The Soft Skin

Starring:Laurence Badie, Nelly Benedetti, Carnero, Daniel Ceccaldi, Jean Desailly, FranÃ§oise DorlÃ©ac, Philippe Dumat, Catherine-Isabelle Duport, Paule Emanuele, Maurice Garrel, MaximiliÃ¨nne Harlaut, Sabine Haudepin, Dominique LacarriÃ¨re, Jean Lanier, Charles Lavialle, Olivia Poli, ThÃ©rÃ¨se Renouard, Pierre Risch, Brigitte Zhendre-Laforest
Studio: Fox Lorber
Product Type: DVD

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François Truffaut's cool, creamy-smooth melodrama of a doomed affair sets the lush romanticism of exciting indiscretion in a world where sudden stabs of ominous music hint at a tragedy in the making. Jean Desailly is a famous literary critic and publisher who becomes entranced with the lithe, strikingly beautiful flight attendant (Françoise Dorleac) who keeps crisscrossing his path while he's away on a speaking engagement. He's middle-aged, successful, and seemingly happily married with a wife and daughter, but he plunges ahead with an affair, careful to avoid friends and familiar places. The Soft Skin is not really a thriller, but Truffaut invests it with Hitchcockian echoes of guilt and fear of discovery, and he meticulously plots scenes with the precision of a heist film. Pulling back the veneer of chic elegance and attractive confidence, Desailly emerges not so much sordid as vain and pathetic, and his wife (Nelly Benedetti) comes into her own with her heartbreaking discovery of his lies. At once angry, hurt, and threatened, she grasps at reconciliation while sabotaging her own efforts with frustrated attacks. It's an unusual film with sudden changes in tone that do little to prepare the viewer for the dark climax: the tragic side of Truffaut's fascination with philandering men that runs throughout his career. Fans will recognize the scene with the kitten who licks off the plate set out for room service--he re-created it in Day for Night. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews:

At least she shoots him and not herself........2006-12-21

Watched Truffaut's "Soft Skin" last night. Left a chalky aftertaste in my mouth although I think it might be one of Trouffaut's best films. Let me summarize the plot:
Successful, married, middle-age academic sleeps with stewardess he meets en route to a symposium in Lisbon. Continues to sleep with her when he returns to Paris as, like most men, he doesn't want o eat turkey sandwich every night of his life. Is it love? He thinks so. My observation: midlife crisis, bored with success and complacency of domestic life. Wife confronts him, he lies and blames her on making a scene, she apologizes, he moves out. Continues to tell her that there is not another woman. Girlfriend dumps him (she is smart enough to figure out he still loves his wife and will bore with her.) His wife finds the photos of him and the girlfriend on vacation. She hasn't had one, a vacation that is, in five years. She shoots him. (At least she shoots him and not herself.) [...]

Truffaut's soft touch.......2006-03-06

La Peau Douce/The Soft Skin is a very pleasant surprise indeed. There's a tendency in much of Truffauts' later work to be over-literate, often throwing in narration that plays more like a prose recital than thought or dialog to convey what he should be doing without it, but there's none of that here. Instead, its illicit romance is told in purely cinematic terms and telling details and, despite the potentially hackneyed material, plays beautifully, whether its the title sequence of two hands caressing in the darkness, a mix-up with room keys as a prelude to seduction or the kitten and the breakfast tray that would make such a memorable comeback in Day for Night.

There's humor and humanity there too, and the hero's painful fallibility on his disastrous dirty weekend in Reihms is one of the great don't-know-whether-to-laugh-or-to-cry moments. The ending seems a bit contrived and unlikely despite being based on an actual incident, but he somehow manages to pull that off too.

Sadly, while the UK DVD includes an excellent commentary from co-writer Jean-Louis Richard and archive interviews with Truffaut and Francois Dorleac, this R1 disc comes only with trailers for various truffaut titles.

death-like beauty.......2005-10-20

Due to its prominent Sixties love ethics, black and white 'La peau douce' shows a little old-fashioned now. Nevertheless Francois Truffaut convincingly leads you through all its awkward complications, resulting from a husband-with-a-mistress. Lets you really feel every bit of tense & pain involved.

In retrospect the main fascination of this movie is to be found in the death-like beauty of its female lead Francoise Dorleac. Due to a deathly car-accident in 1967, Dorleac's movie-career was short -- yet long enough to make everyone regret the waste of her great talent. A talent in beauty, in acting, as well as in dancing.

It's all in 'La peau douce' (= the soft skin). Have yourself carried back to Sixties-Paris, and enjoy the full deploy of Dorleac's impressive capacities.

Keeps you simultaneously glued to the narrative and fearful of the outcome........2005-10-14

Both intriguing and frustrating - the latter because you want to reach into the screen and slap the protagonist on the side of the head. The plot seems to go mostly nowhere, yet is thoroughly engrossing. Character development is not thorough, but situational development is both thorough and meticulous. A great psychological exposition. Unfortunately, almost no extras.

All that Matters is The Soft Skin of The Woman You Love.......2004-06-07

When this film was released in 1964 it bombed commercially and was critically panned in every quarter, even booed at the Cannes Film Festival. Retrospective overviews and a more enlightened appreciation of Truffaut's entire body of work as a unit has done some good in enhancing its reputation, although not enough.

Truffaut was still being justly commended for his beautiful masterpiece JULES ET JIM when LA PEAU DUCE premiered, and the derision it met with can be attributed to the unfounded notion that a director cannot follow one "tour de force" with another. Reluctance and wariness greeted the film's sombre tone and downbeat ending. LA PEAU DUCE was not allowed to breathe, and therefore not allowed to intoxicate and energize its audience. Ultimately what its detractors failed to realize was that great artists do not make bad art.

The film concerns writer Pierre (Jean Desailly) and his infatuation with air stewardess Nicole (Francoise Dorleac) whom he meets on a matter of fact flight from Paris to Lisbon. Fascinated, the Balzac aficionado leaves his sensually lovely wife (Nelly Benedetti) and daughter (played to our delight by little Sabine of JULES ET JIM) in order to commit himself totally to Nicole, only to meet with unforeseen ruin.

The role of Pierre is a somewhat unsympathetic one and, although played superbly by Desailly, he would later claim that it thwarted his career. As in all of Truffaut's films, it is the complete rebuttal of machismo that serves to humanize our male protagonist - unable to consult with his common sense when touched by the Soft Skin - and also to reinforce the potent femininity of our heroine; she who lives her life from one moment to the next, engaging her most endearing whims impulsively and without the consideration of consequence.

The film's greatest performance is that of Francoise Dorleac. The sister of Catherine Deneuve, she shares with her sibling the most striking and intelligent beauty ever to grace the cinema. But where Deneuve's icy sensuality make her the perfect anti-heroine of Bunuel's BELLE DE JOUR and Truffaut's own MISSISSIPPI MERMAID (another stroke of genius from Truffaut that is sorely underrated), Dorleac's allure is one of warmth and exuberance. She smiles with her whole body, joyously and completely unaffected. This film is one of only three worthy showcases of the flair of this great enigma. She is most beautifully photographed in Polanski's ingenious CUL DE SAC, where she is visceral, fearless and elegant; and in Jacques Demy's gorgeous and effervescent LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT, the world's most beautiful sisters share the screen for what surely would not have been the only time, had not Dorleac's life been tragically cut short before her prime.

Indeed, one of Truffaut's key cinematic virtues was in directing actresses, women with whom he almost always fell in love, just as we fall in love in front of the screen. His mantra, evoking that of Jean Renoir, was that the actor take total precedence over the character. Women who are formidable, beautiful and enigmatic do not need to invoke these charms through performance. Thus in JULES ET JIM Catherine is Jeanne Moreau; in SUCH A GORGEOUS KID LIKE ME Camille is Bernadette Lafont; and in LA PEAU DUCE Nicole is Francoise Dorleac.

There is not a single shot in this film that is showy, affected or unnecessary. It is directed with such concise brilliance and tact - and by such a young man - that it can only be marvelled at. Witness Desailly's curious observation of Dorleac's feet as she changes footwear; His removal of her stockings while she sleeps (a scene relived by Truffaut with Belmondo and Deneuve in MISSISSIPPI MERMAID); And the succinct and callous manner in which the camera follows a telephone conversation - evidence of Truffaut's skilfulness in using seemingly inane components to create cinematic mastery and beauty.

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Customer Reviews:

At least she shoots him and not herself........2006-12-21

Truffaut's soft touch.......2006-03-06

death-like beauty.......2005-10-20

Keeps you simultaneously glued to the narrative and fearful of the outcome........2005-10-14

All that Matters is The Soft Skin of The Woman You Love.......2004-06-07

Product Description

France released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. LANGUAGES: English (Mono), French (Mono), French (Subtitles), WIDESCREEN (1.66:1), SYNOPSIS: Francois Truffaut directed this simple tale of revenge and adultery which features an exceptional musical score by Georges Delerue. The story concerns a love affair between successful literary magazine editor Pierre Lachenay (Jean Desailly) and alluring airline stewardess, Nicole Chomette (Francoise Dorleac). They meet on a flight to Lisbon, where Pierre is scheduled to deliver a lecture. When he returns to Paris, they continue their affair, but find it is difficult to set up their clandestine trysts, so Pierre arranges a lecture trip to Riems, where they can be together. In Riems however, Pierre finds it difficult to keep the affair a secret from his lecture sponsors. Upon his return to Paris, his wife Franca (Nelly Benedetti), suspicious her husband is having an affair, quarrels with Pierre, who leaves her and asks Nicole to marry him. Nicole refuses his proposition and Pierre attempts to reconcile with his wife. But Nelly, with a gun in her bag, is en route to surprise Pierre at his favorite restaurant for a final confrontation. SPECIAL FEATURES: Trailer(s), Interactive Menu, Documentary, Commentary, Cast/Crew Interview(s),