Like Rashomon or M or Breathless, Jules and
Jim is one of those “classic” foreign films whose energies remain
undimmed in spite of its familiarity. Its best scenes and images
effortlessly rekindle your love for the movies. I think it’s the
weakest of Francois Truffaut’s three early feature-length masterpieces
— more detached and academic than his semi-autobiographical debut
The 400 Blows but less lively than his melancholy Shoot the
Piano Player. Yet despite its sluggish second half, it’s one of the
peaks of moviemaking art. As Pauline Kael once wrote, “Even if you
don’t take more than a fraction of the possible meanings from the
material, you still get far more than if you examined almost any other
current film, frame by frame, under a microscope.”
The frenetic speed of the film’s first half feels positively
cutting-edge today. Truffaut tried out every idea he’d ever had about
editing, transitions, stock footage, and cinematic time in the film’s
first 20 minutes, frequently julienning key events into shimmering
glimpses of light and shadow. Once Truffaut settles down,
cinematographer Raoul Coutard’s rubbernecking camera takes over, pacing
the grounds and wringing its hands as the three leads try to balance
love, passion, and emotional maturity.
Some passages in Jules and Jim will outlast us all: Jeanne
Moreau, in cap and painted-on moustache, racing across a bridge; the
helicopter shots of the chalet in the countryside where the film’s
second and third acts transpire; Moreau again, an instant of joy
overtaking her harsh, haggard face as she sings a song about lovers who
eternally cross paths.