Le plaisir

Plot synopsis:
=== Le Masque ===
A masked young dandy goes to an ornate dance hall, where he finds a young woman to be his dance partner. When he faints from the exertion, a doctor is called. He discovers that the dandy's mask hides his aged appearance. The doctor takes the old man home to his patient wife. She explains that her husband Ambroise used to attract the ladies who frequented the hairdresser salon where he worked, but in the space of two years, he lost his looks. He goes out in disguise in an attempt to recapture his youth.
=== La Maison Tellier ===
Julia Tellier, the well-respected madam of a small-town whorehouse, takes her girls on an outing to her brother's village to attend the first communion of her niece. Her regular patrons are taken aback when they discover the whorehouse closed without explanation that Saturday night. One finally discovers a sign explaining the reason and is relieved. Julia's brother becomes infatuated with Rosa, one of her workers, and promises to visit next month.
=== Le Modèle ===
A painter falls in love with his model. Things are idyllic at first, but after living together for a while, they begin to quarrel constantly. Finally, he moves in with his friend. She eventually finds him, but he wants no more to do with her. He ignores her threat to jump from a window, and is so guilt-ridden when she does so immediately that he marries her.

Tags: flashback

Review:
One man's pleasure is another's poison - personally the world depicted in such a wistful and playful way by Max Ophuls holds no attraction for me.
But as a film this is supreme stuff, Art of a kind never witnessed outside of Ophuls and with a cinematic regard and feeling for 19th century France and the French that remains unsurpassed.Three of Maupassant's short stories are presented - he was sitting by me at the time - for me the most poignant being the first, Le Masque.
With the jolly yokel Jean Gabin at the reins of the cartload of gaudy jolly whores including Danielle Darrieux dashing through the sunny French countryside full of life and happy at the prospect of a night off and more perfect choreography it's a joy to behold.The 3rd piece Le Modele has Simone Simon and Daniel Gelin reviewing their previous performances in La Ronde but with the ending somewhat different!
Overall, a totally inconsequential ravishingly beautiful film to cherish, an ideal bookend for La Ronde - pleasure is hardly the word!.
One of Max Ophuls' finest achievements,one of the best Guy de Maupassant adaptations for the screen.This is a movie made up of three sketches;it is rather a long story (la maison Tellier) framed by one prologue (le masque) an an epilogue (le modèle).Guy de Maupassant is ,by far,the best writer France as ever known,as far short stories are concerned-He wrote about 200 of them,and even influenced Dudley Nichols for the screen play of "stagecoach"(actually ,Claire Trevor was Boule de Suif)Le plaisir (the pleasure) is something fleeting,but the hero of the prologue(le masque) can't stand life is passing him by.His wife is a victim,women are often sacrified in  Maupassant's work.At best they are ways for men to social advancement(Bel Ami,see "the private affairs of Bel-Ami", filmed by Albert Lewin ,1947,watchable,but which has given a totally false rendering of the conclusion),at worst ,once their lover or husband has used them ,they are often deserted (see "une vie" , directed by Alexandre Astruc,1958,which has a fine Claude Renoir cinematography."La maison Tellier" is the main body of the work:the subject is scandalous:madam and her whores close the brothel and head for the country.There,they are to attend madam's niece's communion.Max Ophuls has not always been faithfull to Maupassant:if you read the short story,you will realize how much these women are ugly,vulgar and fat;here ,we've got gorgeous Danielle Darrieux,plus Ginette Leclerc and Madeleine Renaud.Ophuls is an esthete and he could not subscribe to Maupassant's depictions.The two men come together when it comes to describe the reactions of the inhabitants of the village:the prostitutes pass  for grandes dames,well educated,chic,and when they enter the church,it seems as if they enhance the religious fervor !!Maupassant,who was anticlerical to a fault,lets his irony flow;but there's compassion in Max Ophuls'pictures and I'm not sure the tears his heroines shed are that much laughable:regaining a child's soul -particularly on this communion day- is many a human being's secret longing.But cynism get the upper hand quickly and madam's brother,a bawdy Jean Gabin (the father of the little girl making her communion),is much more interested in  his sister's "residents" than spiritual elevation.This second part climaxes the movie,with its steam-powered train,its banquet,its brothel of which the shutter are closed -we're only allowed to have a glimpse behind them-The movie opens and closes the same way:woman is born to be deserted when she's not a whore,like in the second sketch.Josephine (Simone Simon) will find her lover back but the price she will have to pay is terrifying.Why "le plaisir" ?Pleasure is few and far between in this world.Pleasure walks hand in hand with suffering.Guy de Maupassant himself knew fleeting pleasures he describes in part 2,but if you read his biography,you 'll meet a tormented soul,an extremely pessimistic mind,and a  faux bon vivant who lived a dissipated life which ended in madness.This is one of the most absorbing,ambitious,complex and artistically successful masterwork of the French fifties..
Far more unpredictable and radical than most portmanteau films, the highlight is the second story, which at first seems to be about a group of men who get together one night when the local brothel is closed, then follows the whores' trip to the country (with a delightful interlude on the train as they share the compartment with an old peasant couple and a randy salesman); then returns to the brothel - Ophuls' highly liberal camera ultimately pans deliriously around the windows from the outside as the place fills with dance, spilling celebration and delight.
The many surprises of that story perfectly evoke the enormous span of human emotional experience; it  touches on so many dreams of escape whereas the other two episodes, both much shorter and darker, remind us of the occasional price of such dreams..
The tale is Maupassant's "La maison Tellier", the film-maker is Max Ophuls, the film is "Le Plaisir".
In the two short introducing and final stories we actually find the bitter, acid, misanthropical sarcasm typical of Maupassant's style, though softened by Ophuls' sympathy for human unhappiness.
A bunch of prostitutes from "La maison Tellier", the brothel of a French province town, takes a day off to go to a First Communion celebration in the countryside.
Needless to say, as soon as the women are back, peace, order, friendship are restored in the town.The above comments can give a partial idea of the director's extraordinary treatment of the story.
But it's important to remark that just the visual beauties and the camera work by the genius Ophuls are largely enough to place "Le plaisir" among the best works in the history of cinema.
In 1952 the portmanteau film was hardly new; in England we had seen both Quartet and Trio (a joke in the early fifties had two hippies walking down Broadway and passing in turn cinemas where these titles were playing: One says 'Man, we better dig this crazy combo, it's fading fast') followed by Encore, all featuring short stories by Somerset Maugham but it's fair to say that all three lacked the visual style and sheer sumptuousness that Ophuls brings to DeMaupassant.
Framed by The Mask and The Model the piece de resistance is The House of Madame Tellier, a four-reel examination of the role of the bordel in the provincial town - when they close for a day the whole sub-social life of the town is disturbed.
Even 'Le Plaisir', supposedly a minor film in his canon would be a staggering masterpiece in anyone else's.A triptych of Guy de Maupassant stories, it is also about a trio of Gods.
The first two are shown to be limited: Maupassant, author, creator, narrator, speaks to us from the darkness, disembodied, all pervasive ('I could be sitting next to you'), responsible for everything we see - in the last story he crashes down to earth, and is responsible for a suicide attempt; and Ophuls' camera, seemingly weightless, able to navigate space with a freedom unavailable to humans - even it is barred from Madame Tellier's Establishment, forced to peek in from outside.
A trilogy of Guy de Maupassant stories, two short simple ones framing a long and impossibly rich one, and I don't know why everyone complains about the framing ones - everything is given exactly the weight that their narrative will support.
An old man dressing up like a young dandy to relive the gavotting excesses of his youth, only to end in physical collapse, starts things off; and to close we have a beautiful young couple who go from romantic bliss to petty vindictiveness to resigned acceptance via an attempted suicide.
This gives us a rather complex understanding of the meaning of 'pleasure', and the worst you can say is that one and three don't utterly embody pleasure the way number two does (although the swirling camera work in the dance scene comes damn close).
This trilogy of tales adapted from De Maupassant is such a vivid contrast to today's mainstream cinema of frenetic editing, overblown adventure and concurrent explosions; instead, it is an evocation of times gone by, three mood pieces enriched by incredibly complex but telling cinematography.
A personal favorite is the middle story, The Teller House, relating how some Ladies of The Night close their beloved city brothel for a night in order to attend a niece's Catholic confirmation in a small town; Ophuls captures the contrast between the women dressed in their lavish best with the simplicity not only of the child but all the village in their working class blacks, as they attend the service in a local church and surprise themselves and the town folk with an emotional catharsis; the episode is incredibly rich in atmospherics, capturing everything from the baroque traceries of the tiny church to the rickety wooden train interiors; the tracking shots of the brothel exterior, creating a sense of voyeuristic benevolence are simply incredible!
The remaining two stories offer pleasures of their own in this lovely film with a sadly ironic view of happiness.
The purity and clarity of emotion is brought forth through the movement and transition of the wonderful Guy De Maupassant stories, not through strict character development.I give this film a 10, but I somehow feel that I will find other Ophuls films, such as "La Ronde" or "Madame De", to be its equal.
This movie (a triptych) illustrates perfectly the universe and the themes of the great French writer Guy de Maupassant.
The film is based on three of his stories: The Mask, The House Tellier and The Model.
Guy de Maupassant is a master in analyzing the love (sex) life of the French bourgeoisie.
Other themes in these stories are innocence and its loss and (the fight against) old age.The film explains clearly that the triggers which unmask the true nature and the real motives of the protagonists here are shocks, unexpected confrontations and reactions: the shock when the males find their brothels 'closed', the shock when the villagers are confronted with 'beautiful' people from the city, the shock of being remembered of one's innocent life as a young girl, the shock inflicted by an unexpected reaction of a mistress, or the shock when a real mask is taken off one's face.
Also, the title of the film doesn't cover the essence of its content.One should read the three stories of Guy de Maupassant after having seen the film.This film with its perfect casting and a Jean Gabin in great form is a must for all lovers of true French cinema, even if it is shot here by a German..
Max Ophuls' indulgence in mobile camera work is given its utmost fulfillment and flourish in his adaptation of three stories by popular 19th-century French writer Guy de Maupassant, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story.
The wife in the first story, embittered, deserted at home every night while her aging husband frolics in the nearby palais de danse in his escapist mask of youth, is completely involved in his compulsion, even content with him in her serfdom.
The women of the middle episode are prostitutes in the town brothel, shown as a crucial community establishment, exercising a kind of control over men and, in the instance of Madame Rosa, beginning to spy promise free of the brothel.
In the third story, the woman, acting out against the painter and lover who has retained her like a vendible, defies in the sole manner available to her.Admirable in their cleverness, rigor and craftsmanship as the surrounding segments are, it is the middle episode whose pleasure, assured by the movie's title, is most affectingly troubled by inferences, by a feeling of defeat surrounded by merriment, by underflows of dissolution.
The central tale reverberates, in model, the triangular form of the film.A single transient twinkle of shared bedroom eyes is at the crux of Ophuls' arrangement of Maupassant's narrative trifecta.
One might say that this lavish tragifarce is structured around it: The sole benign love match in the entire film, and indeed hopeless to attain, the categorical Ophuls love story, nipped in the bud by both an elderly wife and business priorities.
For me viewing 'Le Plaisir' in the DVD format happened by chance, as I knew nothing about Max Ophuls and the film until then.
If not done right this can be a very boring exercise, but not with Le Plaisir.Story 1 about an old man putting on a mask to look young is probably the weakest story of the three.
Story 2 about several women of pleasure taking time off in the country side is my favourite.
Max Ophuls, whom I knew nothing about, is on my watch list.A very enjoyable film for a quiet evening..
I can't believe I could miss this in those other two, more famous films, but Le Plaisir reveals Ophuls to be one of the great masters of cinematic invention.
There are three stories in the film, all by Guy de Maupassant.
The central story comprises probably two thirds or more of the film's running time.
The first story is a short one about an old man who wears a mask to disguise his age.
The doctor takes him home and his wife tells him the old man's story.
The final story is about the tumultuous love affair between an artist and his model (Simone Simon, the most beautiful woman to have ever lived, I think).
This story is pure energy, with the couple falling in love in the course of a single take and off camera (!).
This film is made up of three stories by Guy du Maupassant--all of which have something, apparently, to do with pleasure (hence the title).
Then opens the second episode with Mme Tellier, widow owner of a brothel, Maison Tellier (hence the title), where she and her girls can pretend to be aristocratic in a seemingly mundane environment, but that essentially remains a mere house of pleasure.
In that pleasant, calm and silent place, Mme Tellier and the girls remember their past and their lost innocence, before returning to daily life in the city, where they escaped from the restrictions and nostalgic melancholy through the satisfaction of their pleasure needs.
To the aggressive and uncaring response of man, she then throws himself out of the window, remaining paraplegic but eventually obtaining his love, aware of his misteake and willing to remedy it.Comment:The pleasure is presented here through the stories intertwined by this thread, as a difficult achievement, something that, to be obtained, needs the loss of something else: M.
Mme Tellier, on the other hand, renounce the past and her lost innocence, obtaining pleasure with sexual fulfillment and the wrong dignified status she creates (similarly Mme Rosa, with the difference that she satisfies herself by making men falling in love, in some way marking and illudating them, as happens with the brother of Mme Tellier).
These are three stories with a happy ending that conceal a profound drama, also because the narrator, breaking the 4th wall and communicating with the viewer literally, introduces the various episodes linking pleasure to love, purity and death (moral).
The film anticipates fellinian "La Dolce Vita" without having the intention to exhibit a profound critique, but to focus on the characters and what they feel, also fact that will influence extremely, especially the two episodes La Masque and Maison Tellier, the kubrickian masterpiece "Eyes Wide Shut" in the themes, in the means, in the symbols used to expose them (for example the mask) and also in the direction, characterized by magnificent long shots revolving around the actors (masterfully expressed in both films).
When I saw that Le plaisir was Maupassant my heart leaped and, after viewing it, I can now report that the film is as exquisite as the stories themselves (minus the soft Sunday afternoons, of course).The film contains three stories each of which depict an aspect of pleasure: the pleasure of youth, the pleasure of innocence and the pleasure of fate.The second tale, La maison Tellier ('Madame Tellier's Establishment' in my translated collection of Maupassant stories) is the centerpiece of the film.
It describes a trip to a small country village by a madame and her platoon of lovable ladies in order to attend the first communion of her nephew where pleasure meets innocence.
The scene in the church where Rosa, overcome with memories of her lost innocence, starts to weep and then everyone in the church is soon weeping, is one of the most poignant I have ever seen on film.
For those who have decided to view the four major Ophuls films, I offer the opinion that this is the best of them and would be a good place to start.Social Commentary: Never having visited France, I cannot say whether the charming French idea of innocent naughtiness has given that country a better life.
Max Ophuls' marvelous film of pleasure and, perhaps, love.
The screen is pitch black and we hear a voice..."I'm so happy to be talking in the dark as if I were beside you, and maybe I am." The speaker is Guy de Maupassant (voiced by Jean Marais), and Le Plaisir is three of his stories filmed by the great director Max Ophuls.
When the doctor loosens the man's clothes, he finds...well, let's say that when the man is delivered home to his wife by the doctor, she tells him a story of the battle between pleasure and love.
Then Madame decides to close her establishment for a night so that she and her girls can travel into the countryside to attend her niece's first communion.
In the small village they spend the night with Madame's brother and meet the young girl.
We witness a touching story, as de Maupassant tells us, when pleasure and purity come together.
The love which endures as the story plays out may not be most people's idea of happiness.
La Masque and Le Modele are relatively short bookends to the major tale of La Maison Tellier.