8 feature films in 50 years. This is the entire filmography of Jean-Paul Rappeneau between 1966 and 2015. And yet, the French director and screenwriter managed with these 8 films to make a name for himself and occupy a visible and honorable place in the history of French cinema. He did it without revolutionizing the 7th art as some of his contemporaries tried and without choosing shocking themes as others tried. The 1966 ‘La vie de château‘ (‘A Matter of Resistance‘ in the English distribution) is his first feature film. Rappeneau also wrote the screenplay, along with a few more credited collaborators. He enjoyed already in this film an exceptional cast which he used skillfully. What was his secret? I think it’s primarily about respect or maybe even love for the audience. I think Rappeneau knew throughout his career to listen to the audiences and understand why people come to the cinema and pay for tickets. He responded by creating films that severe critics labeled as commercial, but he proved that this label does not necessarily mean compromising on quality. The public responded by making most of his films box office hits. The first one was ‘La vie de château‘.
The 1960s were the first time in which some of the European and particularly French filmmakers felt comfortable enough to look back at the Second World War without anger and to make films in which the approach to the conflict was somewhat more nuanced, including the genre of comedy. Not all of these attempts were met with sympathy, and even ‘La vie de château‘ had its critics, particularly for presenting the German military in an insufficiently evil light. A viewer who knows nothing about the film might think, upon watching the first 10-15 minutes, that he is watching a romantic family comedy set somewhere in Normandy. The generic exposes a series of luminous close-up still shots of Catherine Deneuve at the peak of her youth (beautiful she was and still is) at 22, creating an atmosphere of sensuality. Deneuve is Marie, the young wife of Jérôme, the owner of a castle about to return to ruin. Marie dreams of going to Paris, Jérôme opposes because he cannot afford it financially, but also because he fears that he could lose his young wife to the temptations of Paris. The zoom-out occurs later, when we understand that the story takes place in the summer of 1944 in the days leading up to the Normandy landings, that the area is swarming with German soldiers, Resistance fighters and British and American spies, and that the castle has a strategic position, being located near a German super-gun that could endanger the landing plans. Marie remains the center of attention, being courted by both a young resistance man sent to destroy the cannon and a German officer commanding the regiment that decides to occupy the castle, under the eyes of the jealous husband. The affair ends in a fight between the suitors on the very night before D-Day. To win back his wife’s heart, Jérôme is willing to become a hero. In other words, when two lovers quarrel, the husband wins.
Philippe Noiret plays here perfectly the role of the unlikely hero. He will repeat it, in a tragic register, nine years later in ‘Le vieux fusil’. For Catherine Deneuve this is one of the first roles in which she is the undisputed star and the object of all men’s desire. Many more will follow. The tone is light, comical, even romantic, and the debate whether the ‘feel good’ approach to the events of that period is appropriate is a legitimate one. I have no intention of settling it. I will mention three more elements that contribute to the film’s cinematic quality: Pierre Brasseur as Marie’s father, Michel Legrand‘s music and Pierre Lhomme‘s cinematography. The use of black-and-white film in the mid-60s was no longer an economic choice, but an aesthetic one. Rappeneau belonged rather to the category of directors who rejected the approaches of the New Wave, but from a technical point of view and from the liberties with which he draws his characters, he shows in this film (his debut!) that he has a good command of the lessons and innovations brought by his already famous colleagues. Revisited almost six decades after its release, ‘La vie de château‘ surprises for the better with its charm and freshness.