Les Choses de la Vie [The Things of Life] **** (1969, Michel Piccoli, Romy Schneider, Lea Massari) – Classic Movie Review 13,591

Claude Sautet’s 1969 French romantic drama film Les Choses de la Vie [The Things of Life] stars Michel Piccoli as a car crash victim, Romy Schneider as his lover and Lea Massari as his estranged wife. 

Director Claude Sautet’s 1969 French/ Italian romantic drama film Les Choses de la Vie [The Things of Life] [These Things Happen] is based on Paul Guimard’s 1967 novel Intersection, and stars Michel Piccoli, Romy Schneider, and Lea Massari, with Gérard Lartigau and Jean Bouise.

Les Choses de la Vie is a telling, engrossingly acted French drama, in which a car crash wrecks designer/ architect Pierre (Michel Piccoli)’s idea of a perfect life with his mistress Hélène (Romy Schneider), separated estranged wife Catherine (Lea Massari), teenage son Bertrand (Gérard Lartigau) and friends.

The chilly, ironic tale, with its involving premise, carefully developed characters and plenty of atmosphere, is told in flashback by the seriously injured Piccoli, who lies in bed at a Le Mans hospital drifting in and out of consciousness, remembering his life up until the accident. The film follows the events before and after the car crash, with frequent jumps in time.

The screenplay by Paul Guimard, Jean-Louis Dabadie and Claude Sautet is based on Paul Guimard’s novel.

Sautet asked Philippe Sarde to write the score, starting a long partnership of 25 years and 11 films.

The film, Sautet’s fourth, won the 1969 Louis Delluc Prize, and was a major success. The previous Louis Delluc Prize winner was François Truffaut’s Baisers volés [Stolen Kisses] (1968) and the next year’s was Éric Rohmer’s Le Genou de Claire [Claire’s Knee] (1970), so Les Choses de la Vie is in very good company.

It is remade, less successfully, in America in 1994 as Intersection, with Richard Gere, Lolita Davidovich and Sharon Stone.

The car crash scene took two weeks to shoot on a specially created crossroads.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,591

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