FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Louis Malle - The Fire Within


Today a less known Nouvelle Vague classic - with the music of Eric Satie and Jeanne Moreau!

FREE ON YOUTUBE If you don't like film adaptations of literature, because what books do well is far from what makes good films, you can breathe a sigh of relief: Louis Malle's The Fire Withing is NOT an adaptation of Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited". Malle is only inspired by Scott Fitzgerald. And indeed, Malle's hero reads the story of Scott Fitzgerald during these last days before he kills himself. Both men are running something of a parallel story. In our video store, Louis Malle is still one of the less popular representatives of the Nouvelle Vague - although for me he is the best filmmaker of this generation! But that has its advantages, too, because that way I can give you Malle's films like unearthed treasures. On the surface, Malle's hero Alain (Maurice Ronet) resembles Fitzgerald himself. A Parisian writer and former playboy who lived in New York for a while, but was divorced from his wife there. An alcoholic who lost his confidence in his art as well as his masculinity. He lives in a confused, very private world. It must be extraordinarily lonely there! He speaks softly to himself, hums, moves silently in his room. In his thoughts he is busy with his own death. Then he travels to Paris, visits some of his friends. He drinks far too much, makes a fool of himself at a party. Basically, he questions the value of his friends' middle-class existence. Then he returns home and gets it over with. Very calm and significant. He doesn't have to explain much, we understand enough as it is. In the worried, indifferent, friendly and at the same time cruel behaviour of his friends towards him, we recognise ourselves. We would treat people like him in the same way. Malle's film is above all a triumph of style! Accompanied by the music of Eric Satie, full of jump cuts or allusions to Marilyn-Monroe. P.S. No wonder The Fire Within is the favorite movie of the great stylist Wes-Anderson, isn't it?