Le souffle au cœur
| Murmur of the Heart | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Louis Malle |
| Produced by | Vincent Malle Claude Nedjar |
| Written by | Louis Malle |
| Starring |
Benoît Ferreux, Lea Massari |
| Music by |
Gaston Frèche Charlie Parker Henri Renaud |
| Cinematography | Ricardo Aronovich |
| Edited by | Suzanne Baron |
| Distributed by | Orion Classics |
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Release date
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April 28, 1971 (France) October 20, 1971 (Italy) |
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Running time
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118 minutes |
| Country | France Italy West Germany |
| Language | French |
Murmur of the Heart (French: Le souffle au cœur) is a 1971 French film by French director Louis Malle and starring Lea Massari, Benoît Ferreux and Daniel Gélin. Written as Malle's semi-autobiography, the film tells a coming of age story about a 14-year-old boy growing up in bourgeois surroundings in post-World War II Dijon, France, with a complex relationship with his Italian mother.
The film was screened at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival and was a box office success in France. In the United States, it received positive reviews and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Laurent Chevalier is a nearly 15-year-old boy living in Dijon in 1954, who loves jazz, always receives the highest grades in his class and who opposes the First Indochina War. He has an unloving father who is a gynecologist, an affectionate Italian mother, Clara, and two older brothers, Thomas and Marc. One night, Thomas and Marc take Laurent to a brothel, where Laurent loses his virginity to a prostitute before they are disrupted by his drunken brothers. Upset, he leaves on a scouting trip, where he catches scarlet fever and is left with a heart murmur.
After Laurent is bedridden and cared for and entertained by Clara and their maid Augusta, he and Clara check into a hotel while he receives treatment at a sanatorium. He takes interest in two young girls at the hotel, Helene and Daphne, and also spies on his mother in the bathtub. Clara temporarily leaves with her lover, but comes back distraught after their breakup, and is comforted by her son. After a night of heavy drinking on Bastille Day, Laurent and Clara have sex. Clara tells him afterwards that this incest will not be repeated, but that they should not look back on it with remorse. Afterwards, Laurent leaves their room, and after unsuccessfully trying to seduce Helene, spends the night with Daphne.
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Wikipedia