User reviews

It would be impossible to make today a movie like 'L'homme qui aimait les femmes' (the English title is 'The Man Who Loved Women') directed in 1977 by François Truffaut. Not the way the French filmmaker wrote and directed it, in any case. The main hero is a serial womanizer, a man who usually looks at women from the legs up, who accumulates conquests inevitably followed by separations, who has no intention of establishing a stable relationship and who collects his trophy memories in drawers full of letters and photos before starting to write a book in which he describes his series of love adventures. Such a male hero could be in our times only a negative character and the fact that Truffaut describes him as an eternal lover whose fascination for women finds its justification in the way they are also attracted and fall under his charms would be hard to explain today. And yet, Don Juan and his disciples traverse the history of literature, opera, and cinema.

If someone still dares to write the script for a remake, he should change almost everything. There is a lot of on-screen smoking - at work, at the table, in bed. People send letters and use dial phones that ring threatening. Manuscripts of books are brought by the writers in envelopes and entrusted to the typists. Not only are there no mobile phones, but the engineer Bertrand Morane, the hero of the film, works for a company where telephone calls are accepted in a switchboard operated manually by a telephone operator. In the morning he is awakened by the voice of another telephone operator from a wake-up service. Any attractive woman who crosses his way becomes the object of his attention and fascination, regardless of her social or family status. The film is asymmetrical, in the sense that Truffaut is less interested in the psychology of his female heroines. Charles Denner, the actor who plays the main hero of the film is far from having the physical charm of an Alain Delon or the charisma of Belmondo, looks like a banal guy. What is the secret of his success with women? Maybe it's his fascination with the opposite sex that he reveals quite directly, without ostentation or traces of violence. If he misses a conquest, our hero shrugs and goes to the next woman he meets on the way. Truffaut conveyed to the film's hero his own fascination with women, embodied in his admiration for the actresses who starred in his films (and in a few alleged love stories).

A few cinematic elements attract attention. The scenes that open and close the film are borrowed from the film noir genre, although what happens between them is completely different. Attentive viewers will identify in the first frame the director's cameo appearing, as in Hitchcock's film. The off-screen voice is used intensively, which is not a rarity in Truffaut's films, being inserted under the pretext of the hero's attempt to turn his adventures into a memoir book, like those of Casanova or Don Juan. As I am mentioning - again - Don Juan, this film lacks any kind of moralising judgment. Even in the libretto of Mozart's opera the great seducer is punished. Here it is hazard that is put at work. To substantiate psychologically the behaviour of his hero, Truffaut inserts some flashback scenes from his adolescence and introduces the figure of his mother, a kind of mirror replica of what would become his son. In 'L'homme qui aimait les femmes' two of the main themes of his films meet, the fascination for women and the sometimes painful coming to age. Plausible? Spectators are left to judge. The film deserves, in any case, a viewing or a re-viewing.

From it's title to it's ending The Man Who loved women is a great movie. Francois Truffaut displays all his mastery of the cinematographic language.

The editing, performances and dialogues all contribute to the film's subtle but engaging rhythm. The movie revolves around Bertrand Morane, a gifted womanizer who starts evaluating his life by remembering past love affairs.

Bertrand's love life is a comical and insightful story, that combined with Truffaut's brilliant direction and a perfect script make "L'homme qui aimait les femmes" a very entertaining and original movie.

Beautiful french women, great cinematography and Charles Denner's acting. There are no mistakes in this film, very recommended.

If this movie had JUST been about the sexual escapades of the main character, I would have hated it. After all, this is a man whose entire existence is based on bedding women--and this alone would have made a boring movie. Instead, it shows the emotional shallowness of this character and his complete inability to be close to another person--and its ultimate impact on him. He doesn't see this as a problem, but during the latter part of the movie, its impact on him becomes apparent. I particularly liked the unexpected ending. As the movie begins, it is at his funeral, so you KNOW he will die but HOW is the real interesting twist.

About the only thing I did not like about the movie was the episodic nature. Sometimes it was a little hard to keep track of all the women. Perhaps this was unintentional, as there were a LOT of women in this man's life! Of course, it did serve to illustrate his problem!!

This movie is just wonderful, a kind of masterpiece as for its construction, its dialogues and the actors' performances. The first image sets the scene very clearly : Bertrand Morane's burial attended only by women. No guys in the funeral procession. Twenty or so lovely middle-aged females are following their (former) lover's last trip. One of them, Brigitte Fossey, Bertrand's last girlfriend, comments, from backstage, on this unusual situation and explains, incidentally, what the film 's gonna be : a flashback to Bertrand's life. How does she happen to know about it ? Thanks to Bertrand's book she has recently edited for him and called "The man who loved women" (passed tense works here as a premonition). The author describes his passion for women and focuses on some of them. Inspired directly from the Bertrand's life (and from the director's life as well), his narrative is informal, genuine, sometimes contradictory but never pedantic nor rude. He remembers his love affairs, his bad and good times, and, most of all, tries to express his feelings to such an extent that is story must be seen as an auto-analysis, the writer's personal attempt to understand his personality rather than a woman chaser's curriculum vitae. Come to that, Charles Denner, the lead, shows us very well that his character's everything short of a sexist and self-confident womanizer. He fell in love once, but this experience turned out to be a real disappointment. Now, he feels as if he were unable to love anymore. So, he's `collecting'. He may have shortcomings, he may have fun picking up beautiful girls wherever and whenever he can, he may not be the kind of faithful and steady guy a good many girls usually like, his behavior might be considered as outrageous by some, the thing is he's a sensitive, affectionate, simple and nice person who knows how to make women happy and comfortable. Each mistress's chosen for a particular reason, a physical standard (behavior, way of walking, voice..) but all share one thing : they have long, smooth and attractive legs. All in all, `The man who loved women' is a mighty good film, worth watching it.

Far superior than the shoddy and self promoting Burt Reynolds remake. Excellent performances and a classic. Anyone interested in NLP and Speed Seduction should watch this as it is a great reference resource of "Unconscious Competence". The guy knows what he is doing...but doesn't know how he does it. Shame the ending is given away at the start but that only compounds the deep impact the guy had on all of the women. The fact that he is over fifty gives hope for us all. I have no issue with the amount of women involved. If it was the other way around, in these so called 'enlightened' times, when women have so much focus, she would have been applauded as a woman who takes control! Pour a glass of red wine and enjoy.

In 1976, in Montpellier, the funeral of the engineer Bertrand Morane (Charles Denner) is attended by several women. The lonely Bertrand works in a laboratory in a ship model basin and wind tunnel for aircraft testing and loves books and women, spending his leisure time seducing women and reading. Along his life, Bertrand makes love to the most different type of women and decides to write a book telling his love affairs.

"L'Homme qui Aimait les Femmes" discloses the memoirs of a womanizer. This sensual and funny film is a great tribute to the beautiful French women with lovely French actresses. The romances of Bertrand are provoking and charming and his character shows that a man does not need to be handsome to be seductive and conquer women. Last but not the least, Bertrand is a man that follows the poetry of the French Henri de Régnier (1864-1936): "Love is eternal while it lasts". My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Homem Que Amava as Mulheres" ("The Man Who Loved the Women")

Another good film by Truffaut (as with DW Griffith, Leni Riefenstahl) in the sense of a good watch, but why does it seem so gloomy and weighted down--at times even like a horror film.

Is it because Bertrand Morane is a solitary? Or because he draws us into a world (through his low key, partly sympathetic rendering) that is somehow upsetting and/or even detestable? Is it because the view here is hothouse psychological? A kind of Freudian mind drama in which a mother-son dyad subsumes everything outside itself to its own ends? (see "Alfie" for a social view of a similar womanizer) Is it because of the extent to which this fantasy is carried out---that it finally seems deranged, and sick, as if the product of a puerile mind in an adult? Or is it all the concealment techniques used to paint Bertrand as so exceptional a male that he might even find acceptance on an all-female island?

I think all of the above count but for my part the real source of gloom is the absence of women in "The Man Who Loved Women." No matter the angle, the multiplicity of women (one arguable exception) are singularly available to Bertrand Morane. They are inspected (their entry into his world and our screens), pursued, consumed, and disposed of--all to their immense delight. This is their invisibility Oh yeah, they have their fleeting stories, but these are invariably subsumed by Bertrand's script, which is all about pleasure, appetite, and some trumped up memory of a delinquent promiscuous mother.

But the big lie in all this and what Bertrand is most convinced of is that women want and need sex--and specifically from him. This availability is so patently confirmed as to be pornographic. Each step of his lovers' butterfly-like life span with him is not only accepted, but savored and yearned for. It's as if his sexualizing puppy-love has incapacitated them, cutting them off from both their own minds, and their own worlds. No way they're drawn to him for social reasons (this is not "Alfie")---but an irressistable urge which speaks for the social power (cleverly hidden by Truffaut) behind his very personal power trip. And accounts for Bertrand's capacity to transform live, often tall, world-aware women into fun sex toys.

The real convincer in this schema of availability, though, is Genevieve, the editor publisher. You expect her to be the point woman for exposure, given her position and her inside view of Bertrand's story, but no--she is the ultimate patsy. She not only loves his refreshingly honest take on his use of women---which she convinces herself is so modern, and contains a tendency toward equality, but converts five resistant male co-publishers to her view. Which makes it just a matter of time--she's lucky to be leggy-- before she expresses wimpish longings for the said Bertrand Morane and jumps into bed with him. And her love, like that of all his others, will soon become eternal and confer a kind of sainthood on the late Bertrand. If this seems astonishing than her role in the burial scene confirms it to be nakedly true. Surrounded by dozens of Saint Bertrand's lovers, she supplies the voice over as each woman approaches to toss dirt on his coffin. She touts each as an example of Bertrand's diverse taste for women... like shy, myopic, gentle, passionate, orphanish, funny, and so forth, ad nauseam as if even greater holiness might be bestowed on a male who has slept with Asians, Blacks, Latinas, Russians, and Native Islanders. Anyway, a "fitting" end indeed to a man who classified all women as either "kittens" or "fillies."

The first time I saw this movie, I hated it. The narrative structure wasn't what I was used to, and the movie as a whole seemed distorted and I wasn't sure what it is going too.

Three years later, haven deepened my culture with books such as "L'amant" de M. Duras, movies such as "Emmanuelle". I started really to appreciate this movie. It is about reality, a man who isn't afraid to scribble down all his memoirs and thoughts. Of cause, at first it seemed very self contradictory, but life is full of contradictions. It is hard to find someone nowadays to have the courage to share all his feelings and thoughts despite all the social values we have been raised with.

A brilliant, brilliant movie, only if you could understand the whole of it.

As an admirer of French cinema I came to this with high hopes. Sadly, they were not justified. This is a miserable experience concerned only with a dismal 41-year old man who seems incapable of loving but only of lusting. And the women seem equally bland and lacking in charm and affection once you cut past their external beauty. It's difficult to admire a film when virtually none of the characters justifies sympathy. In fact the only person in the film who I felt any sympathy with was the typist who undertook writing up the book; at least she got out before the end.

The structure doesn't help. I can deal with a flashback approach (the film starts with our "hero's" funeral), but then we get flashbacks within flashbacks, including some rather contrived pieces of early childhood and mother-son relationship. This led to some confusion about chronology although, to be honest, by that time I had lost the sort of interest that I always had for his earlier work.

Maybe Truffaut, who was himself rather fond of women, felt there was some autobiographical element in the story; or maybe he was trying to justify his earlier experiences with women. Either way it was a disappointment.

Citizen Kane, except it's French and Charles Foster Kane is a womanizer who unsuccessfully tries to find romantic endeavors to fill a hole in his life, and negative emotions that can be traced back to childhood.

The Man Who Loved Women does live up to its title, being about one guy who doesn't really do anything but pursue women. There's naturally a lot of repetition to the film, but it wraps up well, and I think it was balanced enough that it never came across as too mean-spirited or like something that's aged poorly.

While I would like to rank the films of Francois Truffaut one day, I think it might be difficult, because there aren't many I dislike but there also aren't too many that I genuinely love. He knocks 7/10s and 7.5/10s out of the park consistently; perhaps more so than any other filmmaker.

Bertrand Morane thinks he's quite the ladies' man, assumes they will adore him, they will be his biggest fan, like a dog with a new bone, he just won't leave these girls alone, as a child begs for sweets, he's unaccepting of defeats.

François Truffaut's fairy tale, not specifically about a man who can't settle down with a long term partner, but more in relation to the women, who clearly live in a world of fantasy and fable, who are not in control of their minds and/or their bodies, and who are happy to indulge a creepy and disturbing stalker as his infantile powers of persuasion are spewed forth - in a world inhabited only by beautiful women of that mind-set.

Another terrific character driven movie, François Truffaut creates a story that makes you laugh as well as cry. Charles Denner stars as a fan of the ladies. More than that, he is in great need of woman so much that is ends up to be his doom. The movie begins at the end, with the funeral. Like Hitchcock, François Truffaut makes a cameo at the beginning as his trademark. From there, we begin to see who this man was and why is urge for women caused his death. A very sexy film for 1977, it is still as funny today than it was almost 30 years ago. Unlike American movies, it is very difficult to have a scene with just words and no action. Many scenes in the movie are one shot scenes with nothing but pages of words, words and more words. This is the movie's strong point, besides having several beautiful women. The language (not just French) in the movie is powerful to its audience. It speaks to both men and women.

Each film by François Truffaut is like an antithesis for its predecessor (Shoot the Piano Player for The 400 Blows, Jules et Jim for Shoot the Piano Player etc.) but The Man Who Loved Women (1977) isn't really the opposite of Small Change (1976) but more like The Story of Adele H. (1975) turned upside down. First of all, the protagonist of The Story of Adele H. is a woman and the protagonist of The Man Who Loved Women is a man. However, despite the tragical intensity of The Story of Adele H. and the light comedy of The Man Who Loved Women both films deal with sexual obsessions. In the former film, the woman is madly in love with a man from whom she can't get response. In turn, the latter is all about a man who doesn't believe in true love and therefore goes from one brief relationship to another.

The Man Who Loved Women (1977) might just be Truffaut's funniest comedy but, what is more, it also presents an insightful picture of an obsessive womanizer Bertrand, brilliantly played by Charles Denner. Just like The Story of Adele H., it is also a story about an independent character who is a victim of his own obsession. In addition, in the background of both stories there is an abandonment (made by a mother or a lover), both protagonists try to imitate their parents in one way or another and are inevitably going to face destruction, both stories are also recorded to personal memoirs and both of them have separate prologue and epilogue sequences.

Already in the very beginning of The Man Who Loved Women we are told that the protagonist has died and at the cemetery we enter a long flashback which equals most of the film. However, before we enter this flashback we see women walking to the cemetery but also Truffaut himself passing by, which is a clear statement that the film knows that it is fiction. As if he was sealing the deal. It is consciously exaggerated romanticism, so to speak. This idea is also highlighted by the fact that the protagonist starts to change his memories when he decides to write an autobiographical novel. His whole life is fiction.

Usually, Truffaut portraits fatal women who lead their lovers to death and destruction (Jules and Jim, The Bride Wore Black) but in this case the man is the dangerous character who lures women. However, in reality he is much more destructive for himself than for the women he loves. His obsession seems to be some sort of a defense mechanism against the vulnerability which hunts many of Truffaut's characters who are often abandoned by a cold mother (The 400 Blows).

As said, Bertrand is a victim of his own obsession and just like the dogmatism of Catherine, from Jules et Jim, so is the obsession of Bertrand an absolute prelude for death. He is constantly tied to his own madness. He loves to watch women and even points out that "women's legs are like compass points, circling the globe." Although, this rather plain concept gets an intriguing twist because Bertrand actually sees the seductive legs of women everywhere -- even where there aren't any; like in the outrageous scene at the airport -- and they also seal his destiny.

Besides youth and innocence, love was a repeating theme throughout Truffaut's career and that is why he is often called the romantic of the French New Wave. In his world, love was a dominant force which restricted the lives of people. But it also appears to us as kind and patient. The Man Who Loved Women was Truffaut's tribute, not only to women, but to love. In the director's personal love life, he had several lovers but no life partners. Although, Truffaut wasn't a womanizer by any means he said that he never stopped loving his former lovers. As if relationships were transient but love was eternal.

Towards the end of the film, the main character, Bertrand, a singular individual obsessed with women (a lot) and literature (a little), says, in a serious voice-over at night, in a room whose only light comes from a fireplace, the very soul of the film: "Then the desire took me to read the memoirists of the last century. How should you write when you talk about yourself? How had the others done? What were the rules? I realized that there are no rules, that each book is different and expresses the personality of its author. Every page, every sentence of any writer belongs to him. His handwriting is as personal to him as his fingerprints." The film, not very easy to like at first due to its repetitive side (Bertrand remembers different women he has known in his life) and a little bland (not much happens, really), captivates and gradually fascinates by its idiosyncratic nature, by a half-energetic, half-melancholic tone which cannot be anything else than the intimate expression of the work and personality of François Truffaut, by its subtle fade to black shots emphasizing the proud independence of the main character, by its rich literary tone. This is, for me, an inferior film to the magnificent 'The Mississippi Mermaid' which successfully combined this level of inner depth with an exciting film noir storyline, but it is no less a fascinating film due to its intimate authenticity. At one point a doctor says to Bertrand: "Nothing is more beautiful than seeing the publication of a book that you have written, nothing is more beautiful. Except perhaps giving birth to a child that we carried for nine months in our womb. But we are not capable of that, well, not yet." A fade to black shot deliciously placed there underlines the beauty of this profession of faith by François Truffaut on the essential importance of artistic production. He is no longer here, but his work speaks for him...

It is a perfect film for Charles Denner. An actor who wears his melancholy, his sadness, his interrogations on his face. He seems naturally tormented. Which is perfect for this man who loved women. Perfect distribution for this man who is attracted to pretty legs, or other things about women, which are multiple and varied, and especially numerous. So he doesn't know where to turn. To the point that a woman he meets in the street can change his life; he is like a magnet that has no other choice, like an addiction, it is irresistible. Where the script does not take a stand and finally disappoints a little, is the possibility that he loves several women at the same time, which is not the case of the character, who we eventually understand, has been in love with a woman, perhaps the first, and since then seems in a quest that will never satisfy him.

With this problem, François Truffaut and his scriptwriter build a two-hour drama that lasts. Thanks to the twists and turns of the script and Charles Denner's character, but also thanks to its female cast, with Brigitte Fossey, Geneviève Fontanel, Nathalie Baye or Leslie Caron, each in a different style and register.

Smart Truffaut's film on a compulsive seducer who writes in details about his several amorous conquests and relationship misfortunes. Women are obviously objects and goals for him, and how interested he is on them depends on the most idiossyncratic elements. Being refused by a woman, on the other hand, is the greatest suffering, although his selfishness does not make him avoid doing the same with them. Anyway, he is very rarely unsuccessful in conquest, and it is like a game. Indeed, no effort is too much when a target is chosen: his adventures may become very unusual and strange then. Among all the numerous portrayed women, perhaps only Delphine had the same level of psychological illness as him; there is probably why he stood interest by her for a longer time: he found an exciting game. He is the patient every psychoanalist would like to have, as his often mentioned mother obviously had influence in his misconduct. It is dubious if he is just a mysoginist or if he deeply values each unique female individuality (a man who loved the women, after all). However, I believe in the former possibility, particularly for how much his eyes are hypnotized by beautiful walking legs. Though, his editor noticed his fragilities behind his shadowy face and bird of prey behavior: his lack of self-love made it hard to love others. It is also something to think about how much autobiographical is this unprecedented story: how much Bertrand Morane is Truffaut, or something Truffaut desired at least in his dreams to be. Is Bertrand an Antoine Doinel from another dimension? Very nice film in which writer and its character, and perhaps them both and also filmmaker, overlap in a catching way for specators.

This is one of the most interesting conceptions of a man who spent all his career and life questioning the very conception of cinema and what it meant in every moment. After the adventure of french new wave of the 60's, Truffaut matured and, to me, he started producing his more focused work. He basically produced some films which were essays on cinema, as well as autobiographical depictions of his thoughts.

So, we have a film about storytelling. A womanizer who writes the story of his life. Every woman in his life is, herself, a story. So the pleasure of being involved with a woman maps the will Truffaut has to tell a story. The fact that Morane writes all the stories, and makes one single big form (a book) with them enhances this.

The woman editor has an important role. She is the key character that Truffaut places above Morane, and she annotates and comments on the whole structure. Her remarks on Morane's book and personality may as well be taken as commentaries on the very film, and of its director. She is self-reference, she is Truffaut commenting on himself, thus adding reflexivity to the film. That's why she observes that Morane, the writer, doesn't reject the "details" others wouldn't notice, and she literally says that he is basically a storyteller. Also, she is the one who remarks the fact that Morane's funeral is the perfect ending to the story. I saw all this as reflexive annotations on the very structure of the film and, more generally, on the nature of Truffaut's cinema. He was through all his life a storyteller, and above any pleasure he took in making a film, there was the pleasure of narrating. Also he took a special interest in filming details, something i think he took from Hitchcock. The hand dialing phone numbers, or turning the pages in the address book, that sort of thing.

Morane's funeral, which opens and closes the film, gathers all the women around him. It is, like the editor (the second narrator) told, a praising of Morane's life, the recognizing of his qualities, the celebration of his life (cinema).

This and "La nuit américaine" are so far the best built films by Truffaut that i saw. Many times i think that Truffaut (and Godard!) has spent to much time around things which were not that important, like school kids discussing football teams. But in certain points, he made important contributions to the evolving of cinematic narrative. This is one of them.

My opinion: 4/5

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Don't believe all the fawning, obsequious other reviews praising this movie as one of Truffaut's best...It isn't.

Here's the premise of the film: a homely Frenchman with hangdog features lusts after every attractive woman he meets in his life (oh, and they all have to have great legs--that's his main obsession) and without the benefit of any particular charm or suaveness, manages to bed them all. I suppose because he happens to be bluntly honest, both to himself (as he narrates his story to the audience) and to the objects of his affection, THAT is supposed to be the secret to his amorous successes.

Yep, this handsomely-challenged Pepe LePew of a Ladies Man is such a lady-killer that in order not to disturb the fantasy of this piece, when his physician informs him he's contracted gonorrhea and should make an attempt to contact all his most recent lovers, he dismisses the task because there's been too many and he can't remember any of their names. What a Romeo! How noble and conscientious! Too bad Truffaut didn't live long enough to remake this in the age of AIDS, his main character could have turned out to be a real prince then...a true Lady-Killer, indeed.

It's not without total believability that such a troll (notice I didn't use the term "Frog"--hey, I can be politically correct when I put my mind to it) could maybe score with a few model type babes at some point in his lifetime (since, after all, you do see foxes all the times with guys so ugly you have to do a double-take and ask yourself, "what the hell does she see in him?! But almost immediately the actual answer quickly pops into your head--oh, he must have money).

I can see how some viewers might have fell for the charms of this frog of a picture (ok, I'm weak). It's a complete fantasy, and like all fantasies, there are those for whom the fantasy charms and captivates, and those who think the whole schlemiel is ridiculous and contrived. I was one of the latter.

Dated? In more than one way. To begin with, Charles Denner might be a dependable actor, but he is the wrong casting choice for the Lothario. Although his character is clearly smart, well read and kind (enough) to the women he beds, he has a smoker' skin and smoker's voice on top of a middle-age lassitude in his posture: it is a stretch to believe in the spectacular powers of attraction the script gives him. I venture to say that the dozens of girls he is shown seducing are pure movie fantasy. Brigitte Fossey is wasted in too small a part, and her character of a sharp literary agent quickly seduced by her client -no, really?- is another fictional trope. (In truth all the women in the plot are wasted.) And on the whole, for all the chasing that propels this plot, the story goes nowhere -turns in a circle- because its viewing angle is 100% masculine all along. The women in the plot have no consistency -they don't have a chance to, or it was not in the filmmaker's intention or talent to show texture to their characters. These women are all legs and desires- no thoughts of their own. As a 2018 viewer, I find neither lightness nor poetry -let alone instruction on human nature- in that point of view: I see a chosen perspective that is both offensive and dated. At some point, we are even presented with the trope of the "crazy nympho" qualified without irony as the most "interesting" of all his conquests,-according to our Casanova. Paging the 70s, baby! Watch ALFIE instead ( 1966, with Michael Caine): a much better (and more fun) film around the same topic, in my opinion.