Vice and virtue

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Movie
German title Vice and virtue
Original title Le Vice et la Vertu
Country of production France , Italy
original language French
Publishing year 1963
length 108 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Roger Vadim
script Roger Vadim,
Claude Choublier ,
Roger Vailland
production Roger Vadim,
Alain Poiré
music Michel Magne
camera Marcel Grignon
cut Victoria Mercanton
occupation

Vice and Virtue (Original title: Le Vice et la Vertu ) is a French - Italian film drama directed by Roger Vadim with Annie Girardot and Catherine Deneuve from 1963. As a literary work, the novel served Justine (1787) of de Marquis de Sade , the The plot was moved to the time of the Second World War .

action

France 1944: The virtuous Justine wants to marry the Resistance fighter Jean. When he was arrested by the Gestapo on the day of the wedding , she went to Juliette, her vicious sister and collaborator of the German occupation forces, in a hotel that had been converted into a brothel to ask her for help. Juliette, who has meanwhile become the mistress of General von Bamberg, is unwilling to comply with Justine's request. Since Jean still manages to escape, Justine mistakenly believes that Juliette and the general helped him. She therefore feels obliged to go to her and thank her.

The disgraced General von Bamberg is meanwhile poisoned by the unscrupulous SS Colonel Erik Schörndorf. Juliette, who witnessed the murder, makes a pact with Schörndorf and eventually becomes his lover. While she is following Schörndorf to Berlin , Justine, who Schörndorf has seen with her sister, is arrested. She ends up in a castle in Tyrol, where she and other young women are forced to sexually serve high-ranking Nazis. The women who refuse to obey the lords of the castle are tortured to death.

When the Third Reich threatened to lose the war on all fronts, Schörndorf tried in vain to negotiate with the Allies. Together with Juliette, he finally also arrives at the castle, where he tries to live out his brutal tendencies. When Juliette finds her sister in a sadistic drama in the castle, she wants to help her escape. But Justine refuses. She would rather share the fate of her fellow sufferers. When American troops approach the castle, the Nazi giants try to flee. In order to save herself, Juliette wants to pretend to be a prisoner. However, she is poisoned by Schörndorf, who in turn is shot by the Americans. Justine and some of her companions manage to join their liberators.

background

Fénelon Castle, where the film was set

Director Roger Vadim and Catherine Deneuve , who had her first major film role in Vice and Virtue , were a couple during the filming. Their son Christian Vadim was born in the same year. It was Vadim, who had already made Brigitte Bardot a star, who insisted that the actually brunette Deneuve should dye her hair blonde for her role in order to underline Justine's innocent and virtuous character. It was through the film that the director Jacques Demy became aware of Deneuve and then cast her in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964).

The filming locations were the Hôtel Lutetia in Paris, the Château de la Treyne in the Lot department and the Fénelon Castle near Sainte-Mondane . Vice and Virtue hit French cinemas on March 1, 1963. The first performance in Germany took place on December 26, 1963.

Reviews

In the New York Times , the film critic Eugene Archer wrote at the time that Roger Vadim had "a certain talent for the lurid". The film is "one of his failures", but he still shows the hand of the "wild young" director "in a characteristic way". The lexicon of international films described vice and virtue as "a rather hollow and pseudo-moral experiment, also not very productive from a political point of view".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. filmsdefrance.com
  2. ↑ “Roger Vadim has a certain flair for the lurid. Vice and Virtue is one of his failures, but it reveals the wild young French director in characteristic form. " Eugene Archer: Roger Vadim's 'Vice and Virtue' Opens at Apollo Theater . In: The New York Times , March 18, 1965.
  3. ↑ Vice and virtue. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 4, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used