LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE

Bresson’s second feature film and his last to use professional actors, LES DAMES DU BOIS DU BOULOGNE is a true collaboration, with screenwriter Jean Cocteau’s brittle dialogue played off the director’s elegant, distilled, but not yet “transcendental” style. Adapted from an episode in Diderot’s 18th-century novel "Jacques le fataliste" and updated to present-day Paris, this compelling drama of love and hate centers on a jilted woman (a memorably venomous Casarès) who plots revenge by maneuvering her ex (Bernard) to marry a prostitute (Elina Labourdette). In French with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)