Belle de Jour

About Belle de Jour

"Belle de Jour" is a 1967 drama by Spanish director Luis Buñuel. The plot centers around Séverine Serizy, a young and beautiful housewife, who confronts her unfulfilled carnal desire through strange daydreams and an affair with a brothel. She finds herself living a double life - been a loving wife by night and a high-class prostitute by day, a dual existence she manages to keep concealed from her husband.

Making / Production

The film was produced by Robert and Raymond Hakim and directed by Luis Buñuel. The screenplay was written by Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière, based on the 1928 novel of the same name by Joseph Kessel. The film is a fascinating mix of Buñuel's distinctive surrealist style and a more conventional narrative structure.

Actors

• Catherine Deneuve as Séverine Serizy / Belle de Jour: Deneuve flawlessly portrayed the duality of her character's settled domestic life and her secret life of erotic fantasies and high-class prostitution.
• Jean Sorel as Pierre Serizy: Sorel took on the role of Séverine's loving but somewhat oblivious husband, delivering a sensitive and nuanced performance.
• Michel Piccoli as Henri Husson: Playing the role of the manipulative and lurid Henri, Piccoli contributed significantly to the movie's deeply unsettling atmosphere.

Trivia / Interesting Facts

• The film's name "Belle de Jour" is a pun on the French term for a daylily, meaning "beauty of the day". The phrase also suggests a woman who works as a prostitute during the day.
• Catherine Deneuve's wardrobe for the film was designed by the famed fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.

Awards

"Belle de Jour" received the Golden Lion and the Pasinetti Award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival in 1967. More than three decades later, in 1995, the film was selected for preservation by the French National Center of Cinematography.

Quotes

• "For me, success is silence. The biggest satisfaction is disappearance, anonymity." - Catherine Deneuve, on Belle de Jour
• "If I had a fantasy, it would be to direct a film with the rigor of Buñuel." - Director Martin Scorsese on Belle de Jour

Music, Soundtrack

• The film's musical score was composed by the Grammy award-winning composer, Michel Legrand, who has worked with numerous prominent French directors. The soundtrack is often quiet and unobtrusive, yet it provides an eerily perfect backdrop for the film's surreal, dreamlike sequences.