorg doesn't respond to it.
He just paints on and lets her get on with it -- like he doesn't care.(I think we all know how we would react in a similar situation and it wouldn't be like Zorg!)This has great cinematography with every scene framed to perfection.
A woman making love to a man she is in passionately in love with is tasteless -- a homicidal woman slicing the arms of a whole room of gangsters is OK?Roger -- I respect you a great deal, but you are as wrong as Leslie Halliwell (author of the world's most famous film guide book) when he gave Close Encounters no stars at all.You should come over here (Europe) a bit more.
True it has one or two sex scenes too many -- as I hinted before -- but it is sex that means something and is about something.Betty Blue is one of my top 200 films of all time and while it has its limits and its faults (it does sag a little in middle) it remains a powerful piece of work about living with crazy people and how easily good times can slip in to bad.
The movie focus into the life of a couple giving a huge brand of sense to the special way to love and to feel life trough Betty, a young borderline.
The borderline disorder provide to the movies the best female personalities, but in real life, this rebel, intelligent, unpredictable people finish on a tragic end.
This version concentrated more on Jean-Hugues' character Zorg and his love and devotion to the mentally disintegrating Betty.
The story takes its time, allowing us to understand Betty's illness and appreciate Zorg's erratic behaviour.
This movie sums up, for me, France; the geography (from the beaches of the Riviera to the streets of Paris)and the people (between Betty's neurotic femininity and Zorg's sullen ennui).
I came to the IMDb message board for Betty Blue because I wanted to see if anyone else thought the movie was in Zorg's mind.At the very end of the movie, Zorg hears while he is writing alone in his kitchen "are you writing?" and he says "no, I am thinking".
Zorg also looks very relaxed and fulfilled as though he had just finished his novel.My friend says he thinks the whole movie is in Zorg's mind, and the boiling pot at the beginning and the end brings the story together for this point.
Beautifully shot with amazing colours, quirky characterization, excellent acting and imaginative direction this movie is a delight for all of its 185 minutes (the director's cut is the one to go for).
We can, like Zorg at the end of this movie, only live in hope..
Jean-Huhues Anglades' natural performance as Zorg in this easy going - take life as it comes story line makes you want to see more of him.
If you want to learn about the French and their ways, watching this film is a very intense start..
Betty Blue/37.2 is a very good example of directing mood without being stupid -- scenes do make sense, characters do get revealed.
So it's not like one of those arty "ambience" films your friends drag you off to every so often.First time viewers, don't be put off by the first scene -- I think they just did it to prove they could.
Jean-Jacques Beineix's "Betty Blue" is about such a woman, only her cat gene is starting to ruin her life and the lives of those around her.
It''s horrible to watch the gorgeous, luscious-lipped Beatrice Dalle come apart at the seams and plunge into madness, but it's the stuff of a great movie, and it's why the film is so engaging.As with all gorgeous women, there's a guy out there who's sick and tired of her sh*t.
Anglade loves Betty so much that he's willing to put up with her mood swings, but, ultimately, he loses her just before she totally loses her own mind.The film is beautiful.
Once Betty's madness begins to impact on the relationship, we experience every tragic step in her decline.Director Beineix never made a better film than "Betty Blue".
I saw Betty Blue many years and many European movies later and thought it was disjointed, seemingly jumping around; I never got really got their 'love' - his love especially.
they made a massive film together full of a complex love and it's wonderful to watch the way the director intended..
Nothing like it has been made since, and I doubt any film trying to take away the light from this masterpiece could do so...Psychotic / Angry / Loving All wrapped up very well...As the subject says - this title is now available on DVD!----------------------------------------------------------------.
I've never forgotten this movie, perhaps the best french film I've ever seen.
There are many very good reviews here, but I just wanted to say that if you watch this excellent film, please make sure you watch the director's cut.
I saw the directors cut last night (having never seen the original, mind you) and i was blown away by the emotions this thing was throwing in my direction.
Is "Betty Blue" as great a movie as most people seem to believe?
All those involved should have been smothered with a pillow; Betty Blue herself for her puerile psychotic petulance; Zorg for his definitive depiction of a vapid loser and of course the director who should also have been riddled with a full-clip for having the audacity to perpetuate this gallic monstrosity without a trace of irony.For those of a carnal disposition, there are a couple of decent sex scenes but you can see those anywhere you sad person.It is incumbent on a film-maker to make his characters and the story interesting for the poor viewer.
Totally authentic portrayal of freedom, honest nudity all along, the actors are enjoying the whole thing to an extent rarely seen on movies, the music is perfect, the story great, both the girl and the guy incredibly sexy, brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are two disappointing a**holes compared to them.
I was lucky enough to see the director's cut at over three hours.Its an engaging thing, a rather delicate and rich journey within the thing, a well crafted love story.
Two actors and a director who understand.One thing I particularly liked was what I call the folding.The movie is based on an incompetent book and the story features an incompetent writer who turns that book into the lovely thing we see.
A French handyman, who aspires to be a writer, meets a wild young thing and they wander aimlessly through life until the movie ends, which, at least in the director's cut that I saw, is an agonizingly long time.
One day, Betty walks into his life, a young woman who is as beautiful as she is wild and unpredictable.Although the film is widely praised, it was "hated" by Roger Ebert, who sees it as nothing more than a film about the lead actress being naked a good deal of the time.
But in our times, I think, the people who would watch or even make such a long movie are very few.
This classic 1980s French film opens a week after handyman Zorg meets the beautiful nineteen year old Betty.
The love between Zorg and Betty seems very real making it all the more tragic as it becomes obvious that rather than just being a bit wild she is gradually losing her sanity.
The characters are fun to watch; not just Zorg and Betty but also the people they befriend during the film.
The version of the film I watched was the three hour long director's cut; I didn't feel I was watching such a long film though as I was enjoying the story so much.These comments are based on watching the film in French with English subtitles..
You know, hormones are at it's peak when you are starting to explore sex.Years later, watching the director's cut I was amazed on how solid and sexual the script is.The sex scenes shouldn't be important and are only perceptible because of the passion and caring about each other between the couple.I don't think I have seen a movie with a plot like this.
I think this is my favourite movie!Unique atmosphere, created by story, actors, colours and music - altogether.I am rarely able to disappear into a movie, as I did with this one.The movie can be enjoyed on different levels: as a fascinating STORY or just as movie ART, or both.What we are shown, is the beauty of love, how it can shelter two persons from the demanding world around them.
I could go on about the film for hours but I don't want to take away any of the effect it will undoubtedly have on you.By the way, it's a tragic love story (a scewed up Romeo & Juliet) which charts the descent of Betty into madness.The only film to ever make me cry.
Still, after all these years and 100s of films, 'Betty Blue' remains one of my favourites.I think the reason is that this is a film for romantics and dreamers and the 'left field' among us, who secretly crave 'dropping out' for a life that is an arty, hedonistic and unlikely mix of naval gazing and adventure.
In this film we can see her intense love for Zorg and her rapid descent into madness by terrible designs of nature.
Betty Blue - best film of all time!.
Zorg meets the love of his life, whilst in a menial job, although he has written what Betty believes is the 'novel of the 80s'.
Every knock-back from the publishers contributes to the down-turn in Betty's mood, leading to a heart-rending final half-hour (or hour, if you were to watch the 'director's cut').
Dalle is excellent as the alluring Betty, a manic depressive whose volatile relationship with her long-suffering boyfriend Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) is put to the ultimate test when she discovers a long-forgotten manuscript penned by him many years ago and convinces him to do whatever it takes to get it published.
When BETTY BLUE was originally released in the U.S., it was severely cut down to 120 minutes although this did not hinder it from getting nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign-Language Film!
A Quite extensive runtime lengthens the meaning of their lovely madness and shure Contempment of nubile ideas being Plausible.I Believe Zorg With Betty Lived the way he wanted as well as needed.
Zorg, a shy, happy-go-lucky handyman and aspiring writer (Jean-Hughes Anglade) falls in love with Betty, a beautiful, free-spirited young woman (Beatrice Dalle).
As the story progresses, Zorg falls deeper in love with Betty and dismisses her increasingly bizarre behavior as quirky.
The cinematography is superb, with startling lighting and colours, and the music fits perfectly into the background of the film (unlike the overblown orchestrations so popular in Hollywood).This is a love story, but unlike any that could come out of Hollywood.
I do not know if there are dubbed versions of this film; I simply recommend you see it in its original French, to capture the force of the acting..
The sequence near the start where Zorg is driving his truck home with the setting sun behind him, the famous shot of the beach house in the evening (I even happened one day to find myself on the same beach, complete with houses on stilts) and the piano duet.The characters don't need much in the way of comment, Zorg the would-be writer who spends most of the first part of the movie just trying to come to terms with Betty, realising her to be mentally ill (of course, this must be difficult when the person in question is quite as hot as Betty, I am sure you have other things on your mind).The longer version of the film, despite reports to the contrary, actually makes a more coherent movie, angled as it is from Zorg's point of view as he tries to keep his own world from falling apart while all the while doing everything he can to stop Bettys' own from collapsing.
And on a final note, if you liked this film, dig out the other book, Maudits Manèges, that continues the Zorg story beyond the end of Bettys' life.
Despite those good points, I didn't like the character of Betty (Beatrice Dalle.) I've just watched the nearly 3-hour Director's Cut on DVD.
I've never seen another movie showing desperate passion/love (which is it, anyway??) like this.
Beautiful photography, quirky characters (as you would expect in a French movie) and a shocker of an ending.
I watched the directors cut version of this movie.
But that movie was well acted, directed and filmed, besides the fact that there are several nudes in the movie from both Zorg an Betty.
I remember having seen Jean-Hughes (Zorg) in movies like La Femme Nikita, Subway (both from director Luc Besson) and Maximum Risk.
And I did love watching Betty as she was not "flawless" but as natural and beautiful as one could be with the nudity involved in the film.
Writer-director Jean-Jacques Beineix's film follows the sad life of Betty and her lover Zorg.
And the irony is, once Betty enters, he becomes engaged in life and love due to her erratic, restless/damaged personality,which sees them travel across France.I thought the film was also about escape & frustration.
Perhaps again, it is to do with how she views the world so differently from others, the conventional, and reflected in the blue floor she gets Zorg to paint in their apartment.A film about a doomed love affair, doomed by the intrusion of outside forces and Betty's instability.
Perhaps their story is the one he comes to write at the end of the film in his new novel..
Despite the English title it's about the male perspective, Zorg's life revolves around this woman for the time they are together, but it's really Béatrice Dalle as Betty who owns the film, even though it kind of stays on the character's surface she comes across as a fascinating, fully realized character.
The last act principally seemed like a fine conclusion but felt too rushed with the very ending feeling especially anticlimactic and I guess I just didn't want the film to end which is always the most positive possible point of criticism but probably also very much implies that I should watch the one-hour longer "Version Intégrale".And so I did the very next day!
This time around Zorg killing Betty seemed like an incredibly selfish act which I figure he did so he would be able to move on with his life.
Mild SPOILER insofar as the nature of the ending is mentionedHaving read several of the user comments and external reviews of "Betty Blue" it would appear this is one of those films you either love or loathe.
My reason for not dismissing the film out of hand is that I find it works as a genuinely tender love story.
I love originality in films,.
Zorg it seems is genuinely in love with Betty and like so many young couples dream about the future when they will have a place of their own and live happily ever after..The photography in this film is magnificent.
Not easy to forget.Early in the story Betty discovers that in his spare time Zorg is writing an epic.
Anyway, just yesterday I -finally- saw it so the 185 minutes cut of Betty Blue is a near perfect film, certainly not for everyone and I believe you know why.
Anyway, we have 3 sorts of chapters in the film that we can recognize every time the protagonists, Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) and Betty (Béatrice Dalle), change their place.
I don't think that Zorg would ever imagine that his personal writings, which he used to make just to feel that he was alive, could make him really important for Betty.
As for Betty those things were the only ones in her mind, she was the only one in Zorg's mind, she was his world and she gave sense to his life This film was based on the 1985 novel 37°2 le matin by Philippe Djian and I know that he really doesn't liked this film.