Anna.
![I’m debating whether or not I should stay up all night watching movies and continue amateur story telling projects or squeeze in a few hours of sleep before waking up rushing around the house in a sleepy panic.
Sometimes I believe I’ll be able to sleep before 3am, however that is almost a joke these days. This time what kept me awake wasn’t watching but trying to process this movie I watched at Carpenter Theater (Harvard Film Archives / special showing in March/April).
Claude Chabrol’s Pleasure Party was released in France as Une Partie De Plaisir. The story details the destruction of a marriage at the hands of a domineering husband. In an attempt to preserve this bliss, Phillipe decides that he and Esther should each have affairs, being sure to tell each other openly about them.To fully appreciate the perversity of Chabrol’s concept, it should be noted that the leading character (Phillipe), Paul Gegauff, is playing “himself,” and that Gegauff’s ex-wife Danielle (Esther) is costarred as his partner. Curiously, he was murdered several years later by his second wife (Chabrol didn’t get a chance to film that one). No further explanation, the movie was remarkable, an incredible and disturbing matter when a man becomes engulfed in jealously. But note to self: don’t watch when you’re recently engaged or you’ll need some tylenol pm to go to bed ;). No doubt he was called the “bad-boy” of the French New Wave.
[Picture above: Paul Gégauff and wife Danielle in Chabrol’s “Une Partie de Plaisir” (1975)]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lirucu7Y4L1qzx1tro1_1280.jpg)
I’m debating whether or not I should stay up all night watching movies and continue amateur story telling projects or squeeze in a few hours of sleep before waking up rushing around the house in a sleepy panic.
Sometimes I believe I’ll be able to sleep before 3am, however that is almost a joke these days. This time what kept me awake wasn’t watching but trying to process this movie I watched at Carpenter Theater (Harvard Film Archives / special showing in March/April).
Claude Chabrol’s Pleasure Party was released in France as Une Partie De Plaisir. The story details the destruction of a marriage at the hands of a domineering husband. In an attempt to preserve this bliss, Phillipe decides that he and Esther should each have affairs, being sure to tell each other openly about them.To fully appreciate the perversity of Chabrol’s concept, it should be noted that the leading character (Phillipe), Paul Gegauff, is playing “himself,” and that Gegauff’s ex-wife Danielle (Esther) is costarred as his partner. Curiously, he was murdered several years later by his second wife (Chabrol didn’t get a chance to film that one). No further explanation, the movie was remarkable, an incredible and disturbing matter when a man becomes engulfed in jealously. But note to self: don’t watch when you’re recently engaged or you’ll need some tylenol pm to go to bed ;). No doubt he was called the “bad-boy” of the French New Wave.
[Picture above: Paul Gégauff and wife Danielle in Chabrol’s “Une Partie de Plaisir” (1975)]
