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A Very Private Affair

Original title: Vie privée
  • 1962
  • 1h 43m
IMDb RATING
5.6/10
1.3K
YOUR RATING
A Very Private Affair (1962)
When Jill becomes a movie star, she soon discovers that her private life is destroyed by persistent fans that won't leave her alone. Her mother's ex-lover, Fabio, tries to protect her.
Play trailer1:54
1 Video
46 Photos
DramaRomance

When Jill becomes a movie star she soon discovers that her private life is destroyed by persistent fans that won't leave her alone. Her mother's ex-lover, Fabio, tries to protect her.When Jill becomes a movie star she soon discovers that her private life is destroyed by persistent fans that won't leave her alone. Her mother's ex-lover, Fabio, tries to protect her.When Jill becomes a movie star she soon discovers that her private life is destroyed by persistent fans that won't leave her alone. Her mother's ex-lover, Fabio, tries to protect her.

  • Director
    • Louis Malle
  • Writers
    • Jean-Paul Rappeneau
    • Louis Malle
    • Jean Ferry
  • Stars
    • Brigitte Bardot
    • Marcello Mastroianni
    • Nicolas Bataille
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    5.6/10
    1.3K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Louis Malle
    • Writers
      • Jean-Paul Rappeneau
      • Louis Malle
      • Jean Ferry
    • Stars
      • Brigitte Bardot
      • Marcello Mastroianni
      • Nicolas Bataille
    • 17User reviews
    • 11Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    Trailer
    Trailer 1:54
    Trailer

    Photos46

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    Top cast30

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    Brigitte Bardot
    Brigitte Bardot
    • Jill
    Marcello Mastroianni
    Marcello Mastroianni
    • Fabio Rinaldi
    Nicolas Bataille
    • Edmond
    Dirk Sanders
    • Dick
    Jacqueline Doyen
    • Juliette
    Paul Sorèze
    • Maxime
    • (as Paul Soreze)
    Eléonore Hirt
    Eléonore Hirt
    • Cécile
    • (as Eleonore Hirt)
    Gloria France
    • Anna
    Ursula Kubler
    Ursula Kubler
    • Carla
    Isarco Ravaioli
    Isarco Ravaioli
    Gregor von Rezzori
    • Gricha
    Antoine Roblot
    • Alain - le photographe
    Simonetta Simeoni
    Jeanne Allard
    • La femme de ménage
    • (uncredited)
    Paul Apoteker
    • Le caméraman
    • (uncredited)
    Jean-Claude Brialy
    Jean-Claude Brialy
    • Le narrateur
    • (voice)
    • (uncredited)
    Claude Day
    • L'éditeur
    • (uncredited)
    Christian de Tillière
    Christian de Tillière
    • Albert
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Louis Malle
    • Writers
      • Jean-Paul Rappeneau
      • Louis Malle
      • Jean Ferry
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews17

    5.61.3K
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    Featured reviews

    6jotix100

    Paparazzi

    After having seen Louis Malle "Crackers", we thought the director might have bad luck with that film, but viewing "Vie Privee", his 1962 effort that deals with fame and being in the limelight, one wonders what did attract him to get involved in this project. Granted, the dubbed English version that was presented recently on cable hasn't kept well and the translated dialog is horrible. The director collaborated with Jean Paul Rappeneau and Jean Ferry in the screen play, which might have made more sense in the original version that what it does in the one we saw.

    The story about the beautiful Jill, who at first is seen as wanting to be a ballerina, changes without any explanation as this young woman is "discovered" for the movies, something that even for France, never occurs in such a quick fashion, and we can't buy it. Then at the pinnacle of her fame, Jill is thrown into despair as she can't cope with the invading horde of paparazzi that hound her and don't let her live a normal life. Jill runs back home to Geneva to be with her mother and then she turns into Fabio, who was seeing her best friend.

    The film is tedious, at best. Marcello Mastroianni and Brigitte Bardot appear to be going through the motions, but actually there is no chemistry between them. These two attractive stars seem to have been cast just for their allure to fans, but actually they never connect.
    6herbqedi

    Marvelous last third after glacial first hour

    For the record, I saw the dubbed version. But for the first hour, there is so little dialogue, I don't think it could matter very much. This early Malle film spends so much time on Bardot's character's angst and yearning for her own time and space that you might be tempted to turn it off. Don't, but if you have it on tape, you may wish to fast forward. The second third of the movie is a never-ending cliche. As a reward, the ending is rich, vibrant, and celebratory.
    7zhenya_i

    10 minutes that saved a film

    Watching Louis Malle's La Vie Privée was an exercise in patience that finally managed to pay off. It wasn't even the bleak colors (remeniscent of the cheap color prints of the 60's) or the lack of chemistry between Bardot and Mastroianni that pushed the audience to the limit. It was perhaps the stilted dialog, made nearly unbearable by the fact that it was poorly dubbed into English. Maybe the film would have worked better in black and white or as a silent. Maybe not...The films final sequence (stretching over the last seven minutes) redeems nearly all its faults. The carefully composed shots, alternating between the faces of the stars and a play being performed on stage (with a remarkable backdrop of an old Spoletto basilica) empowered by moving music brings us closest to the characters. Once again, the so-called "silent" moment dominates the film, showing us the director's capabilities in full bloom. The tension is enhanced by an increased tempo in editing, leading perfectly to the climax. For what may be a deeply flawed film, I feel bad for the people that left early. Those last seven minutes define great film-making.
    dbdumonteil

    Jill on the hill.

    In 1961,BB was the biggest star France had ever had.Never in the history of French cinema an actress had crystallized around her such an adulation..but also so much hatred.One scene sums up everything;in an elevator ,Jill (BB) meets a cleaning lady who insults her,calls her whore and tells her that while she is playing around,her brother is fighting in Algeria.This woman of the people epitomizes what a lot of common men used to think circa 1960.Like in Clouzot's "la vérité" ,as an user wrote,the people is judging Bardot.

    "Vie privée" is looked upon as one of Louis Malle's weakest efforts and it's probably unfair.He did much worse later ("le souffle au coeur"(1971).Its hints at Bardot's own life seem dated now but they inspire its vital extremism:Jill (BB) becomes a big star and it's a hellish life which begins.The scene when Jill is tracked down in her own house by journalists is barely fiction:in her memoirs,BB tells that German tourists' tour in Saint-Tropez included her house's visit!!The movie has two parts;the first one is the rise of the star and her efforts to escape from the maddening crowd:Louis Malle uses too much voice over,and a telegraphic style,très nouvelle vague.The second part depicts her relationship with a handsome Italian (Mastroianni),but even in a foreign country she's got to hide in a bedroom.The movie turns a bit pretentious ,with pompous music -from an opera Mastroianni is directing-;and after the rise,comes the fall (in every sense of the term).

    BB was never a bimbo (une ravissante idiote) but a clever sensitive woman.We feel it in Malle's work.Watch it for her.
    8oparthenon

    brilliant but cryptic study of private vs. public in early new wave style

    Malle was an accomplished director of varied taste -- witness Pretty Baby (1977), a study in adolescent prostitution, and Au revoir les enfants (1986), a devastating account of youth in a private school in collaborationist France (with autobiographical hints.) But in Vie privee (1962) -- and please, it is Vie privee, not La vie privee (there is a difference) he achieved a dazzling, virtuosic, and at times subtle, at times hypnotic study of a movie starlet's sudden rise and precipitous fall from the limelight; her intense ambition, hiding a neurotic self-love, seems to evaporate as her life enters a new phase, becoming involved with a friend's former lover whom she had looked to for help. Bardot is captivating: she fills the screen, by turns stunning, radiant, and brooding, playing the role as though it were her life's story; add a suave and elegant Marcello Mastroianni as the glitterati who hides the fallen starlet from public view, and you have an electric mix. Watch the film in French with subtitles, please: only the original French conveys the cynical boredom of Jill (Bardot's character) and the paparazzi who swarm around her. And watch it also for Henri Decae's camera -- how it jumps from face to floor, cropping a doorway so that Bardot fills it, for example! -- and for Bernard Evein's glorious saturated colors. And the account of the Verdi Requiem at the Spoleto Festival makes a nice counterpoint to Jill's mundane existence with Fabio (Mastroianni). Oh -- the 'difference' mentioned in the French title is that without the 'La' ('the') vie privee carries a suggestion of 'a deprived life' as well as 'a private life.' Compare to the American version, called 'A Very Private Affair'!

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    Related interests

    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama
    Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (1942)
    Romance

    Storyline

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    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      French actor Michel Auclair dubs Marcello Mastroianni's voice in French.
    • Connections
      Featured in Censura: Alguns Cortes (1999)
    • Soundtracks
      Sidonie
      Music by Jean-Max Rivière and Giannis Spanos

      Lyrics by Charles Cros

      Performed by Brigitte Bardot

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    FAQ12

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • September 28, 1962 (United States)
    • Countries of origin
      • France
      • Italy
    • Languages
      • French
      • Italian
    • Also known as
      • Privatleben
    • Filming locations
      • Spoleto, Perugia, Umbria, Italy
    • Production companies
      • Compagnia Cinematografica Montoro (CCM)
      • Compagnie Internationale de Productions Cinématographiques (CIPRA)
      • Production Générale de Films (PROGEFI)
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 43m(103 min)
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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