La Première éducation sentimentale (the first version of L'Éducation sentimentale), re-adapting the themes of first love, the intoxication of desire, and failed ideological revolution (that culminated in the Revolution of 1848) to the May 68 generation through a chronicle of the parallel lives of a pair of childhood friends, the pragmatic Henri and idealistic Jules as they leave their bucolic, rural hometown to separately pursue their baccalaureate - and real world - educations.
Direction
Green's deadpan stylization—actors face camera like Baroque portraits.
Writing
Flaubert reimagined through May 68's broken promises.
Director
Eugène Green
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Green shot this in his signature 'baroque' style—static compositions, frontal lighting, actors delivering lines with minimal inflection—as deliberate rejection of psychological realism.
The 1848/1968 parallel Green constructs was deeply unfashionable in 2001 French cinema; most directors treated May 68 with nostalgia, not Flaubertian irony.
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