...but time has not treated Jacques Rouffio's flick kindly.Two stories within fifteen years of one another,two surgeons who committed suicide because of a an old doctor (Charles Vanel) and his offprings who could not stand competition.Using gossips,false rumors and slander,the clique gets away unharmed and can repeat its bad deeds again ,as the last picture shows.
It is not easy to blend two stories and they do not hang well together.As he did not want the viewer to loose the vital lead ,Rouffio felt compelled to repeat his scenes .The best would have been not to show the Depardieu plot ,the weakest of the two . Doctor Berg is a caricature(the actor,27 at the time ,was too young ),complete with moustache,bow tie and hip suit .This is not an in-depth portrayal:you cannot claim that a surgeon epitomizes a "humane" medicine just because he climbs up the hospital wall to visit his patients or because he cheats in his chic gambling circle.The Michel Piccoli story is certainly more moving and the film should have focused on it,Michel Auclair's shrink character telling us what happened before.
It is not easy to blend two stories and they do not hang well together.As he did not want the viewer to loose the vital lead ,Rouffio felt compelled to repeat his scenes .The best would have been not to show the Depardieu plot ,the weakest of the two . Doctor Berg is a caricature(the actor,27 at the time ,was too young ),complete with moustache,bow tie and hip suit .This is not an in-depth portrayal:you cannot claim that a surgeon epitomizes a "humane" medicine just because he climbs up the hospital wall to visit his patients or because he cheats in his chic gambling circle.The Michel Piccoli story is certainly more moving and the film should have focused on it,Michel Auclair's shrink character telling us what happened before.