Radley Metzger is an interesting case study. He was one of the pioneers of American erotic film-making in the 60s. He started out distributing European erotic films until he decided he could make better films himself. He was right. Metzger is sometimes described as the finest American director of softcore porn movies and in the mid-70s he made a number of hardcore movies. All this is true but it’s misleading. Metzger had little interest in pornography. He wanted to make erotica. The difference might be subtle but it is important. Metzger also wanted to make art films. He saw no reason why it would not be possible to make art movies that were also erotic movies, and that would also be extremely entertaining. Describing Metzger as a maker of art films can be just as misleading as describing him as a maker of porn movies. Metzger thought that movies should be arty and they should be well-made and they should be stylish but they should also be entertaining. And Metzger’s movies are incredibly entertaining. They are witty and amusing.
It’s also worth pointing out that his hardcore movies are best considered as erotic films rather than porn. They are unlike any other hardcore porn movies ever made. The Opening of Misty Beethoven is not just the best hardcore movie ever made, it is a very good movie judged by any standards. It’s stylish, intelligent, emotionally involving, witty, clever and very funny. In the 1970s quite a few film-makers believed that a movie could combine art and porn. Quite a few of them attempted to make such movies. Metzger was the only one who truly succeeded.
Metzger also had, for an American, a very European sensibility and a very European attitude towards sex. In many American and British erotic movies you could the feeling that we’re supposed to find the sex exciting because sex is dirty and wrong and wicked. That’s why it’s exciting. You don’t get that feeling in a Metzger film. Sex is just part of life. It’s fun and exciting but the excitement doesn’t come from a feeing of doing something nasty and forbidden.
Camille 2000 however belongs to his softcore period. And it belongs to his early softcore period. There’s plenty of nudity and sex but it’s very tame by later standards, and it’s very tame compared to his 1974 hit Score.
Radley Metzger was both lucky and unlucky as far as the home video market was concerned. He was lucky in the sense that most of his important movies were released on DVD in the early days of the DVD era. That meant that within his own lifetime (he passed away in 2017) he started to gain the recognition he deserved as one of the most interesting film-makers of the 60s and 70s. He was quickly recognised as possibly the best director of erotic films of his era.
He was unlucky in the sense that his movies made it to DVD so early that most of the DVD releases were of rather poor quality. Given that Metzger was one of cinema’s great visual stylists that meant that his movies could only be judged on the basis of some very unsatisfactory DVD releases. Happily at least some of his movies have now received Blu-Ray releases and we can appreciate their true visual brilliance.
La dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils is the tale of Marguerite Gautier, based loosely on the story of Marie Duplessis, one of the most famous of all the mid-19th century Parisian courtesans (les grandes horizontales) who was Dumas’ mistress. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 23. Metzger’s movie stays surprisingly close to Dumas’ novel. Marguerite Gautier as portrayed by Danièle Gaubert in the movie is a woman who devotes herself to love and to pleasure and she is the mistress of a wealthy nobleman. She is in fact a kept woman. In the 19th century the dividing line between a mistress and a courtesan could be a fine one and in the world of the 1960s jet set the distinction could be even hazier. Whether the Marguerite of the film is technically a prostitute or not remains a trifle ambiguous but it is clear that in practice she sells her sexual favours for money, although she would never be crass enough to accept cash.
It is a tragic irony that the astonishingly beautiful Danièle Gaubert also died young.
Moving the setting from the mid-19th century Parisian demi-monde to the late 1960s jet set in Rome works remarkably well. In both cases we are dealing with fabulously wealthy people for whom life is nothing but play and amusement. In both cases amusement includes sexual pleasure without tedious emotional entanglements. And in both cases a woman can use her beauty and a casual attitude towards sex to live a life of immense luxury. The immense wealth and the frivolity are much the same, and both are worlds that could fairly be described as decadent.
Marguerite belongs to a middle-aged duke but she does not feel the need to be faithful to him. He expects her to be discreet about her extra-curricular sexual adventures.
Then she meets Armand Duval (Nino Castelnuovo). As in the book he is the son of an immensely wealthy man. He is captivated by Marguerite. He is warned that if he becomes involved with her he is likely to get hurt. Marguerite has left a long trail of male broken hearts behind her.
Armand and Marguerite fall for each other in a big way but there are complications. Marguerite believes her life will be a short one and she intends to enjoy it to the utmost. For her that requires money. Lots of money. Armand’s family has a great deal of money but Armand himself has very little. The idea of not living the life of luxury she is accustomed to terrifies Marguerite. And disentangling herself from her duke would be exceptionally difficult. Is love enough without money? Maybe it is but accepting that idea would be a huge step for her. For a girl like Marguerite it would mean becoming a different sort of girl entirely, which she may not be capable of doing.
There are misunderstandings, and there’s the hostility of Armand’s family. Added to which Marguerite is just not used to the idea of being faithful to one man. She has always enjoyed sex but monogamy is a concept she has never even considered. And realistically her only means of making a living is by selling herself.
As you may have gathered the movie sticks very closely to the original story. Not just in terms of plot but in terms of character and tone. Unlike the celebrated 1936 version with Garbo this movie makes it quite clear that Marguerite is not just a rich man’s mistress, she is a prostitute by profession. A very high-class very very expensive prostitute, but a prostitute nonetheless. The movie makes no judgment on her for this. She is the woman she is. She wants love and will sacrifice a great deal for love but she will not accept poverty as the price of love.
She has to make some decisions and her entire future hinges on making the right decisions.
Metzger always worked within limited budgets and his ability to achieve a sense of opulence is breathtaking. The production design is stunning. The costumes are superb. Everything reeks of money and decadence.
One of Metzger’s trademarks was his ability to come up with extraordinarily interesting ways to shoot sex scenes. In this case he not only makes use of some amazing sets and props (transparent plastic beds for example) but lots of mirrors and lots of shooting through transparent surfaces. The sex is only moderately graphic by the standards of 1969 but Metzger makes sex incredibly photogenic. There’s a moderate amount of nudity but mostly it’s partial nudity - women wearing costumes that reveal almost everything, but not quite everything. It’s much more erotic than most softcore films that feature much more graphic sex. This is sex as art and art as sex.
This is a movie that has an S&M-flavoured orgy scene that is actually both erotic and very decadent.
Metzger is also always aware that he is filming one of the great love stories. The movie is a visual feast and it’s very erotic but it’s also deliriously romantic.
Metzger shot this movie in Italy because a limited budget would go a lot further there and he could get much higher production values, and top quality actors. The two leads, Danièle Gaubert and Nino Castelnuovo, are excellent and the supporting cast is equally good. Metzger gives a lot of credit for the sumptuous look of the film to Enrico Sabbatini who designed the sets and costumes (and did a superb job).
I should note at this point that the screencaps used here are from the old Australian DVD release. Image quality on the Cult Epics Blu-Ray is vastly superior. The difference in quality is staggering. The Blu-Ray also offers us an extended cut which had previously not been available on home video. There are plenty of tempting extras as well, including an audio commentary with Radley Metzger. It’s pleasing to hear Metzger express his admiration for Roger Vadim, a director who doesn’t get the respect he deserves, and for The Libertine, a wonderful Italian movie I reviewed here recently.
Camille 2000 is one of the movies in which Metzger established a benchmark for cinematic erotica which has rarely been equalled and never surpassed. Very highly recommended.
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