Bonjour Tristesse

Cecile is an orphaned young woman who spends time with her father on the French Riviera. The arrival of Anne, her mother's friend, undermines Cecile's relationship with her father and his relationship with his girlfriend. Françoise Sagan's novel "Bonjour tristesse" was a literary sensation in France in the 1950s. Otto Preminger's adaptation was created in the heart of mainstream Hollywood during years of harsh conservative discipline. Nevertheless, Preminger asserts a great deal of audacity in the film: the cinematography ranges from polished black and white to the bright use of Cinemascope colors, with a Mediterranean summer color palette: red, blue, yellow, green, and white. He forms Cecile's relationship with her father without blinking, with explicit sexual innuendos, aided by David Niven's frigid presence and, above all, Jane Seberg, with a boyish performance that ranges from naive to monstrous. Although this is a melodrama faithful to its time, it is impossible not to feel that the formal refinements, Seberg's presence, and the sense of permissiveness - all seem to foreshadow Breathless and the New Wave that will follow it.