Set in summertime on the Côte d'Azur, it is a drama of sexual jealousy and possessiveness. Both French and English-language versions of the film were made, with the actors filmed speaking English for the international release, which was unusual at a time when movies were always either dubbed or subtitled. The 114-minute international release, shorter than the French version, also had a slightly different editing.
Plot
Jean-Paul, a writer, and Marianne, his girlfriend of just over two years, are holidaying at a friend's villa near Saint-Tropez. There is a tension in their relationship which excites Marianne: the film begins with a scene in which they are together beside the villa's swimming pool and she urges him to scratch her back. He does as she asks, but then throws her into the pool and jumps in after her. In a later scene he takes a branch and uses it to lash her bare buttocks, playfully but with a force that increases as the scene cuts away.
Harry, an old friend and record producer who was Marianne's lover before Jean-Paul, arrives for a visit, surprising the couple by bringing along his 18-year-old daughter Penelope, whose existence they had not previously known about. Marianne, without asking Jean-Paul, invites Harry and Penelope to stay.
The four stay together and Harry draws Marianne back towards him as the days go by. Taunting Jean-Paul for having given up serious writing to work in advertising, Harry drinks a great deal and throws a surprise party while Jean-Paul, a recovering alcoholic, stays sober. Meanwhile, it becomes clear that Penelope neither likes nor respects her father, whom she has barely known while growing up. She and Jean-Paul become close and spend a day alone together by the sea.
That night, while the women are asleep, Harry drunkenly confronts Jean-Paul and accuses him of seducing Penelope to revenge his own shortcomings on his more successful friend. Trying to punch Jean-Paul, Harry falls into the pool and is too drunk to swim. Jean-Paul, who has also been drinking, at first stops him from climbing out of the water, then deliberately pushes Harry under and holds him down until he drowns. He covers up the crime by stripping Harry's clothes off and placing fresh trousers and a shirt at the poolside to make it look like an accident.
After the funeral, a policeman, Inspector Lévêque, visits the house more than once. He confides to Marianne his reasons for doubting the story of an accident, that Harry had been wearing his watch, which was expensive and not waterproof, and that there is no trace of sweat on the clothes he was supposed to have been wearing. When she tells Jean-Paul, he confesses everything to her, and she goes to see Harry's clothes, hidden in the cellar, that would have given him away. But when she does not take this evidence to the police, the inspector reluctantly suspends the inquiry.
Marianne takes Penelope to the airport and sees her off as she returns to her mother. When Penelope demands the truth about her father's death, Marianne assures her it really was an accident. She and Jean-Paul are then about to leave the villa when she tells him that they will not go together. She calls for a taxi but he places his hand on the telephone, cutting off her call and silencing her. In the end, neither leaves that day, and in the film's final shot they stand side by side looking out the window at the swimming pool, and then embrace.
The filming began August 19 and finished October 19, 1968.[5] French designer André Courrèges created many custom pieces for the film, such as the swimsuits worn by Schneider and Birkin.[6] It was the first of the nine films Delon and director Jacques Deray made together,[7] and the only one the star didn't produce. It also marked the onscreen reunion of a 60's 'couple mythique' Alain Delon and Romy Schneider.[8] Schneider had dramatically broken-up with Delon couple years earlier and married German director and actor Harry Meyen in Berlin.[9] She had a child. Delon asked the filmmaker to book her for this role. He continuously pursued her, both before and after filming "La Piscine", with persistent attempts to reconcile.[10] Despite Romy Schneider's refusals, their shared history and emotional connection spilled onto the screen, infusing the film with raw authenticity.[9]
It was during the making of this film that the Marković affair broke out.[11] The body of Stevan Marković, Delon's bodyguard, was discovered in a public dump in the village of Élancourt, Yvelines, on October 1, 1968.
Reception
It was the fourth most popular movie at the French box office in 1969.[12]
The movie was released in the UK as The Sinners to limited box office response. It was released in Italy with twenty minutes cut out, but was a popular success.[13]
The Los Angeles Times called it a "handsome, stunningly designed film" which was at its best in "the deft way in which it coolly depicts how beautiful, chic people, dedicated to a sophisticate, amoral view of love, can be utterly defenseless against an onslaught of passion – a favorite Gallic theme."[14]The Guardian wrote: "Erotic languour turns gradually into fear and then horror in this gripping and superbly controlled psychological thriller" where "something in the very lineaments of the pool itself creates their own awful destiny: it is a primordial swamp of desire, a space in which there is nothing to do but laze around, furtively looking at semi-naked bodies."[15]
La Piscine was restored and re-released in theaters during the summer of 2021, becoming a surprise hit. Scheduled to run at the Film Forum in New York for two weeks, it ended up running for 18 weeks, causing Glynnis MacNicol of The New York Times to declare: "If there is a film of New York’s 2021 summer, this may be it."[16] However, the film was "dismissed as gossip-column fodder in its time."[17]Glenn Kenny of The New York Times commented, "Pretty people behaving poorly in beautiful settings is something we don’t see as much of in cinema as we used to. This is a master class in the subgenre, and one of unusual depth."[18] Writing for The New Yorker, critic Richard Brody was less than enthusiastic about the film's 2021 revival. He noted, "I paid it little attention, in the hope that, given its dry and flimsy mediocrity, it would just blow away into the oblivion whence it emerged." He went on to declare the film a "faux-hip empty shell of faux modernity."[19]
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 95% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 19 reviews, with an average rating of 7.40/10.[20]
Alain Delon said in an interview that because his ex-lover Romy Schneider and good friend Maurice Ronet both died prematurely and under tragic circumstances, revisiting the film is simply too painful for him.[22]
Romy Schneider was a German-French actress. She is regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses of all time and became a cult figure due to her role as Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the hugely popular Sissi trilogy in the mid-1950s. Later reprised the role in a more mature version in Luchino Visconti's Ludwig (1973). She began her career in the German Heimatfilm genre in the early 1950s when she was 15. Schneider moved to France, where she made successful and critically acclaimed films with some of the most notable film directors of that era. Her performance in That Most Important Thing: Love is regarded as one of the greatest in the history of cinema. Coco Chanel called Romy “the ultimate incarnation of the ideal woman”
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon is a French actor, singer, filmmaker, and businessman. He was one of Europe's most prominent actors and screen sex symbols in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. In 1985, he won the César Award for Best Actor for his performance in Notre histoire (1984). In 1991, he became a member of France's Legion of Honour. At the 45th Berlin International Film Festival, he won the Honorary Golden Bear. At the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, he received the Honorary Palme d'Or.
Swimming Pool is a 2003 erotic thriller film co-written and directed by François Ozon and starring Charlotte Rampling and Ludivine Sagnier. The plot focuses on a British crime novelist, Sarah Morton, who travels to her publisher's upmarket summer house in Southern France to seek solitude in order to work on her next book. However, the arrival of Julie, who claims to be the publisher's daughter, induces complications and a subsequent crime. Both lead characters are bilingual, and the film's dialogue is a mixture of French and English.
The César Award for Best Actress is one of the César Awards, presented annually by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma to recognize the outstanding performance in a leading role of an actress who has worked within the French film industry during the year preceding the ceremony. Nominees and winner are selected via a run-off voting by all the members of the Académie.
Claude Sautet was a French film director and screenwriter.
Purple Noon is a 1960 crime thriller film starring Alain Delon, alongside Marie Laforêt and Maurice Ronet; Romy Schneider, Delon's girlfriend at the time, makes a brief cameo appearance in the film. Directed by René Clément, the French/Italian international co-production is loosely based on the 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. The majority of the film's dialogue is spoken in French, although there are brief sequences in Italian and English.
Jacques Deray was a French film director and screenwriter. Deray is prominently known for directing many crime and thriller films.
Maurice Ronet was a French film actor, director, and writer.
The Romy television award in honor of the German-born and naturalized French actress Romy Schneider, born in Vienna, was created in 1990 by the Austrian newspaper Kurier – or rather their movie reviewer Rudolf John, who also designed the 30.5 cm gilded trophy. It recalls a scene from the movie The Swimming Pool with Alain Delon, when Romy Schneider arranges her dress.. The award ceremony is conducted at the Hofburg in Vienna.
La Piscine may refer to:
Christine is a 1958 French period drama film, based on the 1894 play Liebelei (Flirtation) by Arthur Schnitzler. The film was directed by Pierre Gaspard-Huit and the title character was played by Romy Schneider. The cast included Alain Delon as a young lieutenant.
A swimming pool is an artificially enclosed body of water that can be used for swimming.
Borsalino is a 1970 French gangster film directed by Jacques Deray and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon and Catherine Rouvel. It was entered into the 20th Berlin International Film Festival. In 2009, Empire named it No. 19 in a poll of "The 20 Greatest Gangster Movies You've Never Seen… Probably". A sequel, Borsalino & Co., was released in 1974 with Alain Delon in the leading role. The film is based on real-life gangsters Paul Carbone and François Spirito, who collaborated with Nazi Germany during the occupation of France in World War II.
The Théâtre de Paris is a theatre located at 15, rue Blanche in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. It includes a second smaller venue, the Petit Théâtre de Paris.
Three Men to Kill is a French crime film released in 1980, directed by Jacques Deray, starring Alain Delon with Dalila Di Lazzaro. The screenplay is written by Jacques Deray, Alain Delon and Christopher Frank based on the novel Le Petit Bleu de la côte ouest by Jean-Patrick Manchette.
The Loner is a 1987 French crime film directed and co-written by Jacques Deray, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Pierre Malo, Michel Beaune and Pierre Vernier. It was the last in a series of commercial action films made by Belmondo, which started with 1975's The Night Caller and made him a powerhouse at the continental European box office.
Easy, Down There! is a 1971 French-Italian comedy film directed by Jacques Deray and starring Alain Delon, Paul Meurisse and Nathalie Delon.
A Bigger Splash is a 2015 psychological drama film directed by Luca Guadagnino and with a screenplay by David Kajganich from a story by Alain Page. Starring Tilda Swinton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Ralph Fiennes, and Dakota Johnson, the film is loosely based on the 1969 Jacques Deray film La Piscine and named after the 1967 David Hockney painting of the same name. It is the second instalment in Guadagnino's self-described Desire trilogy, following I Am Love (2009) and preceding Call Me by Your Name (2017). It competed for the Golden Lion at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival.
References
↑ "The Rest of Michel Legrand's Feather". Los Angeles Times. 15 March 1970. p.46.
↑ Berger, Helmut (2013). Ich. Die Autobiographie: Unter Mitarbeit von Holde Heuer. ISBN9783942822404.
↑ Roberts, Nesta (27 September 1973). "Case of conflict". The Guardian. p.17.
↑ "The World's Top Twenty Films". Sunday Times. London, England. 27 September 1970.
↑ Lee, Langley; Deray, Jacques (24 November 1970). "Bonnie and Clyde with garlic: Lee Langley interviews Alain Delon and Jacques Deray about Borsalino, the film they made together". The Guardian. London (UK). p.8.
↑ Thomas, Kevin (26 August 1970). "Love, Suspense in Swimming Pool". Los Angeles Times. p.14.
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