Love in the movies

Cinema Wednesdays - Special edition: Les coronarétrospectives du cinéma - Loris S. Musumeci

«L'amour, l'amour, l'amour dont on parle toujours», sang Mouloudji. Yes, we're always talking about love. Love is everywhere. It drives us to the greatest follies. It creates heroes or assassins. It offers ineffable happiness when it's there. When it's gone, it can even make the wounded heart think of suicide. Love is what makes us live or die. Love is the omnipresent passion in every existence.

Read also: Family party defeated

Since love occupies such an important place in our lives, it's impossible not to find it in art. From statues with bodies that arouse erotic desire to the kissing paintings of a Klimt or a Picasso, not forgetting the greatest masterpieces of literature with Aragon's poetry, Shakespeare's theater dreaming of Verona or the’Anna Karenina by Tolstoy.

And of course, love invades the cinema. From the most tragic and passionate classics to romantic comedies. Le Regard Libre today takes a look back at seven films about love, in which the sentiment is sometimes glorified, sometimes abused. Since the list of love films is as big as a young lover's heart, we've chosen them according to our editorial preferences.

The coronarétrospective of today's cinema will start with the most recent romantic successes and end with the classics of love. Throughout the day, we'll be presenting Nos étoiles contraires (Josh Boone, 2014), 500 days together (Marc Webb, 2009), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004), American Beauty (Sam Mendes, 1999), A heart in winter (Claude Sautet, 1992), Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) and Gone with the wind (Victor Fleming, 1939) we hope to help you discover or rediscover great films, beautiful films, and why not make you cry a little, make you laugh a little, soften you up a little, make you want to fall in love all over again, or put you off for ever. Or simply give you ideas for films to see in the coming evenings.

Write to the author: loris.musumeci@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © Warner Bros (photo from the film Gone with the wind)