I interpret Jules And Jim (1962) as a social protest film against the traditional notions of marriage & heterosexual love. Many of the reviews on this site focus on the triangle of Jules, Jim, & Catherine. But there are other notable characters in the film such as Gilberte, Therese, & Albert. Together, all the characters portray a vision where the traditional conception of marriage & the nuclear family is missing but also portray a vision where traditional marriage & the nuclear family seem even unnecessary.
From this perspective, this 1962 film must have been radical and quite discomforting for the French audiences of that era. True enough, European cinema in general & French cinema in particular has always acknowledged extramarital affairs in a matter of fact sort of way. But in other films, extramarital affairs are portrayed as being very discrete & rather secret, secret even from the marital partner being "betrayed". But extramarital sex & non-marital sex in J&J is just wide open & out there for everyone to see.
Gilberte, Jim's live in lover is a case in point. She consistently expresses her love to Jim, tells him that she wants to get married to him & have kids with him. Yet, she seems perfectly OK with Jim running off to Catherine time & again. She just "understands".
Albert, the artist who introduced Catherine to J&J also seems to have no problem sharing Catherine sexually with J&J.
Therese spends the night with Jules at the beginning of the film & then just dumps both J&J at a café the next day seemingly in search of another tryst. When Therese encounters Jim again late in the film, she relates a sordid but adventurous tale involving several sex partners.
The closest thing to a normal nuclear family in this film is Catherine, Jules, & Sabine, but Jules expresses doubts to Jim that Sabine is even really his daughter & after having Sabine, Jules & Catherine sleep in different rooms, & Jules freely admits to Jim that Catherine has had several affairs.
Overall, this film seems to make the case that marriage & the nuclear family are superfluous ideas that are mere social conventions. True enough, the characters in this film are artist//writer types, intellectuals who are expected to be offbeat & eccentric to some degree, but, on the other hand, the conventional nuclear family & the conventional idea of a committed heterosexual love are not only missing in this film but we are given the impression that these social conventions are not even necessary.
From this perspective, J&J is definitely a radical, ant-Establishment protest film. Although it is set in the past, this film portends a future into which society will evolve.
Most prominent in this futuristic vision is the absence of male possessiveness of his female sex partner, that is, the absence of jealousy. This can be most clearly seen between J&J themselves as they both "share" Catherine to varying degrees. But female jealousy is also absent in this film too. The total lack of a stable family structure & the lack of jealousy by both sexes portrays an almost anarchist reality where love & sex & having children is a joyful free-for-all.
The wild card in this anarchist sexual utopia is Catherine. In my opinion, the character Catherine is a mentally unstable, if not a downright mentally ill person. She definitely displays symptoms of erotomania & psychopathy. The degree that she craves new sexual partners is just not normal, even by anarchist, "free love" standards. Moreover, she is a psychopath that craves to manipulate others, especially men. The "magnetism" that J&J & Albert &, probably all of her other lovers feel toward her is really the slick, covert, manipulative psychopath at work. It is difficult to discern whether she craves sex more than the manipulative power that her sexual allure has over men.
This is where the tragic death of Jim enters the picture. At the end, he breaks free of Catherine's psychopathic manipulation & when Catherine realizes that her manipulative power over Jim has disappeared, she attempts to reassert her manipulative power by locking the door of the bedroom & pulling a gun on Jim. You'd think that, at that point, Jim would've finally seen Catherine for the crazy person she is, but by the tragic end of the film he allows Catherine to manipulate him one last time when he gets into a car alone with her, the woman who almost killed him with a gun, & drives away with her to their death. In the end, Catherine did not allow the one man who broke away from her psychopathic manipulation to get away scot free, even if it meant ending her life too.
Truly, Catherine deserves a prominent position in the "Cinema Hall Of Fame For Sick Characters".
From this perspective, this 1962 film must have been radical and quite discomforting for the French audiences of that era. True enough, European cinema in general & French cinema in particular has always acknowledged extramarital affairs in a matter of fact sort of way. But in other films, extramarital affairs are portrayed as being very discrete & rather secret, secret even from the marital partner being "betrayed". But extramarital sex & non-marital sex in J&J is just wide open & out there for everyone to see.
Gilberte, Jim's live in lover is a case in point. She consistently expresses her love to Jim, tells him that she wants to get married to him & have kids with him. Yet, she seems perfectly OK with Jim running off to Catherine time & again. She just "understands".
Albert, the artist who introduced Catherine to J&J also seems to have no problem sharing Catherine sexually with J&J.
Therese spends the night with Jules at the beginning of the film & then just dumps both J&J at a café the next day seemingly in search of another tryst. When Therese encounters Jim again late in the film, she relates a sordid but adventurous tale involving several sex partners.
The closest thing to a normal nuclear family in this film is Catherine, Jules, & Sabine, but Jules expresses doubts to Jim that Sabine is even really his daughter & after having Sabine, Jules & Catherine sleep in different rooms, & Jules freely admits to Jim that Catherine has had several affairs.
Overall, this film seems to make the case that marriage & the nuclear family are superfluous ideas that are mere social conventions. True enough, the characters in this film are artist//writer types, intellectuals who are expected to be offbeat & eccentric to some degree, but, on the other hand, the conventional nuclear family & the conventional idea of a committed heterosexual love are not only missing in this film but we are given the impression that these social conventions are not even necessary.
From this perspective, J&J is definitely a radical, ant-Establishment protest film. Although it is set in the past, this film portends a future into which society will evolve.
Most prominent in this futuristic vision is the absence of male possessiveness of his female sex partner, that is, the absence of jealousy. This can be most clearly seen between J&J themselves as they both "share" Catherine to varying degrees. But female jealousy is also absent in this film too. The total lack of a stable family structure & the lack of jealousy by both sexes portrays an almost anarchist reality where love & sex & having children is a joyful free-for-all.
The wild card in this anarchist sexual utopia is Catherine. In my opinion, the character Catherine is a mentally unstable, if not a downright mentally ill person. She definitely displays symptoms of erotomania & psychopathy. The degree that she craves new sexual partners is just not normal, even by anarchist, "free love" standards. Moreover, she is a psychopath that craves to manipulate others, especially men. The "magnetism" that J&J & Albert &, probably all of her other lovers feel toward her is really the slick, covert, manipulative psychopath at work. It is difficult to discern whether she craves sex more than the manipulative power that her sexual allure has over men.
This is where the tragic death of Jim enters the picture. At the end, he breaks free of Catherine's psychopathic manipulation & when Catherine realizes that her manipulative power over Jim has disappeared, she attempts to reassert her manipulative power by locking the door of the bedroom & pulling a gun on Jim. You'd think that, at that point, Jim would've finally seen Catherine for the crazy person she is, but by the tragic end of the film he allows Catherine to manipulate him one last time when he gets into a car alone with her, the woman who almost killed him with a gun, & drives away with her to their death. In the end, Catherine did not allow the one man who broke away from her psychopathic manipulation to get away scot free, even if it meant ending her life too.
Truly, Catherine deserves a prominent position in the "Cinema Hall Of Fame For Sick Characters".