Madame Bovary (1949) Movie Review
It was an uphill battle for Vincente Minnelli’s film to adapt Gustave Flaubert’s novel, the apex of the realist novel in the 19th century, because the book’s subject matter deals with the chasm between life and romanticism, a method and aim antagonistic to the glitz of classic Hollywood. This is because Louis Jourdan was cast as Emma’s aristocratic boyfriend, Jennifer Jones has apple cheeks, and James Mason is the narrator. This makes the film come close to emulating the breathless, exotic romance that Emma loves so much.
For two reasons: firstly, it’s an attempt by the film’s director to challenge and defy Hays Code regulations, and secondly, because it introduces a softer authorial voice that calls out for empathy for Emma, at odds with the novelist Flaubert’s self-effacing voice and rigorously ironic analysis of the situation and characters. Consequently, it’s a problematic framework for the film. The picture lacks filth and sex where it needs them most and instead relies on a generic Hollywood depiction of rural life. When Mason needs to hammer us with a moral at the end of the book, the buried content has been turned into a platitude.
Madame Bovary (1949) movie trailer
Bovary is a fascinating and ultimately upsetting piece that, like Jones’ performance (she’s not normally an actor I enjoy), grows, deepens, and eventually turns sour. For better or worse, Minnelli’s serious pictures were often transformed into dances of image and emotion. The brilliantly staged waltz sequence in which Emma is intoxicated by motion and the promise of finally realizing her fantasy, to the extent that Jourdan orders the windows smashed to prevent her from fainting and thus ruining their dance, is where Bovary finds its footing, and Van Heflin, who was type-cast as a weak husband to play Charles Bovary, lurches about, drooling, and fits the bill perfectly. A fantastic example of how perspective, psychology, and theme can all come together in a single shot to create hysteria as Emma’s mind is twisted by the crazed collision of worlds Intriguing cinema of the highest caliber is likewise uncommon in film adaptations of books.
Watching Emma’s life come to a screeching halt in the final quarter is captivating in and of itself, but it’s also really grim. Emma, a vampiric wraith in a darkened drug store, is discovered by a shopboy in a darkened drug store, where she consumes handfuls of arse instead of consuming another person. This is the numbing end of her consolation romance with Dupuis, a penurious law clerk pretending to be a lawyer (Alf “Christopher Kent” Kjellin). If it’s a film that pays homage to the emotions (or lack thereof) of its characters, it’s an indie masterpiece.
Madame Bovary (1949) Movie Cast & Crew
- Jennifer Jones as Emma Bovary
- James Mason as Gustave Flaubert
- Van Heflin as Charles Bovary
- Louis Jourdan as Rodolphe Boulanger
- Alf Kjellin as Leon Dupuis
- Gene Lockhart as J. Homais
- Frank Allenby as Lheureux
- Gladys Cooper as Madame Dupuis
- John Abbott as Mayor Tuvache
- Harry Morgan as Hyppolite
Director: Vincente Minnelli