Betty Blue 1986
An epic emotional masterpiece that runs on high fever pitch
for over 3 hours and never lets up on its grip around our throats. Opening abruptly with a pretty explicit sex
scene but not violent that didn’t shock me as much as surprise, it’s on the
same level as the abrupt violent opening of “The Naked Kiss”, and there is also
plenty of naked kissing in Betty. A Mona Lisa print hangs over the bed and we
are soon thrown into the frantic crazy whirl wind life of Zorg a would be
writer who is a handy man for a bungalow colony on a beach in France, who gets
his room and board thrown in for good measure.
Into his life and our lives come this Betty, this blue and she is like a mist, a vapor that pours over not only on Zorg but also the audience. I was entranced and in sorrow for both of them, played superbly by the very attractive and sexy actors Jean-Hugues Anglade and the stunning Beatrice Dalle whose first film this was. She is beautiful but troubled and is also scary. She’s like a sharp razor blade flashing all around us giving Zorg a run for his love. He loves her with a passion and the same goes for Betty’s passion for Zorg.
Their life together is filled with anger, joy, lots of sex and lots of problems that come at us full speed ahead. Betty is troubled and her troubled mind is what controls their lives and emotions. Part of me just wanted him to leave her get going pal but of course he could never do that, so their misadventures some miserable and tragic and some miserable and comical continue for the 3 hour plus running time of the film.
Eccentric and unusual characters come and go in their lives, and some stay on a bit longer like the kind and generous old friend of Betty’s Lisa and her new boyfriend Eddy nicely drawn by Consuelo DeHaviland and Gerrard Darmon. Eddy who owns a pizza joint gives Betty and Zorg work for a short time before disaster closes that job down. They later move to a suburb where Eddy’s mother who just died owns a store selling pianos of all things and he offers them the opportunity to carry on the business and live in the apartment above the store and more misadventures happen.
Directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix whose first masterpiece was “Diva” and based on the popular novel by Phillippe Dijian, the other two important contributors to the film is Gabriel Yared who composed the beautiful soulful Jazz infused score and Jean-Francois Robin the cinematographer. The images and colors on the new Criterion transfer are stunning, rich and dense in primary colors and lavish in pastel hues not to mention the color blue. There is a lot of red and yellow also in Robin’s palette and the film is gigantic in rich color combinations. Beineix is a wonderful stylist and is sometimes attacked for this and his background in advertising and commercials but he also knows his film history especially Hollywood films and the director I kept thinking of was the great Hollywood colorist and stylist Vincente Minnelli who was married to his own Betty Blue. I would think that he would love this film even though the nudity, sex, violence and maybe the length of the film would have given him problems. The ending reduced me to tears. One of the ten best films of the year.
Into his life and our lives come this Betty, this blue and she is like a mist, a vapor that pours over not only on Zorg but also the audience. I was entranced and in sorrow for both of them, played superbly by the very attractive and sexy actors Jean-Hugues Anglade and the stunning Beatrice Dalle whose first film this was. She is beautiful but troubled and is also scary. She’s like a sharp razor blade flashing all around us giving Zorg a run for his love. He loves her with a passion and the same goes for Betty’s passion for Zorg.
Their life together is filled with anger, joy, lots of sex and lots of problems that come at us full speed ahead. Betty is troubled and her troubled mind is what controls their lives and emotions. Part of me just wanted him to leave her get going pal but of course he could never do that, so their misadventures some miserable and tragic and some miserable and comical continue for the 3 hour plus running time of the film.
Eccentric and unusual characters come and go in their lives, and some stay on a bit longer like the kind and generous old friend of Betty’s Lisa and her new boyfriend Eddy nicely drawn by Consuelo DeHaviland and Gerrard Darmon. Eddy who owns a pizza joint gives Betty and Zorg work for a short time before disaster closes that job down. They later move to a suburb where Eddy’s mother who just died owns a store selling pianos of all things and he offers them the opportunity to carry on the business and live in the apartment above the store and more misadventures happen.
Directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix whose first masterpiece was “Diva” and based on the popular novel by Phillippe Dijian, the other two important contributors to the film is Gabriel Yared who composed the beautiful soulful Jazz infused score and Jean-Francois Robin the cinematographer. The images and colors on the new Criterion transfer are stunning, rich and dense in primary colors and lavish in pastel hues not to mention the color blue. There is a lot of red and yellow also in Robin’s palette and the film is gigantic in rich color combinations. Beineix is a wonderful stylist and is sometimes attacked for this and his background in advertising and commercials but he also knows his film history especially Hollywood films and the director I kept thinking of was the great Hollywood colorist and stylist Vincente Minnelli who was married to his own Betty Blue. I would think that he would love this film even though the nudity, sex, violence and maybe the length of the film would have given him problems. The ending reduced me to tears. One of the ten best films of the year.
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