Dangerous Liaisons (2003)
A few weeks back, I mentioned the 2003 miniseries of Dangerous Liaisons on tumblr as one of my favorite film adaptations of a novel, with the note to myself that I should probably write a longer post on it. Teja responded that she’d like to hear more about it, and it’s taken me this long to remember to actually write something up. As far as I can tell, it is extremely underappreciated, and the more people’s attention I can bring it to, the better.
The film really should not work as well as it does. It’s a modernization, first of all, which people seem peculiarly fond of doing with Dangerous Liaisons - of the six film adaptations of the novel I have seen (wow, I didn’t realize it was so many, I am ridiculous), fully four of them were modernizations of some stripe. I normally don’t like this choice, and I thought the other three modernizations were, largely, banal and uninspired (the 1959 Roger Vadim one had its moments, but it was largely pretty forgettable), but, here, the main effect of the modernization was simply to take the focus away from the fancy period costumes and impending sense of historical irony which so overtake the 1988 Glenn Close/John Malkovich version and put it back on the characters and relationships which are the heart of the story. There were some moments when the 1960’s costumes (the whole thing is loosely set in that decade) made me giggle, but, on the whole, the modernization was intelligent and unobtrusive.
It appears to be a French/Canadian co-production, and, as a number of the actors spoke different languages, both English and French versions were created, with some of the actors dubbed in each of them. This should have been distracting, but somehow wasn’t very much. I watched the English version - I would like to get my hands on the French version as well to compare, especially since I believe it is longer.
What sets this adaptation apart is the gentleness and sympathy it gives to each of its characters. The 1988 film, as brilliant as many parts of it are, is fundamentally Valmont and Merteuil’s story - Tourvel, Cecile, and Danceny all fade to the background easily, alternately objects of ridicule and desire. We get this in the book, too - while I read it and felt a great deal of sympathy and attachment for Tourvel, is there anyone who doesn’t laugh a little at Cecile and Danceny, even as we feel sorry for their fates?
Not in this version. Cecile (played by Leelee Sobieski, who I have not seen in anything else) is innocent, yes, and naive, but she is fundamentally an intelligent young woman striving to find a safe and meaningful life for herself while surrounded by manipulative and dangerous people who all want to use her for their own ends. The writers made the very astute choice of making Cecile a pianist, an artist in her own right, and Danceny a violinist - no longer her tutor, he has become a fellow musician and collaborator. They play duets. As much as I was yelling at Danceny for his idiocy at certain points, this is the first version in which I actually wanted Cecile and Danceny to have a chance at happiness together.
Tourvel is played by Natassja Kinski with great sympathy and nuance as well as fragility. Her descent into depression and psychosis after Valmont’s abandonment, which can often come off as an excessive literary convention, was here very believable and wrenching.
It was absolutely not an easy film to watch - the believability of the characters made the whole thing almost unbearably painful, and the length of the film meant that it was all drawn out in an extremely intense way. I know this story like the back of my hand, and I was still on edge watching Merteuil’s slow manipulations of Cecile, waiting for Valmont to break with Tourvel. Valmont’s rape of Cecile and its aftermath were portrayed very realistically (nothing graphic - the intensity here is purely emotional), and after the scene in which Merteuil manipulates Cecile into staying with Valmont and not telling anyone about the assault I had to pause the film for a while and cry. Really, really upsetting.
But, ultimately, the respect afforded to the characters made this film, at least for me, a validating and meaningful experience. I come at Dangerous Liaisons from an intensely personal place (I read the book for the first time at fourteen, and was extremely overwhelmed because Merteuil reminded me so much of someone in my life at the time), and a lot of versions of it have been very triggering and infuriating (as I said above, I like a lot of things about the 1988 version, but the Valmont/Cecile scene makes me very angry; the 2008 production of the Christopher Hampton play, which I saw, was even worse in that respect). There was none of that here. Catherine Deneuve’s Merteuil was perhaps the element which drew the whole thing together best - soft spoken and reserved, with an air of gentle vulnerability rather of sharp, gleaming wit, I believed very much that she was a person who others would trust, confide in, rely upon. This wasn’t a Merteuil who exulted in triumph over her victims, but one who sat down beside them and gently offered sympathy, feeding off of their distress. It was terrifying, and felt extremely real.
(I realize that I haven’t mentioned Rupert Everett’s Valmont - he was quite good, though I thought he was going to be too absurd when I started the film, but he was just so overshadowed by the performances of the three main women that I don’t have as much to say about him. Pretty good job at once making believable Valmont’s apathetic cruelty and genuine love for Tourvel.)
I recommend it, highly, to anyone who likes the original, but definitely with the caveat that it is wrenching and difficult to watch, and deserves warnings for rape, coercion, every kind of manipulation and gaslighting imaginable, and suicide.
The film really should not work as well as it does. It’s a modernization, first of all, which people seem peculiarly fond of doing with Dangerous Liaisons - of the six film adaptations of the novel I have seen (wow, I didn’t realize it was so many, I am ridiculous), fully four of them were modernizations of some stripe. I normally don’t like this choice, and I thought the other three modernizations were, largely, banal and uninspired (the 1959 Roger Vadim one had its moments, but it was largely pretty forgettable), but, here, the main effect of the modernization was simply to take the focus away from the fancy period costumes and impending sense of historical irony which so overtake the 1988 Glenn Close/John Malkovich version and put it back on the characters and relationships which are the heart of the story. There were some moments when the 1960’s costumes (the whole thing is loosely set in that decade) made me giggle, but, on the whole, the modernization was intelligent and unobtrusive.
It appears to be a French/Canadian co-production, and, as a number of the actors spoke different languages, both English and French versions were created, with some of the actors dubbed in each of them. This should have been distracting, but somehow wasn’t very much. I watched the English version - I would like to get my hands on the French version as well to compare, especially since I believe it is longer.
What sets this adaptation apart is the gentleness and sympathy it gives to each of its characters. The 1988 film, as brilliant as many parts of it are, is fundamentally Valmont and Merteuil’s story - Tourvel, Cecile, and Danceny all fade to the background easily, alternately objects of ridicule and desire. We get this in the book, too - while I read it and felt a great deal of sympathy and attachment for Tourvel, is there anyone who doesn’t laugh a little at Cecile and Danceny, even as we feel sorry for their fates?
Not in this version. Cecile (played by Leelee Sobieski, who I have not seen in anything else) is innocent, yes, and naive, but she is fundamentally an intelligent young woman striving to find a safe and meaningful life for herself while surrounded by manipulative and dangerous people who all want to use her for their own ends. The writers made the very astute choice of making Cecile a pianist, an artist in her own right, and Danceny a violinist - no longer her tutor, he has become a fellow musician and collaborator. They play duets. As much as I was yelling at Danceny for his idiocy at certain points, this is the first version in which I actually wanted Cecile and Danceny to have a chance at happiness together.
Tourvel is played by Natassja Kinski with great sympathy and nuance as well as fragility. Her descent into depression and psychosis after Valmont’s abandonment, which can often come off as an excessive literary convention, was here very believable and wrenching.
It was absolutely not an easy film to watch - the believability of the characters made the whole thing almost unbearably painful, and the length of the film meant that it was all drawn out in an extremely intense way. I know this story like the back of my hand, and I was still on edge watching Merteuil’s slow manipulations of Cecile, waiting for Valmont to break with Tourvel. Valmont’s rape of Cecile and its aftermath were portrayed very realistically (nothing graphic - the intensity here is purely emotional), and after the scene in which Merteuil manipulates Cecile into staying with Valmont and not telling anyone about the assault I had to pause the film for a while and cry. Really, really upsetting.
But, ultimately, the respect afforded to the characters made this film, at least for me, a validating and meaningful experience. I come at Dangerous Liaisons from an intensely personal place (I read the book for the first time at fourteen, and was extremely overwhelmed because Merteuil reminded me so much of someone in my life at the time), and a lot of versions of it have been very triggering and infuriating (as I said above, I like a lot of things about the 1988 version, but the Valmont/Cecile scene makes me very angry; the 2008 production of the Christopher Hampton play, which I saw, was even worse in that respect). There was none of that here. Catherine Deneuve’s Merteuil was perhaps the element which drew the whole thing together best - soft spoken and reserved, with an air of gentle vulnerability rather of sharp, gleaming wit, I believed very much that she was a person who others would trust, confide in, rely upon. This wasn’t a Merteuil who exulted in triumph over her victims, but one who sat down beside them and gently offered sympathy, feeding off of their distress. It was terrifying, and felt extremely real.
(I realize that I haven’t mentioned Rupert Everett’s Valmont - he was quite good, though I thought he was going to be too absurd when I started the film, but he was just so overshadowed by the performances of the three main women that I don’t have as much to say about him. Pretty good job at once making believable Valmont’s apathetic cruelty and genuine love for Tourvel.)
I recommend it, highly, to anyone who likes the original, but definitely with the caveat that it is wrenching and difficult to watch, and deserves warnings for rape, coercion, every kind of manipulation and gaslighting imaginable, and suicide.