CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

HotToastyRag I loved this movie! I wasn't really expecting to, since I'd seen the 2014 remake and was highly disappointed by the story and characters. In that version, the title character was incredibly unlikable and without motivation, her husband was unsympathetic, and her lover wasn't convincing. The 1949 version was fantastic! If you've never seen a film adaptation of the classic story, start with this one.Jennifer Jones is raised in a convent and pins all her hopes and dreams on getting married when she grows up. She reads romantic novels and believes she'll feel alive, wild, and sensational once she falls in love and gets married. This early portion of her life is very important to the story, because it sets up her character's motivations for the rest of the film. Plus, it's wonderful to see Jennifer transition from wide-eyed innocence to disappointment and maturity.When Jennifer falls in love with Van Heflin, she truly believes her life will follow the storybooks she read as a child. Instead of spoiled, immature, and bored-as she might have seemed if the beginning sequence was left out-Jennifer is heartbroken and dissolutioned with everything she every believed in. Then, when she meets the handsome cad Louis Jourdan, she thinks she'll find the passion she craves. . .I love Jennifer Jones and think she's a very fine actress; Madame Bovary is a classic Jennifer Jones vehicle. She's sweet and beautiful, easily influenced, can cry at the drop of a hat, and no matter what her character has done through the course of the film, you can't help but feel sorry for her and love her unconditionally. I don't usually love Van Heflin, but in this movie, I was almost reduced to tears by his performance. Robert Audrey wrote a wonderful script and made Van's character incredibly heart-wrenching. And when he's up against Louis Jourdan, it's important to have a strong foundation so the audience can understand Jennifer's conflict.Madame Bovary is a beautiful classic, full of intricate set designs and breathtakingly gorgeous costumes. Walter Plunkett and Valles were ignored by the Academy, though, and I have no idea why, since Jennifer's gowns are just as beautiful as those Walter designed for Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind. I highly recommend watching this glamourous drama. You'll get to see beautiful people in beautiful clothes, narrated by James Mason's incredible voice. What else do you need?DLM warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie might not be your friend. There's a scene where Jennifer is at a ball and when she dances, the camera spins. It will probably make you sick. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"

zofo57 I had first seen the 1991 version of this classic and then the 1949 version with Jennifer Jones. I did like both. One large difference that stood out to me was the fact that Dr Bovary does not perform the surgery on the deformed worker in the 1949 version yet he does in the 1991 version? I have not read the book to know how this truly played out with the author Flaubert? Does anyone know why this was done? Of course the surgery to me recollection was a disaster. So I will leave this out there in hopes someone will answer this question as to why the script was changed. And is it actually accepted to do such a thing? Certainly the outcome was fairly much the same as the poor doctor was perceived by his wife as a failure, and isn't it strange to see a doctor referred to as a peasant?

moonspinner55 In 1857 Paris, author Gustave Flaubert is on trial for immorality after publishing his scandalous book "Madame Bovary"; his defense is to tell the court and the spectators the story of a French farm lass who married a village doctor of limited talents and personality. With designs on infiltrating high society--despite the fact her husband is viewed as an obscure medic to the working classes--the woman takes lovers and spends money lavishly, selfishly grasping at popularity and acceptance. According to the film, Flaubert's writings were not considered challenging to 19th century France--only shocking and vulgar. But director Vincente Minnelli doesn't wish to get his hands dirty, and his visualization of the tale is just high-flown soap for female audiences. As Emma Bovary, Jennifer Jones runs the gamut on suffering; indeed, some of her hysterics show a talented actress at work, but her elaborate wardrobe upstages her. Jones marries Van Heflin, who warns her that he isn't a very exciting person, and soon thereafter is staring out the window, tossing off jaded, quasi-literary thoughts such as "Do you know why the clock strikes? To announce the death of another hour!" The picture would be a howler if it didn't take itself so contemptuously serious. The results are coated with a glum, gummy gloss, while James Mason (as Flaubert the Narrator) poses on the witness stand as if his portrait were being painted. ** from ****

funkyfry 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.