The main themes found in Goethe’s Faust can also be found in The Smiling Madame Beudet. It echoes the fight for individuality that Madame Beudet faces as she is trapped at home, tormented by her husband. This theme foreshadows the events that follow in the film – particularly Madame Beudet choice to put the bullets into the gun. Her fight for this individuality that Debussy highlights in Faust reaches a climax at this point [2].
The theme of the “French Romantic” was prominent in Faust; this theme relates (as a sort of foil) to the struggling Beudet relationship. At the end of the Opera, Marguerite, a woman in love, rises to heaven. In both Monsieur Beudet’s mind – when he discovers the bullets in the gun and assumes his wife was attempting suicide – and Madame Beudet’s mind – when the gun was shot at her – Madame Beudet almost had the same experience. In this instance, however, it would be from a culmination of hate instead of love. The opera itself was presumably selected to convey this knowledge to the films intended audience.
Music is also a key part of Madame Beudet’s life as it is the only thing that gives her hope in her small and confined world. The first time Mme. Beudet is shown to the audience she sits at a piano.
The piece she is playing is Claude Debussy’s Oeuvres pour Piano. It is an anthology of different pieces.
Debussy’s music was not just inspired by preceding classical music, but also French folk. This could be an explanation as to why Madame Beudet owns a book Debussy’s work. It is probable that a household residing in provincial France was fond of French folk music as well [2]. Although this is a silent film, music fills Mme. Beudet’s life with joy and it is translated on screen through Germaine Dermoz’s acting and additional special effects. Later on Mme. Beudet’s husband is shown holding another piece of Debussy’s work.
This piece can be heard here. The piece itself is very chaotic and can also be aligned with the life that Mme. Beudet was trapped in. In essence this piece is not only perfect for this part of the movie, but is also a perfect point to show the fear that Mme. Beudet faces on a regular basis. Jardins sous la Pluie is the third piece in a musical anthology titled Estampes [3]. In an analysis this piece takes place in a garden during a rainstorm [4]; in this case Mme. Beudet is the garden and her husband is the rainstorm. It also has sections that are supposed to evoke sounds of gusts of wind and violent thunderstorms raging [4].
Tatum Mannion, Annie Cohen, Ben Factor
[1] David Pan. “Sacrifice in Goethe’s Faust.” Goethe Yearbook 21.1 (2014): 129-156. Project MUSE. Web. 27 Oct. 2015. <https://muse.jhu.edu/>.
[2] Raad, V. “Claude Debussy.” New Catholic Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Biography in Context. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.
[3] http://imslp.org/wiki/Estampes_(Debussy,_Claude)
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estampes#III._Jardins_sous_la_pluie