Moviecut—Eva

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source: Eva

Eva

For all the hoopla surrounding Eva during it's re-release in 2000, you'll feel very disapointed after viewing it. Jeanne Moreau is interesting, but not fascinating,as the title femme fatale. The film isn't strong in plot nor characterization. It's a case of a man choosing the wrong woman=as the lovely, soft Virna Lisi is much more appealing than Moreau, in a smaller role.

The humiliation of a vain playboy at the hands of Eva (or Eve as he will call her), played by Jeanne Moreau occurs with too much predictability & haste, and must in the end drag. The film should have been cast with Burton and Moreau, & the Stanley Baker left in a more British genre - for though Baker plays with great intelligence, nicely turning our sympathies away as the character receives his come-uppance, there is a curious implausibility about the combination. Two incommensurate worlds, sexes, as a theme to be sure, but neither can be appreciated from the other, and so neither is enhanced.

Jeanne Moreau is magnificent in this heartless exposure of a Welsh fraud of a man. Cold and vicious she has certainly become in this role of Eva, but of course as with so many beautiful young women reaching their mid-years having born the burden in a good deal colder man's world, she knows precisely where to exact her revengeful pleasure in exposing a worthless lout, and still how to appreciate the care offered her by those select men who understand her just enough to appropriately please her. Brilliant photography. solid direction holding it all together, and just enough adherence to its novel source to keep your attention along with the magnificent level of detail provided by the skilled artistic director and production design team. All this and Venice too! I'm not really sure just why I didn"t give it a 10. Go figure! Tatkhj

You have to really admire director Joseph Losey who was kicked out of the US by right wing fanatics only to emerge as a star of European cinema. This absolute jewel of a film is F. Scott Fitzgerald meets Tennessee Wiliams. Losey would go on to create one of my favorite films of all time, "The Servant." It is only possible to imagine what a wonderful contribution to American films he was capable of. He was a survivor in a world gone mad, and this movie must have given him the sweet smell of revenge. I am so glad I found this on this New Year's night, 2020. What a movie to start a decade that looks like one hell of a ride to come.

A French Italian co-production; here we have Losey attempting to create a Felliniesque European Art House movie with hints of Nouveau Vague. Losey uses Jeanne Moreau to sell what is a concoction of 1950s and 60s art house clichés where character and story development are virtually non-existent. Nothing made me want to engage with the movie, and after an hour I just had to give up. Stanley Baker is appallingly cast as the leading man, the script is dreadfully wooden, and the unremitting jazz score does not hide the fact that this series of clichés just does not work as a film. If this is interesting only for film studies students, then maybe the people writing the courses should seriously ask themselves why - Losey made many better movies and the European Art House scene of the 50s and 60s has far better examples of ground breaking cinema. A great big pretentious yawn of a film that should have been strangled at birth.

If you fondly remember Jeanne Moreau from Jules et Jim, that alone will make this film well worth seeing. I recall it as a very " early 60's " movie, with not a little incoherence in the plot department. However, Jeanne Moreau's unique presence and "look" really fitted the role she played, and is something of a tour-de-force.