rss feed
Philippe Djian vs Betty Blue
Philippe Djian is the author of 37.2 Le Matin, 37.2 Degrees in the Morning, the book upon which the film Betty Blue was based. 37.2 degrees in the morning is the body temperature of a pregnant woman, in case you were wondering.
I only discovered this book after seeing, and loving, the film back in my student days and seeking out the source material. After a few reads I ended up loving the book just as much as I had the film. It’s a strange and beautiful first person narrative, incomparable to anything else I’ve read, and a truly brilliant work. But whether Djian is a consistently brilliant author I can’t tell you, as it is the only one of his 14+ books to have ever been translated into English. Which is criminal.
What Djian says about the film adaptation of his most famous book is very interesting:
“It’s very disagreeable, that my work is only known in English by the movie, because the aesthetics of Jean Jacques Beineix’s film is completely different, maybe the opposite. It’s difficult because in the movie you have two characters – in the book I was not sure that I was speaking of two characters. Somewhere in my mind there was only one character who was part male and part female – it wasn’t so brutal. If you are a film maker, you have to be very light, you have to be delicate. If there is a scene of love in the movie you are not obliged to use music. In this movie and in most movies it’s like they’re made for children. For example, in Betty Blue I said at the beginning of the book the man has a yellow car and that’s all I said. But in the movie from beginning to end you have the yellow car and the yellow car and the yellow car and you have the sunset, and you have the music – so it’s too much, it’s like pastries – they can be too rich! Each kind of pastry can be good on its own : cream, chocolate, and so on… but if you put them all together, it’s horrible!”
In recent years it’s become less rare for a good book to make the translation into a great film, I can think of Fight Club, Enduring Love and High Fidelity as good recent examples. But once it was, and it’s much more difficult to think of examples more than 20 years old.
The differences between Beineix’s film and Djian’s book aren’t quite as dramatic as Djian might imply in the quote above, but the two different approaches to telling the same story certainly makes for an interesting comparison. If you liked the film and have never read the book, I’d recommend you check it out.
I look forward to the day I can read my second Djian book. I’ve no intention of learning French now at this stage in my life, so I’m hoping he’ll drift into fashion somehow and there becomes a demand for new translations. It was only a few years ago I remember complaining how hard it was to find Haruki Murakami’s work, and now he’s bloody everywhere, so perhaps it might happen one day. All I can really do to help the cause is write the odd blog post in my lunch-hour, which is what I’ve just done
Tweet
June 18th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Just a very quick note to say that it is a Very Rare Thing to find a film adaption better than a book, but i am afraid in this case the film is better, and yes i’ve read it twice.
The translation is fucking awful, i could have done better myself and i got an ‘F’ in my French GCSE.
It was like watching the film with the american accented dubbing on, in fact somethimes i put the film on with no subtitles just for the experience, its all in the tone anyway.
I too wish there were more (proper) translations of Djian’s works, i would gladly read them.
So much of 37.2oc Le Matin is about the casting, i could honestly watch that couple paint ALL those beach huts, and just hum along with the (amazing) theme waiting for her to smile………….
June 19th, 2007 at 8:47 am
I’d find it hard to argue with your point Iggy as I cannot fault Beineix’s film, although I might argue (against myself) that perhaps it’s a fruitless exercise trying to compare book and film in the first place.
I am blissful in my ignorance of how poor the only English translation of the book might be, but now a better translation of 37.2 Le Matin has to go on my wishlist too.
On a related point, I have seen at least three different sets of English subtitles in the various releases of the film, so the script has certainly been translated a number of times, even if the book has not. But again, the relative faithfulness of each translation was lost on me.
June 20th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Yes, a good point to compare translations is when Zorg falls asleep in the beach hut and Betty kisses his penis good-night; in one version she says something like “Sleep well little slug” and in another; “Night night sleepy snail”…
There are three translations i know of; the recent dvd directors cut originally exclusive to HMV, the special edition video box set (with booklet) and my first copy- taped off of channel 4 about 12 years ago.
Another good point of comparison is the opening line:
“…Tonight’s forecast was…………………………..”
July 6th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
I think both the book and the film work in their own right. I helps to read the book first to make sense of the film. However you can tell the translation is odd with the book, but it’s better than no book at all. Same as the film: my wife has a bad eye (no she is not Betty!) which makes reading hard so the dubbing is better than no film at all. Anyway, this is one of the best film translations of a book I have seen, and the book makes it as much as the film. I have only seen one book made into a film that was better as a film and that was Sheltering Sky, but even then you really need to read the book as well.
December 8th, 2007 at 12:20 am
I translated 2 of Philipe Djian’s book into English, for my wife. Lent dehors, which I believe is a masterpiece, and Sotos.
I am not sure of the legal implication of e-mailing you the translations. I guess I have to seek the author’s permission beforehand. And I might need to show your confirmation that you won’t make it available on your blog, etc.
Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll pursue. These are great books and deserve to be read by the English speaking public.
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Dear Olivier: If there’s any way to ge hold of the works you translated, would you let me know? This of course would be for my own personal use, as I’m a great fan of Djian.
Thanks
May 13th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
…Olivier,
Could you transcribe the film; that would be incredible…Merci…
September 29th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
I loved bouth the book which i read thirst and the film i discoverd by accident one night on TV. And eventhough the movie is of course differnt from the book i do not agree with dijan for me beety blue is the best movie that could be made out of this film.
Sadly i dont speak frech but german instead (mayby because i´m geman^^) and i think every book of dijan is translated into german my favourit is 100 to 1 or 50 contre 1
November 5th, 2009 at 2:48 am
I read several books by Philippe Djian and I as far as I am concerned he is quite a good writer. His language is quite coarse sometimes but it has got to do with the subjects and characters he portrays in his novels… Still, the translations would have to be done by someone who is at ease with french slang. I do not remember at the moment any of the titles (sorry about that!), but in case there are any good translations, it is quite worthwhile to dedicate some of your time to read them since it will prove to be a very enjoyable and rewarding experience. Of course this is only my own personal and subjective opinion …
January 24th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
This is looking promising.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Unforgivable-Philippe-Djian/dp/143916441X/
I too have have waiting a long time for another novel to be transalated.
March 24th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
I have read the book in French and have the full-length version of the film on DVD. They are both excellent. I have not see the translation of 37 2 le matin, but I can tell you that it is literary in quality. Roger Ebert dismisses the film as porno. He is really off base on that judgment. The film is an intelligent character study. Also, the music is haunting. One of the best soundtracks out there.