Having constantly felt rather heartless and slightly cruel towards men in the last few weeks for too many reasons, last night I decided to watch again Joseph Losey’s Eva (1962).
[Warning: if you’re planning to go to Venice on your honeymoon or on a romantic trip, don't watch this film as this is probably one of the few movies that shows the darkest, saddest and at times dullest, side of Venice.]
That said, I love this film for two reasons, Gianni Di Venanzo’s photography and Pierre Cardin’s costumes.
Adapted from James Hadley Chase’s eponymous novel Losey’s film follows the vicissitudes of Eva (Jeanne Moreau), an enigmatic prostitute ardently desired by Tyvian Jones (Stanley Baker), a Welshman who has recounted his experiences as a coal miner in a successful novel, turned into a film starring Francesca (Virna Lisi), Tyvian's girlfriend.
Throughout the film Eva teases, torments and even whips Tyvian, annihilating him.
Eva doesn’t love anybody but herself and ends up destroying all the men - especially the weaker ones - she meets.
Yet Tyvian can’t do without her because, apart from symbolising infidelity, physical urge, power and the tension between the sexes, Eva also embodies his unfair success.
Indeed, as Tyvian confesses to her, he hasn’t even written the novel that made him so popular and he has never worked as a miner.
No character ends up winning the audience’s heart in this film, but Moreau is an absolutely fascinating femme fatale, a sort of monster who plays with Tyvian's obsession for her, dramatically departing one day, accepting to meet him again another and basically driving him crazy.
The main themes of the film - adultery, sex, gambling, drinking and fraud - meant that Losey’s
original cut, running at 155 minutes, was butchered by the
producers who reduced it to 103 minutes.
A few cuts were later restored, further cuts were made, but the process turned Losey's Eva into his most censored film (at present an almost complete version of the film is available on DVD from Kino).
As I said, one of my favourite things about this film is Di Venanzo’s photography.
Di Venanzo was born like me in the Abruzzo region, but I'm not just fond of him because of his origins.
I just love his work because he was a very talented cinematographer.
Despite being tragic, I like a lot the scene in which Tyvian is standing on a funeral gondola next to Francesca's coffin.
Di Venanzo managed to capture all the sadness of Venice through a few striking and haunting details, such as the wooden angel painted in gold that stands on the gondola or the black and thick water of the Venetian Grand Canal.
Losey’s camera lingers on these details revealing also the director's obsession in this film for particular objects, textures and materials.
Eva features indeed quite a few elaborate settings that are always full of objects from the marble eggs Eva collects to mirrors and masks, paintings and Baroque pieces of furniture.
All these elements contribute to creating the perfect set for the wealthy, self-indulgent, gambling and party-loving characters in the film (among the guest stars there is also Peggy Guggenheim filmed while playing at the Venice casino in her trademark glasses).
In the book Losey on Losey, edited and introduced by Tom Milne, Losey states about Eva: “I wanted to make her a woman who said virtually nothing but whom one sensed through the way she dressed, where she lived, what she had round her house, how she behaved privately, what she read, where she went when she was alone, etc. And there were a good many other sequences planned for the picture which are not there, including her visit to a confessional in the Catholic church – without words, nothing was ever said.”
This statement is of vital importance as Eva doesn't speak that much in the film, but her personality is essentially made by the clothes she wears.
The wardrobe for fiercely seductive and Billie Holiday-addicted Eva (she compulsively listens to one track sung by Billie Holiday, "Willow Weep for Me" that turns into her own soundtrack), was chosen in October 1961as these vintage pictures taken from Italian magazine Oggi show.
All the designs picked for the film were by Pierre Cardin and were rather smart.
Moreau looks a bit like a femme fatale in her leather jacket and pleated skirt (6th pic in this post), but in the other images she doesn't look as vicious as Eva.
All the skirt suits featured in the film (fifth and seventh picture in this post - houndstooth and brown Shetland wool versions) were characterised by cropped jackets with large buttons and one rosette, a rather popular design for the Autumn/Winter 1962-63.
The cocooning houndstooth cape was in perfect Parisian style, while the most of the elegant design picked for the film was an evening dress in pink brocade with a skirt decorated with little crystal beads.
Cardin had a true predilection for indulging in quite beautiful textiles and this in a way reflects Losey's passion for flamboyant costumes and rich settings.
Some of the frames in Eva call back to mind French movies from the Nouvelle Vague, but the more I look at these images of Moreau's wardrobe, the more I think about Fellini's La Dolce Vita or Antonioni’s chic existentialism.
I guess that if you really want to be a true and fierce femme fatale, you can't just behave like Eva, but must also own a wardrobe that somehow complements your behaviour (will have to remember this next time...).
Moreau, definitely had one, just watch Eva again to have the final proof about it.
Add to Technorati Favorites
Lijit Search
Comments