Jules et Jim

In Jules et Jim (Truffaut, 1962), Truffaut shows us the tragic results of a shared relationship with a woman not only incapable of true love, but intent on self-immolation.

In the opening montage we see Jules (Oscar Werner) and Jim (Henre Serre) playfully rummage through a trunk full of clothing, lightly jog down a cobblestone road, comically insist the other pass through a gate first, and fence with broom and cane in place of sabers. When Jules climbs on Jim's back, Jim mimics a blind man as he carries Jules down the street.

Although only thirty seconds in length, this introduction demonstrates that Jules and Jim, at least at this point in their lives, have a friendship that transcends most, and is centered on taking life as it comes. The rummaged clothes in the trunk represent their willingness to take on whatever roles might be required (a symbolism especially significant for Jules who searches for a slave's costume; later in the film we realized that Jules has been figuratively "enslaved" by Catherine (Jeanne Morneau). The cobblestone road resembles the yellow-brick road of the Wizard of Oz that leads to the Emerald City, which is in keeping with the frivolity we see the two men traveling through life in Paris (the Emerald City). The insistence the other passes through the gate first, and playful fencing portray their mutual respect and inability to intentionally hurt each other (the men express concern with hurting each other during the war). And Jim's playing the blind man, with Jules on his back, represents their trust in each other and willingness to proceed without knowing what lays ahead.

It's as though Truffaut would have us believe that if Jules and Jim were birds, they would be hummingbirds flitting from flower to flower, tasting their nectar, but never lingering. Or if the men were leaves, they would happily float on whatever breeze was blowing, enjoying the ride not caring where they might alight.

But the opening montage also signals Truffaut intends to use both cinematography and editing in an exaggerated manner. By doing so, Truffaut introduces an emotionally unsettling texture to the narrative. For example, the opening montage is almost frenetic. Shots are short and display constant motion, both enhancing the flightiness of the men and the passage of time (a constant companion in the film, initially introduced by Jules' timepiece in the montage). This tight editing in the opening montage also serves to add a more deeply felt sobering import when contrasted with those relatively few shots that occur later in the film, which have little or no movement and are longer. These more loosely edited shots impart both a sense of maturation on the part of Jules, Jim, a weariness on the part of Catherine, and a heaviness that defines their evolving relationships.

This is not to say that toward the end of the film, cinematography is any less forceful on the screen. An example of where editing and camera movement are purposely disconcerting is the scene where Catherine (in benign white - a sign she's incapable of assigning herself any fault) and Sabine meet Jim at the station and go back to their cottage where Jules awaits them. As they progress through the bucolic setting and approach the cottage the camera suddenly and momentarily stops, and does so several more times when Jules, Jim, and Catherine are at the foot of the steps to suggest the temporal changes that have occurred since their earlier days in France. The scene subsequently shifts to inside the cottage where they are seated. When Jules brings up the war, the camera pans dizzying from Jules to Jim to Jules to Catherine suggesting a spatial (in this case emotionally distancing) change as well, Both cinematographic excesses (very respectfully suggested) punctuate the shift in direction the narrative is about to take.

Examples of where cinematography is less strikingly used to enhance our understanding of their relationships are when Jules and Jim, using a long shot, race across a bridge in the opening montage, and a later shot that has Jules, Jim, and Catherine race across a different bridge. In this second shot, the camerawork includes a medium profile of Catherine that emphasizes her speed (and joy) as she beats Jules and Jim to the other side. This second shot is similar to the first because seemingly all three race across the bridge as equals (Catherine is seemingly an equal partner because she has dressed as a man), as Jules and Jim do earlier. The second shot is dissimilar to the first because it actually shows Catherine cement (earlier she is seen leading the group and makes the decision for the group to go to the shore if it continues to rain, later she refers to the men as boys, and makes the decision to return to Paris) the previously unnecessary role of leader of the group, not only because she won the race, but because she was cheeky enough to cheat, had the audacity to pass herself off as a man, and got away with both. This getting away with both primes us to accept that Catherine actually gets away with everything, including the destruction of Jules and Jim.

Having assumed control of the group, Catherine also controls the length of and movement within the shots. This becomes most evident in the post-war scenes when Truffaut uses medium or close-up shots for the first time (other than the, tellingly, closeup shots during Catherine's introduction). In a world with no Catherine, Jules and Jim could have picked up where they left off, and the lightness of the camerawork (exhibited by long or medium shots, short shot lengths, and pans prior to the war) could have continued. However, in the post-war world where Jules and Jim are forced to react to Catherine's increasingly aberrant behavior, the camerwork slows down and reacts accordingly. An example of this is the night scene where Jim chases Catherine outside. Once outside, the cinematography gives us a "permanent twilight" (for lack of a better discription) effect that shows us Catherine's ephemeral world (Truffaut chooses for us to concentrate on her "world" through the use of long shots, and the occasional medium shot). It is here that Catherine asks Jim to reveal himself to her, and she reveals, what she chooses, to Jim.

Catherine is initially introduced to us as a statue (ideal); one that mesmerizes Jules and Jim. When the men visit the statue, an erratic camera simultaneously tracks, zooms, stops and cuts to the statue. A similar camera movement is used when Catherine appears a few scenes later. The matching camera movements accomplishes three things. First, they identify for us that the men see Catherine as a work of art (superficial beauty over substance, not really taking the measure of the person inside). Second, that Catherine is incapable of attaching herself emotionally to anyone (two examples of this are when she uses both her previous lover and Albert to get back at Jules and Jim, respectively, and when she periodically abandones Jules and her daughter). And third, that Catherine is an emotionally unstable person. All three (Catherine as a work of art, as a person incapable of reciprocating emotionally, and as an emotionally unstable person) manifest themselves as the film progresses and are characterisctics that the men can take a measure of. The final identification the erratic camera movements makes is one that escapes the men. It is that Catherine represents an ideal, something impossible to grasp, own, contain, mold. It is this quality that mesmerizes Jules and Jim (as when the narrator explains the men are "moved" by a quality they can't quite understand), and lead to their destruction.

It is left up to Jules to initially explain Catherines strangeness, which he does by way of her father being an aristocrat and her mother being from the masses. He reasons that it is perhaps because of this that Catherine is ignorant of anything in between. This observation, made from the occluded points of view of Jules and Jim, who are more than willing to accept her strangeness, misses the real cause for Catherine's strange behavior: her inability to internalize an emotional identity. (Further evidence that Truffaut considers this condition environmentally caused is presented when Sabina mimics her mother (pinches the bridge of her nose) when she removes her mother's glasses in the cabin.) From the point of view of Catherine as an ideal, the ideal is either accepted or rejected in the extreme. The ideal does not exist in the in-between (hence Jules' comment that Catherine knows of nothing in between the extremes aristorcracy and the masses).

The first evidence of Catherines instability occurs when, seemingly accidentally, she sets fire to herself in the presence of Jim at her apartment. Jim rescues her then, and perhaps because of this, both Catherine and Jim feel that it is Jim that can save her from her demons after the war. This belief on Jim's part is the reason he gets in the car with Catherine at the end of the film. Other early clues to her emotional instability include her slapping Jules in front of Jim (when Jules laughs, Truffaut shows us that he is willing to be subservient to her, on one hand, so that he can own this piece of art, and on the other hand to be, less consciously, subservient to Catherine, the ideal) when the men ignore her at the shore. The subsequent alternating camera stills that show her happy and sad, and her statement that she never laughed before meeting them are clues to her instability. Her actions also become increasingly erractic as the film progresses: she jumps into the river, ignores an appointment with Jim the day before she agrees to marriage with Jules, lashes out at everything, has affairs, seduces Jules after "commiting" to Jim. badgers Jules about whether Jim truly loves her. In Paris erratic actions include driving around in front of Gilberte's apartment, pulling a gun on Jim, and finally driving off the bridge as Jules looks on.

With her life unraveling before everyone's eyes, the essential question becomes: Why would both men sacrifice themselves for this woman?

The answer is that Jules and Jim never see Catherine as a person, but rather as a work of art to be admired for what she represents, but little else (a similarly one-sided, but considerably more gutteral point of view occurs at the bar in Paris when the man describes his lover, Denise, as an otherwise empty sex-object presumably to be abused as such). For example, when the men were initially moved by Catherine (after she passes herself off as a men), the camera lingers on the art posters at the train station. Another example are the times Jules ignores (a work of art should be seen not heard) her. Similarly, Jules wants Jim to have her, after he realizes he can lose her forever, just so Jules can keep her in the house, much like a work of art in a museum. For Jim's part, he also idolizes her. His retelling of the story of the soldier who describes the details of a woman he can't touch, describes Jim's own idealization of Catherine, a woman he can't posses emotionally, but can't stop wanting to believe he can. Their failure to understand that their idealization of Catherine made her both untouchable and all consuming costs Jim his life and eviscerates Jules.

Let us consider if Jules and Jim had not placed Catherine on the ultimate pedestal of ideals (in the garden of statues, her statue was the only one to cause the erratic camera movements). They then would have been able to identify Catherine's shortcomings, attended to them as best as possible (seeking treatment for Catherine as needed), and moved forward remaining closer than ever. And the film would have had a happy ending.

But the men did idealize Catherine, and it is this tendency to blindly idolize that Truffaut wants us to realize ultimately leads to death and destruction for individuals as well as nations.