Going Places (1974 film)

Going Places

Film poster
Les Valseuses
Directed by Bertrand Blier
Produced by Paul Claudon
Screenplay by Bertrand Blier
Philippe Dumarçay
Based on Les Valseuses by Bertrand Blier
Starring Gérard Depardieu
Patrick Dewaere
Miou-Miou
Jeanne Moreau
Isabelle Huppert
Music by Stéphane Grappelli
Cinematography Bruno Nuytten
Edited by Kenout Peltier
Release dates
 20 March 1974
Running time
 113 minutes
Country France
Language French

Going Places is a 1974 French comedy-drama film directed by Bertrand Blier, starring Miou-Miou, Gérard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere. Its original title is Les Valseuses, which translates into English as "the waltzers", a vulgar French slang term for "the testicles".[1] The film is based on the eponymous novel by Blier.

Plot

Jean-Claude and Pierrot are young sociopathic men who travel around France, committing petty crimes and running from the law. After they get in trouble with a hairdresser in Valence for stealing his car, they grab his pistol and kidnap his assistant Marie-Ange, an apathetic girl. When they are bored with unorgasmic Marie-Ange, they decide to find a passionate woman and meet Jeanne Pirolle, a deranged woman in her forties who is just released from prison and had spent ten years in a cell. After a threesome, Jeanne commits suicide and the men return to Marie-Ange. They find Jeanne's psychopathic son Jacques who had been incarcerated as well. Then, the four consider founding a crime family but at their first crime, an attempted robbery, Jacques commits a revenge killing and the others flee. While on the run, they meet a family having a picnic near Col d'Izoard and the delinquent teenage daughter Jacqueline wants to join them. They take Jacqueline and on learning that she is still a virgin, they decide to deflower her. After dropping Jacqueline, the three ride away aimlessly.

Cast

Production

Bertrand Blier based the screenplay on his own novel Les Valseuses, which had been published by éditions Robert Laffont in 1972. The film was produced by CAPAC, UPF and Prodis. Principal photography took place from 16 August to 24 October 1973. Locations were used in Valence, Drôme.[2]

Release

The film premiered in France on 20 March 1974. It was released in the United States on 13 May the same year and the United Kingdom on 23 October 1975. The film had a total of 5,726,031 admissions in France where it was the third highest grossing film of the year.[3]

Reception

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "Despite its occasional charm, its several amusing moments and the touching scenes played by Jeanne Moreau, Going Places is a film of truly cynical decadence. It's also, not incidentally, the most misogynistic movie I can remember; its hatred of women is palpable and embarrassing. ... I came away from Going Places feeling that I'd spent two hours in the company of a filmmaker I would never want to meet."[4] Los Angeles Times' Kevin Thomas wrote in 1990, when the film was re-released in Los Angeles cinemas: "Blier has gone on to a notable and distinctive career, but as worthy (and quirky) as his subsequent films have been, none have packed the punch of his debut film, which he based on his own novel. ... The road/buddy movie was scarcely new 16 years ago, but Blier's strategies in the telling of his sexual odyssey remain fresh, outrageous and inspired." Thomas continued: "Jean-Claude is the precursor of all the earthy, passionate men Depardieu has brought to life on the screen. What's more, Blier is interested more in Jean-Claude and Pierrot as sexual chauvinists than as petty criminals, and as they learn to be more considerate lovers they become more likable. Above all, they embody the sure-fire appeal of all movie anti-heroes, free spirits who live entirely for the moment and at all times follow their impulse."[5]

References

  1. ↑ "Valseuse". Reverso. Retrieved 17 July 2011.
  2. ↑ "Les Valseuses". bifi.fr (in French). Cinémathèque Française. Retrieved 2015-05-10.
  3. ↑ http://www.jpbox-office.com/fichfilm.php?id=8388&affich=france
  4. ↑ Ebert, Roger (1974-05-13). "Going Places". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2015-05-10.
  5. ↑ Thomas, Kevin (1990-08-10). "Movie Review: A Sexual Odyssey in 'Going Places'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2015-05-10.

External links

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