At 52, Annette Bening has long expired her leading lady time limit and this year will be her last realistic chance to win the Oscar for Best Actress but that dubiously could be her trumping card to pull off an upset, particularly when Natalie Portman is considered still at the dawn of her career. Supposed the Academy did decide to honour the award this year based on one’s career instead of an individual performance, that means it could reunite Colin Firth and Annette Bening at the winner podium. For at the very beginning of their Hollywood careers Firth and Bening co-starred together in an A-list production but with few audience called Valmont.
The first starring role for Bening and the first Hollywood movie for Firth, Valmont was the Czechoslovakia-born director Milos Forman's follow up his Oscar success Amadeus in 1989. Adapting from the Choderlos de Laclos' scandalous French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses about revenge and seduction, Valmont, like Amadeus, is another costume drama set in Baroque Europe. The producer no doubt was hoping that the similar format could duplicate the success of its predecessor. But what was unexpected is that in the middle of the production, rising British director Stephen Frears had announced his first foray into Hollywood should be Dangerous Liaisons (孽戀焚情), the movie adaption of Christopher Hampton’s stage production of the same novel, and its release date beat Valmont by eleven months. Dangerous Liaisons went on to great success during the Award season and firmly established Frears in Hollywood. Milos Foreman is famous for stories about underdogs such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man on the Moon and Amadeus (Mozart is the underdog to Salieri within the movie). However, in this case Foreman had become the underdog himself and Valmont would need to be his extraordinary in order to have a chance, and it was not - Valmont impressed few critics, fizzled at the box office and it did nothing to further Colin Firth's career in Hollywood (History will repeat itself when the public largely ignored Infamous, the Toby Jones’ vehicle about author Truman Capote’s research for his book In Cold Blood, one year after Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for the same story in Capote). Nevertheless, it is always interesting to, given the same sources, compare two movies for the creative difference behind them. In this case, it is also a career starting point of two of this year's award favorites.
Dangerous Liaisons vs. Valmont
For those who are unfamiliar, the plot of Les Liaisons dangereuses revolves around a bet between widow Marquise de Merteuil and notorious womanizer Vicomte de Valmont. Upon learning her lover is deserting her for her second cousin, the young convent-educated Cécile de Volanges, Merteuil suggests her ex-lover Valmont to seduce Cécile in order to humiliate Cécile’s future husband. Valmont instead sets his eyes on Madame de Tourvel, the virtuous wife of a judge who is staying in the châteaux of Valmont’s old aunt. Merteuil then promises Valmont if he succeeds in sleeping with Tourvel she will spend the night with him. In the meantime, Cécile falls in love with her music tutor Chevalier Danceny and the two carry on a secret affair behind Cécile’s controlling mom. Seizing the opportunity, Merteuil and Valmont pretend to help uniting the secret lovers in order to gain their trust so that they can carry out their own schemes…
Benefited from a stage adaption, the dialogues of the movie Dangerous Liaisons were more literate and concise but delivered a more powerhouse punch. Frears casted two theatre veterans (and bigger stars), Glenn Close and John Malkovich, for the two leads in order to be faithful to the stage flavor, even though Close and Malkovich are significantly older than the characters they portrayed. The movie also made strong use of close up and medium shots to accentuate the dramatic effect of the dueling between the various protagonists. (Some also suggests this is to mask the minimal sets in order to keep the movie in a relatively tight budget). Valmont, on the other hand, featured a much younger cast; the five main characters on average are six years junior to the respective actors in Dangerous Liaisons. Featuring numerous extreme long shots and crowd scenes, Valmont showcases its bigger budget on elaborate sets and on-location shooting, even with a more obscure leads.
Glenn Close vs. Annette Bening
As the bitterly scheming Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons, Glenn Close was once again casted in a sexually charged role following her turn as the psychotic female stalker Alex Forrest in the box office smash Fatal Attraction. Although it was implied that she had numerous lovers in Dangerous Liaisons, one gets the feeling that it wasn’t carnal pleasure but revenge that Close’s Merteuil was seeking. Revenge against a male-dominated society where she, as a woman, was condemned to play a subservient part. When asked how she managed to invent herself with the murderous plans she had constantly plotted, Merteuil said:
"I had no choice, did I? I'm a woman. Women are obliged to be far more skillful than men. You can ruin our reputation and our life with a few well-chosen words. So, of course, I had to invent, not only myself, but ways of escape no one has ever thought of before. And I've succeeded because I've always known I was born to dominate your sex and avenge my own"
When Valmont related to Merteuil the erotic bliss he experienced when he successfully seduced Madame de Tourvel into sleeping with him, the look of envy and self-pity on Close' face seemed to suggest Merteuil had never actually enjoyed sexual intercourse in her life. If Dangerous Liaisons was directed by a woman, I wouldn't be a bit surprised Merteuil will be turned into a closeted lesbian. On the contrary, after another round of secret rendezvous in the beginning of Valmont, Merteuil lying naked on the bed unabashedly yearned for the quick return of her lover Comte de Gercourt (a character who didn't appear in Dangerous Liaisons at all even though he was supposedly the primary motive behind Merteuil's bet), unbeknown to her at the time Gercourt was about to leave her for her second cousin Cécile. In fact, when Annette Bening's Merteuil first took Cécile under her wing upon Cécile's mother's request, she actually protect Cécile from the amorous advance of Valmont. Unlike Close's Merteuil, Bening's version did have a certain noble intention in her soul.
It was Stephen Frear who temporarily set Annette Bening’s career back with Dangerous Liaisons. Ironically it was also Frears who righted her course for he casted Annette as one of the double-crossing con artists trio in his next Hollywood movie, the neo-noir The Grifters, for which Annette received her first Oscar nomination and finally put her on the map. She followed that up with the role of Virginia Hill, 40s Hollywood starlet and gun-moll to Warren Beatty’s Benjamin Siegel in Bugsy. Warren Beatty and Annette Bening hooked up during the filming, almost a standard procedure for any Beatty’s movies but Bening managed to have Beatty married her, something none of the luminous list of Beatty’s old flames that includes Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton… had accomplished. They stayed married close to twenty years now, almost longer than all his previous affairs combined
John Malkovich vs. Colin Firth
Half bald, slightly crossed-eyes and looked older than his age, if not for his outstanding stage pedigree, John Malkovich was indeed an odd choice to play the supposedly charming but diabolical seducer Vicomte de Valmont. His renowned for playing creeps, however, gave an extra predatory dimension to the character, such as the time when Tourvel had to flee to her room to recompose herself upon hearing Valmont’s shocking declaration of love for her. The way Malkovich went after Michelle Pfeiffer to her room was like a wild beast toying with his wounded prey: giving his victim a false sense of security with an easy escape but always knows that it is within his grasp. Malkovich’s sadistic trait was never more evident than his callous and brutal brash off of Tourvel by repeatedly saying "It’s beyond my control":
On the other hand, Colin Firth was only slightly better casted himself. With the exception of Mr. Darcy in the mini-series Pride and Prejudice where he did a skinny-dipping, Firth usually played characters that are solid but stoic, dependable but internal and low in charisma, including his turn as the stuttering King George VI in this year’s nomination, which is a long way from the debauchery of Valmont. This is evident even in his first movie Another Country, where he played the intellectual Marxist Tommy Judd while Rupert Everett played the flamboyant Guy Bennett. Interestingly, Rupert Everett would play Vicomte de Valmont himself in a 2003 French TV adaption of Les liaisons dangereuses, and Everett would be a better choice than Firth had the series was made ten years earlier.
As a result, Firth’s Valmont was more playful and joie de vivre than dangerous. Instead of a charming devilish seducer, he was more an immature Casanova who was just unable to commit to one person. While Malkovich’s Valmont will charm a woman just for the sake of ruining her, Firth’s actually did care the woman he wooed, regardless how short that might last. His Valmont sincerely believed that one should only marry for love and not for honour and position and that’s why he openly sided with Cécile to choose Danceny instead of marrying a man she doesn’t love, even before he and Merteuil had declared war against each other.
In fact, Bening’s Merteuil had such an upper hand over Firth’s Valmont throughout the movie that the victor of their duel was never in question, while the pairing of Glenn Close and John Malkovich did at least have an element of tension.
Michelle Pfeiffer vs. Meg Tilly
While Forman presented a gentler, less malicious Merteuil and Valmont in his version of Les Liaisons dangereuses, he also presented a less virtuous Madame de Tourvel. Firth’s Valmont managed to breakdown Tourvel’s defense with all the time-honoured trick of courtship: a little horseback riding, a little picnicking in open garden, a little romp on the dance floor…etc, nothing out of the ordinary any hormone driven male wouldn’t do. Contrasting with the distance John Malkovich has gone: feigning a moral reformation, bribing and then blackmailing Tourvel’s maid, intercepting all Tourvel’s personl correspondence… Surprisingly, there was no hint of Tourvel’s religious faith at all in Valmont (Michelle Pfeiffer made her first entrance in Dangerous Liaisons in a Sunday mass). Michelle Pfeiffer actually turned down the offer of the Merteuil part in Valmont to play Tourvel in Dangerous Liaisons. Considered that she is never known for playing innocent characters, Frears probably cast Michelle Pfeiffer for her iciness than her purity. For the battle to breakdown Pfeiffer’s frigid façade with Malkovich’s connivance had been most dramatically effective
Meg Tilly, on the other hand, was known to specialize in ethereal childlike roles. A very appealing and promising actress during the 80s, Tilly aspired to be a dancer growing up. However a back injury cut her dance career short and so she drifted into acting, following her older sister Jennifer Tilly’s footsteps. She first gained notice in Psycho II, the surprisingly effective sequel to Hitchcock’s masterpiece. She followed that with a part of the ensemble cast in Lawrence Kasdan acclaimed cult dramedy The Big Chill. Her most famous role is the mysteriously impregnated nun in Agnes of God (神蹟奇案) , for which she won an Oscar nomination. Her casting in Valmont was actually a compensation for missing out the part of Mozart’s wife in Forman’s Amadeus. The part was offered to her only to be recasted due to Tilly's untimely foot injury. Although Valmont was not the success as Amadeus, Tilly and Firth fell in love during the filming and she bore him a son shortly after the film wrapped. Meg‘s career couldn’t sustain the momentum in the 90s and sadly she quitted movie altogether in 1995 to concentrate on raising her children and a new career as a writer. One interesting trivia about Meg Tilly: she and her sisters are actually half Chinese and their surname by birth is Chan, Tilly was the surname of their mother they adopted after their parents got divorced. In fact, her sister Jennifer Tilly was casted in a Eurasian part in the Aaron Kwok costume historic drama 白銀帝國
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