This was something of a personal film for director Vincente Minnelli, one of my favorite directors from the 40s/50s Hollywood scene. But I can't say it's a personal favorite of mine, basically because it was too much undermined by Hollywood sensibilities. Still, it is an interesting link in the chain of Minnelli's films and reveals a lot about him as an artist. It bears interesting comparison with some of his other films, which provides my main interest in the film as opposed to what it is in and of itself.
This version of "Bovary" starts with a rather intrusive framing device wherein the author Flaubert (played by Englishman James Mason) takes the stand in defense of his novel's decency. What he ultimately provides by way of defense is rather insulting to one's intelligence -- simply the idea that art depicts "realism" of some kind and that therefore the morality of the art itself cannot be drawn into question. All of this just might have some kind of impact, if it weren't for the fact that the film itself avoids a lot of the nastier aspects of Flaubert's work and replaces them with a relatively standard misogynistic "fallen woman" tale, whitewashing the character of Charles Bovary (Van Heflin) and cleaning up the ending. So while we have James Mason eloquently defending artistic freedom, we have at the same time a compromised film that hypocritically censors Flaubert's work in order to make it more palatable to Christian sensibilities.
However, in someone other than Minnnelli's hands this script could have turned into full-on misogyny. Instead he and Jennifer Jones (in the title role) created a reasonably nuanced portrait of the woman. And what really puts it over is Minnelli's unparalleled sense of how to use the environments to enhance the characterization, from Emma's little farm room with tacked-up depictions of noble knights and ladies, to the bric-a-brac "luxury" apartment she constructs for her adult life. One of the things about Minnelli which is fascinating, and has been studied by various authors, is the way that Minnelli uses decor not just as a way of describing his characters but also as a way of actually conditioning them. Not only do the settings show the influence of the characters, and thus describe them, but they also have a direct impact on the characters. Minnelli has great sympathy with Emma Bovary's desire for escape and transcendence through fantasy, and he makes us feel it too with the great technique in the ballroom dance sequence. In all cases, Madame Bovary's surroundings dictate her behavior while she consciously believes that by purchasing all kinds of "luxury" items to surround herself with, she will thereby be able to control her own destiny through interior design.
Minnelli's film is about a woman who is afraid of the "ordinary", for whom childish romantic notions of escape become a suffocating influence on her entire life. The Charles Bovary character is played as a very down-to-earth type perhaps in order to elicit the audience's pathos but also to provide a contrast to Emma. Minnelli is conscious of the fact that film itself is often guilty of feeding these very same notions of "escape" and fantasy, and he uses this film as a way of subverting that process.
This version of "Bovary" starts with a rather intrusive framing device wherein the author Flaubert (played by Englishman James Mason) takes the stand in defense of his novel's decency. What he ultimately provides by way of defense is rather insulting to one's intelligence -- simply the idea that art depicts "realism" of some kind and that therefore the morality of the art itself cannot be drawn into question. All of this just might have some kind of impact, if it weren't for the fact that the film itself avoids a lot of the nastier aspects of Flaubert's work and replaces them with a relatively standard misogynistic "fallen woman" tale, whitewashing the character of Charles Bovary (Van Heflin) and cleaning up the ending. So while we have James Mason eloquently defending artistic freedom, we have at the same time a compromised film that hypocritically censors Flaubert's work in order to make it more palatable to Christian sensibilities.
However, in someone other than Minnnelli's hands this script could have turned into full-on misogyny. Instead he and Jennifer Jones (in the title role) created a reasonably nuanced portrait of the woman. And what really puts it over is Minnelli's unparalleled sense of how to use the environments to enhance the characterization, from Emma's little farm room with tacked-up depictions of noble knights and ladies, to the bric-a-brac "luxury" apartment she constructs for her adult life. One of the things about Minnelli which is fascinating, and has been studied by various authors, is the way that Minnelli uses decor not just as a way of describing his characters but also as a way of actually conditioning them. Not only do the settings show the influence of the characters, and thus describe them, but they also have a direct impact on the characters. Minnelli has great sympathy with Emma Bovary's desire for escape and transcendence through fantasy, and he makes us feel it too with the great technique in the ballroom dance sequence. In all cases, Madame Bovary's surroundings dictate her behavior while she consciously believes that by purchasing all kinds of "luxury" items to surround herself with, she will thereby be able to control her own destiny through interior design.
Minnelli's film is about a woman who is afraid of the "ordinary", for whom childish romantic notions of escape become a suffocating influence on her entire life. The Charles Bovary character is played as a very down-to-earth type perhaps in order to elicit the audience's pathos but also to provide a contrast to Emma. Minnelli is conscious of the fact that film itself is often guilty of feeding these very same notions of "escape" and fantasy, and he uses this film as a way of subverting that process.