Drama–The Green Room

Beta Tape.. The Green Room.rated PG. Starring Francois Truffaut, Nathalie Baye.. Color–90 Mins. Warner Home Video 1978 Les Films du Carross S. A. Les Productions Artiste s Associes…The moving drama of a man obsessed with dead.. The first World War s over. All of Europe is a vast graveyard. Against this background of slaughter and destruction, one small personal tragedy would seem to fade to insignificance. But for a French journalist working quietly in a small town, the accidental death of his young bride shortly after their marriage becomes an obsession that rises to overwhelm him. Francois Truffaut s The Green Room is a somber haunting para of life and death– and the barrier of memory that stands between. Life belongs to the living– but Truffaut s hero Julien Davenne dedicates his own life to the dead. The Green Room on the first floor of his home becomes a secret shrine to his dead wife. For him she still exists. Drawn from two celebrated tales of Herny James The Alter Of The Dead and The Best In The Jungle The Green Room stars Truffaut himself in his first leading role/ As the Brooding and oppressed Julien, Truffaut s performance is careful; understated and dramatically compelling. We pity Julien s candlelit folly at the same time we see his case in a colder less sympathetic light. Nathalie Baye co-stars as the beautiful stranger who offers Julien his one chance for renewed happiness, But the pull of the dead is strong and when her own private grief turns out to be for a man Julien despises The Green Room moves toward a vivid and bittersweet conclusion. Truffaut s most concentrated even compressed film The Green Room still brims with the wealth of detail that animates all of this great directors work. Its elegia tone echoes The Story Of Adele H.– but Juliens obsession is different from Adele s She lives and loves, however madly Julien only waits. and the dead wait patiently all around him.