Therese Desqueyroux (2012) BBC 2, 13 May

[Stanley Stewart]

Glad to see a French 2012 version, subtitled, of Therese Desqueyroux scheduled for a late night, well, early morning 00.25hrs screening, 14 May; set the recorder before retiring. Audrey Tautou mesmerising playing the title role in this adaptation of Francois Mauriac's novel; an attractive pastoral setting in widescreen ratio. Memory buds also at work when I recalled a monochrome version, directed by Georges Franju, Emmanuelle Riva as Therese, which I saw a couple of times during its Academy Cinema, London W1, run in 1962, probably a more potent version, although both versions have the merit of high definition performances in the title role.

[Alain Maréchal]

I am late but second this recommendation, if it still available to view. Mme. and I saw it in the cinema when first released, and a second time quickly afterwards. Tautou was mesmerising (although the critics suggested this was because she had only one expression on offer), and the photography is stunning. A slow film, and if you know the novel then there is more than a hint of a better one about a bored provincial wife.

[Nick Armstrong]

if you know the novel then there is more than a hint of a better one about a bored provincial wife.

Don't know the novel or the film/s (the broadcast the other day is safely recorded to be watched in due course), but reading the synopsis, it did occur to me to wonder if lawyers for the Flaubert Estate reached for their metaphorical sabres when Mauriac's work came out...

[Stanley Stewart]

Out of curiosity, I checked the availability of the 1962 Franju version with
the river people and instantly ordered the DVD for £11 74. The 2013 version is also available at £5 99 - a steal - or £7 99 for blu-ray!

[french frank]

Don't know the novel or the film/s (the broadcast the other day is safely recorded to be watched in due course), but reading the synopsis, it did occur to me to wonder if lawyers for the Flaubert Estate reached for their metaphorical sabres when Mauriac's work came out...

One of the set texts I did as a student and which I later taught in my first year. Thérèse is more than a 'bored' provincial wife: she's completely at odds with the stifling conformity - the 'formalisme' - of the wealthy, landowning bourgeoisie of the Landes which, in the person of her husband, she comes to despise and hate. She's a much more uncomfortable, challenging character than the romantic idealist Emma Bovary whose dreams only stretch to having a wealthy, glamorous lover. Thérèse's thoughts run to poisoning her husband, Emma poisons hereself.

As I remember …

[Stanley Stewart]

Indeed, the background of a 'stifling community' at the back of my mind throughout
was the world of Hedda Gabler!

[Nick Armstrong]

Indeed, the background of a 'stifling community' at the back of my mind throughout
was the world of Hedda Gabler!

[DracoM]

MANY thx for this. Totally missed it on my perusal of what to watch / listen. Mauriac one of my adolescent eye openers. Aha, Les Landes etc. Happy days!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A reminder that films are only available (if at all) on the i-Player for seven days rather than a month, so anyone who wishes to watch this shall have to do so before 2:15 in the early hours of next Sunday morning:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03jjchy/therese-desqueyroux?suggid=b03jjchy

[french frank]

Indeed, the background of a 'stifling community' at the back of my mind throughout
was the world of Hedda Gabler!

So Mauriac was plagiarising Ibsen rather than Flaubert?

The distinctive thing about Mauriac is the background of the Landes and how it shapes the character of his protagonists: Thérèse sees the straight trunks of the pines as imprisoning bars, like the silver rods of the rain, and this awakens the rebel in her: she wants to destroy and escape from it. In the Nœud de Vipères, Louis is the avaricious landowner, whose love of money is so tied up with his vines that he attempts on one occasion to protect them with his own body during a storm. There is also Mauriac's strong Catholicity surfacing in various forms.

Flaubert may have had the greater posthumous reputation, but Mauriac no more resembles him than Racine resembles Euripides. (But I'd rather read Mauriac than see a film)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

So Mauriac was plagiarising Ibsen rather than Flaubert?

Ibsen and Flaubert ... and Anna Karenina!

At least from this film version; I'm sure that the novel in the original language is a much deeper and more subtle investigation of the psychological lives of the characters than this rather predictable adaptation. I did not find Ms Tatou's performance at all "mesmerising" - she made me feel that the central character was a bit ... well ... dim; not at all sympathetic. (And I was rather distracted that a twelve-year-old girl in 1922 should turn into a woman in her late thirties six years later!)

The distinctive thing about Mauriac is the background of the Landes and how it shapes the character of his protagonists: Thérèse sees the straight trunks of the pines as imprisoning bars, like the silver rods of the rain, and this awakens the rebel in her: she wants to destroy and escape from it. In the Nœud de Vipères, Louis is the avaricious landowner, whose love of money is so tied up with his vines that he attempts on one occasion to protect them with his own body during a storm. There is also Mauriac's strong Catholicity surfacing in various forms.

Flaubert may have had the greater posthumous reputation, but Mauriac no more resembles him than Racine resembles Euripides. (But I'd rather read Mauriac than see a film)

You certainly have made me want to read the novel (in translation, je suis désolé) - I feel no such inclination to watch this film again.

[french frank]

Ibsen and Flaubert ... and Anna Karenina!

Only so many fictional plots, they say!

You certainly have made me want to read the novel (in translation, je suis désolé) - I feel no such inclination to watch this film again.

I won't say it comes 'highly recommended'. There's a matter of fashion and when I was a student Mauriac would have been somewhere among the novelists we had to read critically. Sartre and Camus (possibly Gide) would then have had the 'harder' themes. When I was teaching, the 'modernist' lecturers were turning to people like Christiane Rochefort, Le Clézio, Modiano (I got Mauriac because I was a medievalist, so did what I was told when it came to 20th-c. literature).

I thought of Mauriac as being a 'workmanlike' novelist, his novels well-crafted and well-planned. None of this, 'I just sit down at my computer and start writing'.