Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
Valmont (1989)
Cruel Intentions (1999)
In the past twenty years, three films showcasing some of Hollywood's finest
actors have borrowed the same unlikely source material: Choderlos de Laclos'
1782 novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the story of a group of decadent
French aristocrats whose licentious games bring many to ruin. Though the book
had been filmed before -- Roger Vadim's 1959 movie starred Jeanne Moreau and
Gerard Philipe as a couple of nouvelle Parisian swingers -- the inspiration
for the revival was Christopher Hampton's 1985 stage play based on Laclos' novel,
which won rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic and proved that the source
material had not become dated despite its age.
Because the story of Les Liaisons Dangereuses unfolds entirely via letters
written among the characters with no omniscient author intervention, the novel
offers great subjectivity of interpretation -- not only about who should be
considered the protagonists and who the villains, but about the significance
of events and even, in some cases, what actually happened. The reader must decide
which letters to accept as the "true" accounts and which to dismiss. It becomes
clear that regardless of their moral virtues, some of the narrators can be trusted
more than others. Predatory Merteuil makes pithy, vivid observations about the
other characters, while clueless Madame de Volanges misconstrues the motives
of everyone. Since Volanges writes the final letter gossiping about the fates
of the other characters, the conclusion is thrown into doubt; indeed, one is
tempted to believe the opposite of what Volanges reports, given her previous
naiveté.
But the films unfold along linear timelines, leaving far less room for spectators
to reinterpret events. Thus, each of the four movies mentioned here has a different
ending, and the play Les Liaisons Dangereuses differs from Dangerous
Liaisons even though Hampton wrote the screenplay for that film based on
his own script. In addition, the characterizations vary in the two period dramas,
though the aristocrats' actions remain fairly consistent. Cruel Intentions,
set in the late 1990s when it was also produced, more closely parallels Dangerous
Liaisons than the source novel, though its young characters look to be the
ages of the stars of Valmont and of Laclos' youthful aristocrats rather
than the mature adults of Frears' film.
The story in each of the three films begins with the Marquise de Merteuil discovering
that her former lover plans to marry a well-born virgin -- Merteuil's protégée
Cécile, the daughter of her acquaintance Madame de Volanges. The Marquise
realized at a young age that the only way for a woman to have power was by manipulating
the reputations of others; she attempts to enlist her dear friend and onetime
beloved Valmont to seduce Cécile, which will humiliate the man who left
her. But Valmont has already set a challenge for himself. He wants to make love
to the virtuous beauty Madame de Tourvel. Merteuil and Valmont make a bet: if
he can succeed with Tourvel, the Marquise will reward him with sexual favors,
and meanwhile will count on his assistance in ruining Cécile's reputation
by encouraging her crush on her music teacher, Danceny.
Upon discovering that Volanges has warned Tourvel away from him, the angry Valmont
seduces Volanges' daughter, enlisting Merteuil's help to convince Cécile
that he can teach her how to please Danceny. Then Valmont maneuvers Tourvel
into bed, confessing to Merteuil that he's very nearly in love with his prey.
Merteuil taunts Valmont into breaking up with the other woman, but he longs
to woo Tourvel back. Jealous and disgusted, Merteuil refuses to make love with
Valmont, claiming that Danceny is more man than he is; she then alerts Danceny
to Valmont's relationship with Cécile, leading the younger man to challenge
the elder to a duel. Envy and fury lead to bloodshed, though some of the victims
differ in each film.
Merteuil is not meant to be a heroine, yet in all three films she's an unforgettable
force. (This is true, as well, in the novel.) Merteuil's early letters to Valmont
function like a diary, for Valmont's status is partly the Marquise's invention,
and in writing to him she sees herself and her power reflected. The reader as
well as Valmont is seduced by her, invited into her intimacy and asked to share
as accomplice as well as voyeur in her schemes. Valmont, too, hides little from
the Marquise but, as she points out, Valmont is adept enough at deceiving himself
that he occasionally misinterprets the actions of others. He fails to foresee,
for example, how much Cécile will resent him after surrendering her virginity.
The other characters, though honest in varying degrees, prove more gullible
to the suggestions of others. Cecile and Danceny continually express their frustration
that their youth and inexperience lead them into foolish actions, while Valmont's
aunt Madame de Rosemonde explains that, at her age, she continues to expect
better morals than those she finds around her. Volanges has no sense of the
intrigues taking place under her own roof, and Tourvel allows desires to cloud
her judgement even when she witnesses Valmont's infidelities first-hand. Only
Merteuil offers consistent views of the events as they unfold, for she pulls
the strings which control the other characters as well as herself. Not her objectivity
but her subjectivity makes her seem the most intelligent, focused character.
In the 18th century, letter-writing was one of the principal vehicles for women
to influence public opinion, as well as the main literary form in which women
could participate equally. Published in Paris only seven years before the French
Revolution, the scandalous Les Liaisons Dangereuses -- which was rumored
to be not a work of fiction but a collection of letters actually circulated
concerning true events -- picked up not only on the popular obsession with aristocratic
evils but on the reading public's fascination with the spread of rumor through
circulated letters. These sentiments are mirrored in modern society by popular
obsession with the decadence of movie stars. The box office successes Dangerous
Liaisons and Cruel Intentions each star a group of actors who have
become as famous as brand names: Glenn Close, Michelle Pfeiffer, Keanu Reeves,
Uma Thurman, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon.
Forman's cast was less known when he made his movie; Colin Firth had not yet
become famous for numerous costume dramas, and Annette Bening had not yet become
Mrs. Warren Beatty, though Meg Tilly and Jeffrey Jones were both respected and
award-nominated actors. Forman chose to portray the aristocrats as younger and
more frivolous than in the other movies and the novel, which has the effect
of making his film seem less weighty, yet shifts the focus to offer insight
into the class and gender conflicts that fuel the story. Sexual histories are
discussed openly at crowded dining tables, and no one seems shocked when Cecile
publicly announces her desire to marry one man and keep another as a lover.
"Private" letters are shown not to be so, as nearly every character can be seen
through the correspondence of others. While Valmont usurps the Marquise's principal
role and becomes the tragic hero of the film, none of Forman's women are judged
for their actions. They gather in the end at a wedding and, though none appears
likely to live happily ever after, they all seem content with the positions
in which their maneuverings have left them.
Hampton's play Les Liaisons Dangereuses ends with the shadow of the guillotine
falling across the stage, though in the moment, Merteuil plays chess and enjoys
the return of her control. In the film version, the Revolutionary darkness has
yet touched her, though she is more pensive, more aware of the costs of her
brutal actions. Frears seems more interested in catching the nuances of Merteuil's
clothes and makeup than her words. She is the object of the viewer's gaze, not
its director as in the novel. The film leaves nothing to the imagination --
not the faces, not the clothing, not even naked bodies. It isn't open-ended
like the novel; again, Valmont takes on the role of tragic hero, but where Forman
made him the scapegoat for the extravagance of all the characters, Frears turns
the blame back toward Merteuil.
In Dangerous Liaisons, Glenn Close echoed her more infamous role as a
blonde aggressor in Fatal Attraction, earning another Academy Award nomination
for her smiling cruelty and cutting wit. Co-stars John Malkovich (Valmont) and
Michelle Pfeiffer (Tourvel) also gave memorable performances as the illicit
lovers, but they made just as many headlines by having an affair during production
-- a situation later paralleled by Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon, who
fell in love and conceived a child while playing the Valmont and Tourvel characters
in Cruel Intentions. Just as 18th-century French readers were tempted
to take the upper-class excesses of Les Liaisons Dangereuses as reality,
contemporary viewers can enjoy the same sort of gossip about celebrities.
What Phillippe and Witherspoon lack in the mature sophistication of Malkovich
and Pfeiffer, they make up for in style. Phillippe at times seems deliberately
to be echoing Malkovich's performance in Dangerous Liaisons, particularly
in his treatment of Cécile and his painful love for Merteuil. Similarly,
Kumble's stylized dialogue echoes Hampton line for line in places; it's a gutsy
move to pay homage to such a recent adaptation, but it pays off, for if it weren't
made obvious that the modern film should be taken as a period piece of sorts,
the theatrical behavior of the protagonists might seem ludicrous. Instead, although
they're not really believable, the characters come across with the grandeur
of tragedy as well as the humor of youthful spontaneity.
The sublime Sarah Michelle Gellar takes the role of Merteuil and makes it her
own. Though she's best known as the tough heroine of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
she proves, as Merteuil, that she can bite, too. Not quite the bitch that Glenn
Close creates in Dangerous Liaisons, the resentments of Gellar's Merteuil
stem from absent parents, boys who reject her eager sexuality in favor of naïve
bimbos, and the need to maintain a façade of propriety and purity to
get good grades and hold an office at school. By turns witty and vicious, young
Merteuil snaps out Heathers-like insults with more polish and even fewer
morals than the titular girls of that film. "Be her Captain Picard, Valmont...boldly
go where no man has gone before," she implores in regard to Cécile. If
Valmont loses the bet to bed the virgin, Merteuil wants his Jaguar as her consolation
prize.
Despite her constrained position as a woman in a society that punishes female
sexual aggressiveness to this day, Merteuil's power remains formidable. At no
time does any character have power over her that she does not grant. The virtue
of a woman does not rest physically in her body, but in her control over public
discussion of it; a girl needs not a hymen but a good reputation to maintain
her status as a virgin. If the various versions of Les Liaisons Dangereuses
offer any clear any message, it is that what people do influences their reputations
less than what they say and what is said about them by others. But in the end,
gossip and spying are their own rewards; those outside the scenario, looking
in with horrified delight as the rich and famous attempt to seduce and destroy
one another, are the real winners.
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