Here we have the story of Charles Swann (played exquisitely by consummate actor Jeremy Irons), a man with way too much money and time on his hands.
We quickly see that the dandy Swann cares deeply about two things -- dressing to the nines as he makes the rounds of high-society Paris, and stalking the dreamily indifferent, high-class prostitute Odette (Ornella Muti).
Swann tortures himself with fantasies about Odette's dalliances when she is out of his sight with the likes of the Baron de Charlus (Alain Delon) and flirtatious Madame Verdurin (Marie-Christine Barrault). He often tells Odette that she is the center of his universe.
Such statements would leave a more self-sufficient woman feeling suffocated, but for Odette they mean money. Swann keeps her dressed int he finest of wardrobes and and pays for extravagances like a trip to Egypt.
Sometimes he ponders how he doesn't even really like Odette. In the tradition of possessive, jealous males throughout art and history, Swann at one point contemplates killing Odette so he won't have to obsess about her anymore!
And one day it hits him that he has wasted his life trying to possess Odette. At which point his best buddy asks when they will wed.
In a short coda at the end of the film, we observe a Swann who went ahead and did exactly that -- engaged in a matrimony that would cause him to be shunned by his so-called friends. Now he has a daughter, dresses more plainly, travels in a scaled-down carriage, and no longer hobnobs with nobility.
Seemingly, his wife is leading a life of her own, triggering wistful memories in past johns as she travels in a carriage of her own through a Paris that is now sporting the earliest of automobiles.
Swann has confided to his seeming erstwhile lover the Duchesse de Guermantes (Fanny Ardant) that he is dying, but it's hard to tell whether she gives a fig as she rushes off to yet another soiree.
I haven't read the novel by Proust, so I can't judge this movie's faithfulness to the original, but it does a good job of pointing to much of the futility in life. We chase after dreams, and, before we know it, life is over.
"The memory of love helps me face death without fear," Swann confides to his friend.
"Losing one's life -- the only life one will have," Meme philosophizes back. "Life is like an artist's studio, filled with half-finished sketches. We sacrifice all to fantasies, that vanish one after another. We betray our ambitions, our dreams."
We quickly see that the dandy Swann cares deeply about two things -- dressing to the nines as he makes the rounds of high-society Paris, and stalking the dreamily indifferent, high-class prostitute Odette (Ornella Muti).
Swann tortures himself with fantasies about Odette's dalliances when she is out of his sight with the likes of the Baron de Charlus (Alain Delon) and flirtatious Madame Verdurin (Marie-Christine Barrault). He often tells Odette that she is the center of his universe.
Such statements would leave a more self-sufficient woman feeling suffocated, but for Odette they mean money. Swann keeps her dressed int he finest of wardrobes and and pays for extravagances like a trip to Egypt.
Sometimes he ponders how he doesn't even really like Odette. In the tradition of possessive, jealous males throughout art and history, Swann at one point contemplates killing Odette so he won't have to obsess about her anymore!
And one day it hits him that he has wasted his life trying to possess Odette. At which point his best buddy asks when they will wed.
In a short coda at the end of the film, we observe a Swann who went ahead and did exactly that -- engaged in a matrimony that would cause him to be shunned by his so-called friends. Now he has a daughter, dresses more plainly, travels in a scaled-down carriage, and no longer hobnobs with nobility.
Seemingly, his wife is leading a life of her own, triggering wistful memories in past johns as she travels in a carriage of her own through a Paris that is now sporting the earliest of automobiles.
Swann has confided to his seeming erstwhile lover the Duchesse de Guermantes (Fanny Ardant) that he is dying, but it's hard to tell whether she gives a fig as she rushes off to yet another soiree.
I haven't read the novel by Proust, so I can't judge this movie's faithfulness to the original, but it does a good job of pointing to much of the futility in life. We chase after dreams, and, before we know it, life is over.
"The memory of love helps me face death without fear," Swann confides to his friend.
"Losing one's life -- the only life one will have," Meme philosophizes back. "Life is like an artist's studio, filled with half-finished sketches. We sacrifice all to fantasies, that vanish one after another. We betray our ambitions, our dreams."