Jean-Louis Richard Movies

In what must be the longest lapse of time between a film and its sequel, 70-year-old Abel Gance continues his nearly legendary, 1927 historical drama Napoleon with this tale of Napoleon's life after his victories in Italy. The first half of Austerlitz delves into the private life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Pierre Mondy), the prodigal son of Corsica. The supreme commander of the French armed forces goes about his family life and dallies with Josephine (Martine Carol) and mistress Mlle. de Vaudey (Leslie Caron). He occasionally displays bursts of temper that presage some of the macho violence of the battle scenes in the second half of the film, after Napoleon has proclaimed himself Emperor. This sequel shows that Gance has not lost his directorial touch. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Acclaimed French director François Truffaut's third and, for many viewers, best film is an adaptation of a semi-autobiographical novel by Henri-Pierre Roché. Set between 1912 and 1933, it stars Oskar Werner as the German Jules and Henri Serre as the Frenchman Jim, kindred spirits who, while on holiday in Greece, fall in love with the smile on the face of a sculpture. Back in Paris, the smile comes to life in the person of Catherine (Jeanne Moreau); the three individuals become constant companions, determined to live their lives to the fullest despite the world war around them. When Jules declares his love for Catherine, Jim agrees to let Jules pursue her, despite his own similar feelings; Jules and Catherine marry and have a child (Sabine Haudepin), but Catherine still loves Jim as well. An influential film that has grown in stature over the decades, Jules et Jim was often viewed by the counterculture of the 1960s as a cinematic proponent of the free-love movement, but in actuality the picture is a statement against such a way of life. Despite the bond shared by Jules, Jim, and Catherine, their ménage à trois is doomed to fail; and Catherine's inability to choose between the two men leads to tragic consequences for all three. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Francois Truffaut directed this simple tale of revenge and adultery which features an exceptional musical score by Georges Delerue. The story concerns a love affair between successful literary magazine editor Pierre Lachenay (Jean Desailly) and alluring airline stewardess, Nicole Chomette (Francoise Dorleac). They meet on a flight to Lisbon, where Pierre is scheduled to deliver a lecture. When he returns to Paris, they continue their affair, but find it is difficult to set up their clandestine trysts, so Pierre arranges a lecture trip to Riems, where they can be together. In Riems however, Pierre finds it difficult to keep the affair a secret from his lecture sponsors. Upon his return to Paris, his wife Franca (Nelly Benedetti), suspicious her husband is having an affair, quarrels with Pierre, who leaves her and asks Nicole to marry him. Nicole refuses his proposition and Pierre attempts to reconcile with his wife. But Nelly, with a gun in her bag, is en route to surprise Pierre at his favorite restaurant for a final confrontation. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In the future, an oppressive government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers known as "firemen" to perform the necessary book burnings. This is the premise of Ray Bradbury's acclaimed science-fiction novel Fahrenheit 451, which became the source material for French director François Truffaut's English-language debut. While some liberties are taken with the description of the world, the narrative remains the same, as fireman Montag (Oskar Werner) begins to question the morality of his vocation. Curious about the world of books, he soon falls in love with a beautiful young member of a pro-literature underground -- and with literature itself. Critics were divided on the effectiveness of the result; some praised the unique design and eerie color cinematography by Nicolas Roeg, while others found the film's stylized approach overly distancing and attacked the central performances as unnatural. In any case, however, the film inarguably succeeds in making Truffaut's reverence for the written word abundantly clear, especially during the film's justifiably famous finale. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Diane (Jean Moreau) is married to an architect (Charles Denner) in this situation comedy. The two met in Czechoslovakia before marrying and moving to France. He becomes extremely jealous when he suspects her of having a Lesbian affair with a ballet dancer. His incessant questions and insane jealousy make Diane resentful to the point she considers pushing him off a cliff. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this crime comedy, a jealous chauvinistic husband worries more about his wife's fidelity than her safety after she is taken hostage by a bank robber. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Last Metro is set virtually in its entirety in a crumbling French theatre. During the Nazi occupation, Jewish director Lucas Steiner (Heinz Bennent) hides in the basement of the theatre, while his wife Marion (Catherine Deneuve) stars in its latest production. Marion is enamored of leading man Bernard Granger (Gerard Depardieu), and he with her, but they resist temptation out of respect to her husband. When she is given a choice between loyalty to her husband and to her countrymen, her dilemma offers two logical solutions--both of which are acted out on stage during the play. This Pirandellian ending aside, The Last Metro is one of the few films to accurately capture the feeling of what it was like to live in Paris under the thumb of the Nazis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Martin Terrier (Alain Delon) has a problem. He wants to quit his job, but unlike everyone else, he cannot do it because he is a hired hitman and his employers would hate to see him turned out to pasture -- he knows too much, and he is still useful. When he escapes to the countryside for awhile, he meets Claire (Catherine Deneuve), and love blossoms. Back in Paris to confront his employers once again, Terrier gets an ultimatum -- do one last job for them and he can go free. He has no choice but to accept, even knowing that the odds on a long retirement have just changed for the worse. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this light, sometimes tongue-in-cheek mystery based on a Charles Williams thriller -- with snippets of Hitchcock, Kubrick, and even Victor Hugo -- director François Truffaut showcases one of his favorite actresses, Fanny Ardant, as an enterprising secretary in love with her boss but up against clearing him of murder. Julien Vercel (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a real estate dealer accused of killing his wife and her lover. He hides in his office while his secretary, Barbara (Ardant), sets out to discover what really happened and why. When Barbara starts looking into the dark past of her boss' wife, she comes across illicit love affairs, a prostitution ring, and shady private detectives, until, finally, her suspicions turn toward Julien's lawyer himself. Tragically, Vivement Dimanche was to be Truffaut's last film; the great French director died of a cancerous brain tumor in 1984. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In spite of spending three hours developing the story of French peasant Charles Saganne (Gérard Depardieu), the sweep of this epic skims over the qualities that transformed Saganne from an ordinary officer to a great military leader. Saganne was first sent to a garrison town in North Africa before Colonel Dubreuilh (Philippe Noiret) assigned him to other missions, finally giving him a chance to exercise his innate ability to lead men. After a tragic hiatus in Paris where he fails to promote the colonialist cause, he returns to the Sahara and outshines his past accomplishments, leading a ragtag band of Arab dissidents in some brilliant military maneuvers -- for which he won the French Legion of Honor. His newfound recognition also attracted a society maven who became his wife, and after his tour of duty has ended Saganne moves with her to the village where he was born. But the year is 1914 and Saganne's peaceful village idyll was not meant to endure -- he is again called off to war, and to his destiny. Even though the costuming, landscape, battles, and charisma of Depardieu as Saganne and Noiret as Colonel Dubreuilh are outstanding, and several subsidiary characters deliver emotionally compelling vignettes, the protagonists as an ensemble have not been scripted with much depth of character -- making the three-hour epic seem a bit too long in the end. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this crime story, Antoine (Jacques Bonnafe) is suddenly called home from the North Sea where he works on an oil rig; his wife's body has been found in the Seine. Not accepting the hypothesis that this was an accident or a suicide, Antoine starts to look into his wife's friends and acquaintances and discovers that he never really knew her at all. One of her female friends turns out to have been her lesbian lover, and the two were involved in bilking money from a bank. An accountant at the bank is trying to reclaim a stolen bank code somewhere among the deceased's belongings, and poor Antoine has just begun to scratch the surface of his wife's hidden life. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Claude Sautet's A Few Days With Me (Quelque Jours avec Moi) stars Daniel Auteuil as the emotionally disturbed heir to a supermarket empire. Auteuil's mother Danielle Darrieux tries to give her son some purpose in life by assigning him the task of reinvigorating one of the supermarket chain's least profitable links. Every effort Auteuil makes to reach out and communicate with his employees is doomed to failure due to his conscious and unconscious insensitivities. He is humanized by a brief affair with maid Sandrine Bonnaire. The romance doesn't last, and Auteuil ends up back in a mental institution, but still there is a ray of hope for him in the final scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide