Bed and Board (1970 film)
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Bed and Board (French: Domicile Conjugal) is a 1970 French film directed by François Truffaut. It belongs to Truffaut's series of five films about Antonie Doinel, and directly follows Stolen Kisses, showing the married life of Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) and Christine (Claude Jade).
Synopsis
Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) having married the winsome yet intelligent Christine (Claude Jade) from "Stolen Kisses" —what more in a wife could he have asked for? Christine gives violin lessons to children in their living room, and Antoine dyes and sells flowers directly beneath their window. Antoine and Christine are like presexual kids playing at marriage. Whenever we see them in bed together, they’re reading. When he reaches over to touch her breasts it’s only to point out that they don’t match. (He then wants to name them like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza or Laurel and Hardy). Later Christine becomes pregnant and mother. Mindful that Antoine is having an affair with a Japanese beauty, Christine decks herself out as a faux Madame Butterfly to greet him one evening in their apartment. Christine leaving him. Later, she and Antoine are reconciled when they realize that they miss each other's company. Although Antoine ultimately returns to Christine, the ending of the movie is notably un-romantic. The joke is that they’ve become the typical married couple. The future of the relationship is more telling in an earlier scene between Antoine and Christine just after they’ve broken up. He’s been by to visit their son, Alphonse, and he walks her through the now dark and empty courtyard to a cab. She lashes out at him for the first time: “All you know is what you want. A kiss when you want it! Solitude when you want it! I’m not ‘yours on command.’ Not anymore.” He laments how unhappy he’ll be until he can finish his novel. He then declares: “You are my sister, my daughter, my mother.” Christine replies simply, “I’d hoped to be your wife.”
Trivia
- A reproduction of Balthus' Girl at a Window (a painting from 1957) prominently appeared in François Truffaut's film Domicile conjugal, 1970). The two principal characters, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) and his wife Christine (Claude Jade), are arguing. Christine takes down from the wall a small drawing of approximately 25 X 25 cm and give it to her husband: Christine: -"Here, take the small Balthus". Antoine: "Ah, the small Balthus. I offered it to you, it's yours, keep it."
- The scene that splits between Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) telling a friend about his relationship with his wife and Christine (Claude Jade) doing the same with another friend. Woody Allen had copied this concept from Truffaut for his Annie Hall.
External links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnQJsuiFS3o
