Dangerous Liaisons (1988) or Valmont (1989)?

nothing with Annette benning please !!

saw her on bway in Coastal Disturbances: sad

DL also had a better writer and a more consistent director.

Agree, that the ideal combination of actors are Glenn-John-Michelle and Fairuza-Henry.

In DL you really sense Valmont has fallen for Tourvel. But in Valmont, it's like Meg Tilly is in a different movie, and Valmont seems more in love with Merteuil.

No one can come near glenn close

she the best

Ridicule is good, too

I like both, but I prefer Dangerous Liaisons.

Dangerous Liaisons by far.

Valmont is easily the worst and only bad film that Milos Forman ever directed.

“Dangerous Liaisons” is one of the best movies of the eighties, and one of the best costume dramas ever. It feels alive in the way so many wigs and corsets type movies don’t: wicked, funny and even sexy despite starring two actors who really aren’t.

Close, Pfeiffer and Frears all should have won Oscars alongside Hampton.

Dangerous Liaisons feels more sumptuous, like it was very expensive. Valmont looks like a Lifetime movie. Have you seen the French version set in the 1950s?

I read the book, the English version, a few years ago. It's very entertaining. The entire story is told in a series of letters from one character to another. The movie was true to the novel as I recall, although much less detailed of course.

Pfeiffer? no, no no

very out of her scarface league...

WTF, aside from Man on The Moon (Netflix) I can't find any other Forman film to stream on line.

I like Firth much better than Malkovich for the role of Valmont (Valmont is supposed to be handsome), and Thomas and Balk better than Reeves (who cannot act) and Thurman. But Close is much better than Bening in the role of Merteuil, and Pfeiffer is so much better than Meg Tilly as the Presidente that there's just no contest.

Even though it was most likely a body double, there is no way the scene between Firth and Balk would happen today. There would be major outrage.

Dangerous Liaisons

A friend and I got into an argument about Malkovich. I thought he was great as Valmont. My friend thought he was not credible as someone women would fall for because he's ugly. I argued that the point isn't for Valmont to be physically attractive, Valmont is a master of seduction. If you are a hot guy you don't have to seduce a woman, she comes to you because you are gorgeous. A seducer uses other means to get into your pants, he messes with your mind, which is what you see with Malkovich. I would never want to fuck Malkovich's Valmont but I get how a woman could be lured into bed by him.

Dangerous Liaisons is perfection.

I thought Malkovich was the best thing about the movie and Keanu was so gorgeous, I never forgot him after that.

Keanu was cast because he went to audition for the role just as he came from the beach, no shirt, no shoes and just acting like his beachboy self. Think Point Break.

R4 I like your sense of humor. Very dry.

[quote]But in Valmont, it's like Meg Tilly is in a different movie, and Valmont seems more in love with Merteuil.

I think Meg Tilly is one of the big problems with Valmont - Tourvel is the heart of the story, but Tilly is just so dull in the role, not at all convincing as a deeply religious woman torn apart by love and desire. She got the part basically because Milos Forman personally liked her, and wanted to make up for the fact that she'd had to drop out of her role as Constanze in Amadeus. It was a deadly choice.

I remember reading an interview with Stephen Frears at the time of DL's release. He mentioned that when Michelle Pfeiffer's name came up for the role, there was some question of how her very 'American' style of acting would fit with all these highly-trained theater and Brit actors. I think the difference in style really works within the film - it fits with her character's vulnerability.

I can watch Dangerous Liaisons again and again. Valmont I've seen once. Maybe I should give it a second viewing. It wasn't bad but as I recall it made some of the characters too sympathetic. Merteuil and Valmont are supposed to be downright wicked. I was very impressed with Bening at the time, though now I realize she was running through her usual bag of tricks.

Nerd trivia: Wil Wheaton was supposed to play Danceny in Valmont, the role that went to Henry Thomas. Wheaton might have had a very different career if the Star Trek: TNG people had been more flexible.

A good synopsis of DL:

HE: I'm the most wicked person in all of France!

SHE: No, I'm the most wicked person in all of France!

THE END

Cruel Intentions is an adaptation of Les Liaisons dangereuses

I like both but DL more

[quote]Even though it was most likely a body double, there is no way the scene between Firth and Balk would happen today. There would be major outrage.

Oh, do tell

"DL" is a much better movie, by any rational standard. The tension between the leading characters slowly goes from flirtatious to deadly, and by the ending the suspense is incredible. It's one of the best movies about a battle of wits ever made, one of the only American movies made about a battle of wits where the characters actually keep ahead of the audience! I remember "Valmont" as falling apart in the 3rd act, all the tension bleeds out of it.

However, I like "Valmont" as well, largely because the two leading characters are actually attractive. I suppose you could make a case that Valmont himself could be an ugly man who seduces through wit, although I prefer an attractive man in the role myself. But Mme. Mertueil actually does need to be a looker, the kind of woman that doesn't have to talk straight men into stiffies. Glenn Close was not that woman, Annette Benning was closer to what the character should have been.

Valmont is better. Firth, Benning, Fairuza, Henry Thomas are way better. DL looks cartoonish and Michelle is very beautiful, but can't act.

Although "Cruel Intentions" has the splendors of Ryan Phillippe's bare ass at its highest and plumpest in it (and thus is well regarded by Dataloungers), it's really not that good of a movie at all. The story just doesn't work very well when transposed to a high school--its literally life-and-death stakes seem ridiculous when played out among a group of teenyboppers.

Valmont is pretty bad. Like 45 on my own Rotten Tomatoes. Dangerous Liaisons is high 80s. Maybe 90. I even like Keanu Reeves. Uma, not so much.

use a poll

She did as well as she could, and even I with my standards must admit it was not a complete failure. Overdone, of course - she cannot approximate actual humanity or characterization and anything done as a period piece is beyond her - but she tried, at least.

Part of the problem is that she is so, so far from any period that she simply can't remember how to act it. The old dear.

The French version set in the 1960s for TV from several years ago is quite entertaining, though not as tense and tragic as Frears’ version.

It’s full of DL regulars: Catherine Denueve (who fucks schoolboys and keeps their uniform hats as souvenirs) and Rupert Everett, plus the strangely oft-mentioned Leelee Sobieski. Perhaps the best casting was Nastasia Kinski.

Vadim did it with Moreau. Its very chic but that also means its not very moving.

Dangerous Liaisons wins by far for me!

Glenn Close was superb and John Malkovich was wicked. Both of these actors were completely believable in their roles. They were so good that I didn't even notice anyone else too much.

The last scene in the film when Madame is removing her pancake makeup after being rejected by society has remained burned in my mind even today. The way she viciously wipes away her "mask" with the tears rolling down her face. She's defiant and defeated at the same time. Perfection. I'll never forget that scene.

Has anyone seen the Korean adaptation translated as Untold Scandal from a few years ago?

I heard it was really good and packed with sex.

DL by a long shot. While not handsome, there is something devilishly sexy about Malkovich. Sexy has nothing to do with looks and everything to do with attitude and that certain "something" that can be conveyed by a voice or smoldering look. It's all attitude. He oozes danger which a lot of women find attractive.

Meg Tilly went through Valmont looking like a mouthbreathing 'tard.

Close was horrible in that film. She didn't understand the story and the character at all. She is supposed to be a most charming and kind woman in public, and a vicious crafty sadist in private. Not the double faced unsympathetic woman Close plays from the start. It was the hulkiest, most heavy and phoned in performance I have ever seen. It should have been called ' elephant walk'. Someone like Mia Farrow would have been perfect. Did Close even read the fucking book ? It was ridiculous. They all seem virtuous. That's why they can operate.The only good performance came from poor miscast Pfeiffer.

VALMONT, no question.

Cruel Intentions

Neither. Les Liaisons dangereuses with Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan on the West End.

Spellbinding.

Tammy Faye Baker WAS Madame de Tourvel, the pathos of it all, opposite the majestic Jan Crouch's Marquise de Merteuil, at Heritage USA Dinner The-ater in the Round. And it was in French! Impeccable.

[QUOTE]Meg Tilly went through Valmont looking like a mouthbreathing 'tard.

In other words, like Meg Tilly.

I've been meaning to see the Vadim version for years. Must get around to that and maybe the Korean version as well. Always interesting to see a great story told different ways.

If we're talking stage now...I saw the recentish production with Janet McTeer and Liev Schreiber on Broadway. She was good but I didn't care for Schreiber's take on Valmont. Maybe he was going for louche but he came off laid back. The whole thing doesn't really work if Valmont doesn't seem very invested in the scheming.

WHET Meg Tilly ? Wasn't she supposed to be the new Audrey or something ? Did she die ? Did she grow fat and retire ?

Meg Tilly did a Canadian series a few years ago called Bomber Girls but seems to have disappeared again.

r24 Balk was only 14/15 when this movie was filmed and there's a scene where Firth is kissing her naked rear (most likely a body double). It's a very suggestive scene and I am surprised there wasn't outrage in 1989.

Meg Tilly left acting to raise her children and deal with her childhood sexual abuse. She apparently was molested a lot by a step father. She wrote a bunch of books about it and her recovery from it.

She was in a Brad Pitt movie a few years ago and has done some stage work in Canada. She played Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf even (and surprisingly.)

Women must have found Malkovitch sexy. I remember standing near two women in a video store once and they were discussing how he was the sexiest actor working. I was like huh? really?

There is something very sexy about Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons. I don't know what it is his - his eyes, his voice, but it works. You can see why Close, Pfeiffer and Thurman are all drawn to him.

The sex scenes between uma and John were a bit hard to take and I believe Uma was only 16 at the time.

It looks like she was 18 r47. (and didn't they have an affair off screen or was that Malkovitch and Pfeiffer?)

Not since Bette Davis in Little Foxes set the standard for vicious bitches has anyone come as close as Glenn did in Dl. Superb. I hate Malkavich,and I wish someone else had done this movie then itd be in my top 10.Not that fucking Jeremy Irons either,or Daniel Day Lewis! Blech !

Maybe Greg Wise then

r36 you don't understand the novel, the character, the film, or French nobility. I've read the book in French and English and the script and Close's performance are perfectly aligned with the book. In fact, in the book, the character is even more vicious and grotesque. The film rarely shows the Marquise in public, so what you're claiming she does not "understand" or demonstrate in her characterizations in public is absurd. The few scenes we see the Marquise outside of the game she is playing she looks as regal, dignified and non-menacing as any of the others. She's also witty. And I have met people just like her – frighteningly, in upper class European society, faux charm in public and vicious behind the scenes.

And for all of the hate on Annette Bening, I love her in the Grifters, not surprisingly, directed by Stephen Frears.

Where Fairuza Balk?

R51, I AM french nobility, and a vicious bitch.

I haven't see either of these two films in about twenty years, but my friends and I were obsessed with DL in undergrad and I saw Valmont as a one off at the same time. I recall appreciaing the 'naturalism' of Valmont in terms of lighting and costuming, but in retrospect think that DL was probably a better film and Close's performance (which I found mannered at the time) was spot on, particularly in light of her final scene, the explicit artifice of her performance works. I remember all my female friends going nutty over Malkovich as Valmont in DL and not really getting it, as I much preferred Firth, but he certainly had an appeal to women. Pfeiffer's performance in this and Age of Innocence are two of her best as no one can play a fallen beautiful society woman like Michelle (outside Garbo). Would have actually liked to see her get a crack at Anna Karenina.

Most of the acting in the Benning one was ridic....Keanu? geesh. embarrasing

It's interesting to think that if DL was being made today, Pfeiffer would be a front runner for Merteuil.

[quote]Pfeiffer's performance in this and Age of Innocence are two of her best as no one can play a fallen beautiful society woman like Michelle (outside Garbo).

Hahahahahaha Hahahahahaha Hahahahahaha HahahahahahaHahahahahaha

critics called Fife err a joke....

I had to sit through an entire stage performance of John Malkovitch in an awful show a few years after DL, because I couldn't get out without disturbing the entire row. I wanted to DIE. Or I wanted HIM to die.He kept screaming on top of his lungs for two solid hours. Some performers are like that. They think it's displaying great power. Long monotonous ear abusing OTT loud bully performance without a bit of a nuance. It happened to me several times.. Another one was klaus maria brandauer. In both cases it marked the end of their career as a leading man. Casting directors DO go to the theatre, and they are not stupid.

Much prefer “Dangerous Liaisons”. The dreary Meg Tilly spoiled “Valmont” for me. I never understood Forman’s infatuation with her.

Everybody else playing one of the upper crust characters tried to sound it; even Pfeiffer. Malkovich used his usual flat Midwestern drawl. That kept taking me out if the story. (Of course, Malkovich does try on an accent not his own, as in Rounders, it's ridiculous.)

Valmont for the eye candy of Colin Firth and Henry Thomas. I like their acting. But I am feeling very shallow at this moment.

59, was the play Burn This? Or something else?

I love them both

henry Thomas was best thing bout that one. I saw him once in person at a shop: cute !!! tall.... our eyes met, he was with 3 other guys...xox

She sucked good

OMG R63 "Burn This" is what it was. Now DONT YOU DARE DL ME ON THIS! Like 'you're a silly cunt with no understanding of the stage dadadadada' it was HORRID. That man ABUSED me.it was ABUSE

no r59/r67

Dangerous Liasons came after Burn This. Malkovitch got a lot of acclaim for that play and it got him the job in DL.

you're a silly cunt with no understanding of the stage dadadadada' (nah just kidding. It was kind of over the top but some people loved it.)

Nooo way burn this came after DL.I had no idea who he was before DL. Or there was a revival

Oooh I saw the London production. 1990

look it up. Burn This opened on Broadway in Oct. 1987 after having previously had a run at the Mark Taper Forum.

Malkovitch was already an established actor long before both. He got an Oscar nomination for Our Sally's film "Places in the Heart in 1984."

[quote]henry Thomas was best thing bout that one. I saw him once in person at a shop: cute !!! tall.... our eyes met,

Did you point your finger at his crotch and say in your best E.T. voice, "I'll be righhhhttt heeerrrreeee"?

Wait, Greg Wise as Valmont? That's good casting in theory, but IMHO he was too young for the role when DL was made. Especially to be playing opposite Close.

I’d love to have seen Isabelle Huppert in a French language version.

R30 I'm sorry but what the fuck are you talking about? Michelle Pfeiffer was 28 in DL. "Old dear?" You must be referring to yourself.

[quote]The last scene in the film when Madame is removing her pancake makeup after being rejected by society has remained burned in my mind even today. The way she viciously wipes away her "mask" with the tears rolling down her face. She's defiant and defeated at the same time. Perfection. I'll never forget that scene.

I have not seen the movie since it was in the theater, but this is the scene I remember.

R75, is this your first day on the Datalounge?

Fairuza Balk in Valmont was the best Cecile. She was so far superior as actress to Uma Thurman, and she was several years her junior. Uma was not capable of Fairuza's emotional range, so you didn't really give a shit what happened to her in Dangerous Liaisons. In Valmont, you want Cecile to be ok. She touches you. Your heart just went out of her.

We are so damn fortunate to have two period versions of this material. I think if you want to actually be ENTERTAINED and enjoy the characters, Valmont is the one to watch. Bening and Firth were absolutely delicious together. Arguably, Close and Malkovich make the characters more complex, especially with this idea was Merteuil saw herself as a feminist avenging her sex.... but Bening and Firth's sexiness and charm are absolutely irresistible. Valmont takes the same material but doesn't depress you... it makes the whole thing a romp. And I admire it for that, it doesn't get mired down in the mindset of these two sociopaths. Milos Forman always... ALWAYS.... keeps the mood jovial and light.

The Hong Kong adaptation from 2012 is very sexy..... Has anyone else seen it?

Vadim also remade his own adaptation with this 70's version, only the character's names were changed.

The eternally demure and innocent Sylvia Kristel played "Tourvel" while sexy Jon Finch was a great "Valmont".

Nathalie Delon was deviously sexy as "Merteuil"

Hard to find, I have the VHS!

Weirdly, I thought Reese Witherspoon was the weak link of Cruel Intentions. She made the character insipid and it was a disgrace to the character which Pfeiffer and Tilly excelled at.

What is it about this story that inpires so many film versions?

Is it the fascination with sexual manipulation? The exposure of high society as sexual/sexy sociopaths? The frothiness turning into tragedy? The allure of a bitch-goddess at the center of the intrigue?

[R83]The allure of a bitch-goddess at the center of the intrigue

Bening was the only one of the three Merteuils (Close and Geller) being the other two, who played the character with some depth and complexity and not as the female equivalent of the villain twirling his mustache...

R85 I agree with that.

"Valmont takes the same material but doesn't depress you... it makes the whole thing a romp. And I admire it for that, it doesn't get mired down in the mindset of these two sociopaths. Milos Forman always... ALWAYS.... keeps the mood jovial and light. "

And IMHO that's why "DL" has a much better third act and ending than "Valmont". When the two principals say "This means WAR" it has little impact in the lighter "Valmont", but is terrifying in the darker "DL".

And since that declaration of "war" means that everyone in sight is going to get killed or ruined, if you follow the original story, I think the darker approach is both truer to the story and makes for a more gripping movie.

Firth is the eye candy but he couldn't pull off sinister like Malkovich. Benning was too frothy and giggly in Valmont IMO and too old for Firth.

That's the point duh. Valmont rejects Merteuil because she's old news, so she offers to provide prime pussy in exchange of his dick.

Agreed, R88 — Bening’s giggly, shallow performance was a glaring miscalculation on her part, and Forman’s. Plus, the film deviated from the book in a way that really undercut its power. Balk was good, though.

[quote]Plus, the film deviated from the book in a way that really undercut its power.

How?

Somebody got a happy ending, R91. That was a HUGE change from the book.

Who? I never saw Valmont and I don't think I will.

John Malkovich is one of those women's actors. A man many woman always seem to find sexy, but men just don't get. Even gay men don't find Malkovich attractive.

Any remember John Bedford-Lloyd? Same thing.

'Dangerous Liaisons' seems to me to have a sharper, almost crystalline quality. 'Valmont' seems to be dialed-back or muted a bit which, for me, makes it a more emotional experience.

So I guess Meg Tilly got Valmont due to having to leave Amadeus.

That was too bad. I think she would have been great in Amadeus. Her injury was just a foot injury. Couldn't they have delayed her scenes or used doubles for the movement scenes?

I once heard Valmont rightly described as “Less Dangerous Liasons”.

Look how chilling Glenn Close is when she says “War.”

Annette Bening was originally cast to play Pfeiffer's role in Dangerous Liaisons but had to back out. In the end, she got to play the meatier Glenn Close role in Valmont so it all worked out fine.

Everyone who is saying Valmont is shallow... wasn't that the fucking point? These were bored aristocrats playing with people's lives... just because Dangerous Liaisons had originally been written for the theatre crowd and had a mighty high opinion of itself, does NOT make it anymore 'intellectual' than Valmont. At least Milos Forman gave the material some fucking humor. Pretentious queens.

Both were madly disappointing. They both sucked.

It's horrifying how bad Malkovitch is in R98 's clip. It's like an snl spoof. And the camera moves are so cheesy and tacky. This film didn't age gracefully.

[quote]Annette Bening was originally cast to play Pfeiffer's role in Dangerous Liaisons but had to back out. In the end, she got to play the meatier Glenn Close role in Valmont so it all worked out fine.

Are you sure about this? I distinctly remember a piece about Dangerous Liaisons in Premiere magazine at the time of its release, in which either the director or the writer stated that Michelle Pfeiffer had been offered the role of Merteuil in Valmont as well as Tourvel in DL, and at one point both productions were waiting for her to make up her mind. She obviously chose DL - this is confirmed by Milos Forman's official website:

[quote]Michelle Pfeiffer was offered the role of the Marquise de Merteuil at the same time as she was offered the role of Madame de Tourvel in “Dangerous Liaisons”. In the end, the actress accepted the bigger role with director Stephen Frears.

Bigger role ? Both films were pretentious and pointless, but then the book is pretty useless to. Who cares ? Groing up in Paris, I had upper class friends like that, their mojo was ' seduce and destroy'. I always thought it was so stupid.

*too. At least Valmont, although far from the book, was pleasing. Firth was a major hearthrob then. And DL offered two great performances, Close and Pfeiffer. I never understood the hype about Benning. She is an ok actress, and kind of the poor man's Judy Davis IMO. I don't like Davis either. Malkovitch is one lousy ham and a F.U.G. His career is so dead. Bet he was one obnoxious diva.

I prefer Ryan Philippe's twink perfection in Cruel Intentions. By far my favorite Valmont. Juts look at those tits.

And that car. Jesus.

Valmont is better, the concept and the actors. DL is a caricature.

[quote]Annette Bening was originally cast to play Pfeiffer's role in Dangerous Liaisons but had to back out. In the end, she got to play the meatier Glenn Close role in Valmont so it all worked out fine.

It wasn't DL, it was Batman Returns. Bening was cast as Catwoman, but when she got pregnant, Tim Burton fended off Sean Young and cast Michelle Pfeiffer. I love Bening to death, but I can't imagine anyone being any better in that role than Pfeiffer.

Bening was too American in the role. Not a hint of anything European.

[quote]Bening was too American in the role. Not a hint of anything European.

Agreed. This must be a Milos Forman thing. I had the exact same problem with a lot of the casting in AMADEUS. I know everyone loved it, but it felt so flat and almost midwestern.

Vincent Cassel would make a great Valmont.

‘Seduce and destroy’ should be the ever-hopeful DL eldergay motto.

Choderlos de Laclos was a soldier and a writer. He wrote the liaisons like a treatise about military strategy. Make love like you make war. Can't choose between DL and Valmont both have screwed the casting up Valmont with the insipid Mme de Merteuil and DL with the ugly Valmont.

I’m with you, R111 — in both “Amadeus” and “Valmont”, Forman had sumptuous settings and exquisite photography, and then flattened the effect by casting some Midwestern types (and I’m from the Midwest!)

I'm shocked that people consider Malkovich bad looking, he looked very handsome to me...

Dangerous Liaisons is a masterpiece.

Back in the 80s, no one was better looking than Keanu, no one. Why do you think Fears hired him? I think he was the best looking thing in Hollywood for over 10 years.

Frears

Keanu's acting was insulting in this, I swear I cringed the moment he stepped on screen, his posture and speech are so far off from what one would expect in a period film and the delivery is a phoned in as you can get...horrific to look at.

I lost for that too.

The camera work in DL looks quite dated to be honest, I feel like it doesn't take full advantage of the locations and looks positively soap opera-ish at times...

I prefer Valmont. It actually hurts me to watch it (in a good way).

this is an interesting interview

One of these days, someone has got to film a gay version.

I saw the 2016 revival on Broadway (fortunately a comp. as it was not very good) with Janet McTeer (Glenn's "Albert Nobbs" co-star ironically) and Liev Schreiber, who like John Malkovich was not attractive at all yet was a master at manipulation. It had been revived less than ten years before by Roundabout (with Laura Linney), but I didn't get to see it unfortunately. I just didn't see the usually great Linney as right for that part, although I might have been wrong.

I've always wondered what the future would hold for "La Marquise de Merteuil" considering that the French revolution was just around the corner. Would she have managed to somehow escape or left after being ostracized? I imagine her looking like Norma Shearer in peasant costume and no make-up walking up those guillotine steps, smiling gently, knowing after being cast out of society that her pain really would finally end.

VALMONT, it has a European feel to it. Perfect cast, location, music, everything. Dangerous Liaisons is an American movie.

No way. Bitch would have escaped to Italy or Hungary. No way she'd lose that smart head.

The novel is still very popular among young French sexual beings. That mentality is still alive on many levels, especially among the privileged with literary inclinations (same with the writings of Sade).

The history experts on DL will certainly have commented on it already, but yes the libertine ways of the aristocracy WHILE the peasants had been starving for decades was part of what brought in the French Revolution.

DL is the better version but it needed Alan Rickman in the role to be even better.

R130 Alan Rickman would have been fantastic in that part. He could say so much with just a simple pause.

With Alan Rickman it would have been a very different movie. I believe I would watch that movie.

John Malkavich was perfect.

RIckman did it on stage IIR.

DL for the win in my view. Firth lacked the ugly edge of Malkovich, and Bening was no competition for Close as Mme de Merteuil.

It's a higly stylised story no matter how you slice it, but Valmont went over the line; DL successfully straddled the line between period drama and sytlisation as another character in the narrative.

The sight of Bening's face at the corrupted virgin's wedding to the rich aristo lacked the gut-punch of Close being booed at the Opera after her letters were circulated.

Valmont was an honourable failure - DL was a memorable classic.

I commented on this back in 4/18. DL for the win. Close and Malkovich are sinister and wicked. Firth was gorgeous but Bening was too giggly, like a schoolgirl. Tilly was awful and I never got the impression Firth’s character was in love with the Tilly character, just a casual fuck til he got Bening back in bed.

Valmont

I think Rickman and Close would have been a more dynamic pairing and more interesting to watch but I'm having a hard time picturing Rickman and Michelle.

John Malkovich is hot TO ME. I really got off seeing him in a powdered wig and pink silk jacket.

Superb scene in DL where the Marquise de Merteuil explains how she invented herself.

Dangerous liasons for me ! Glen Close is superb ! That was an Oscar worth performance .

Glenn was marvellous in Fatal Liaisons

I much prefer DL, and Glenn Close should have won the oscar for it. And, unlike Valmont, the rest of the cast is very good, even Keanu does not have a major impact, given his role...

That said, Benning was also great , in a completely different take of the character. Unlike Glenn, she actually looks and sounds like a seducer. But Glenn had better and meatier lines (more theatrical, too). Firth I found very boring...

Someone explain me the logic of filming the same story with months of difference?

Different movies, actors, views, interpretation . If the story is interesting enough (and it is) there could be one every six months.

It almost seems Frears and Forman have intentionally, almost in full coordination, decided to make opposing artistic choices each and every time one was required to be made. From the older, less conventionally attractive actors playing the central couple in DL versus young a glamorous ones in V, the surreal deserted settings of DL versus the crowded, full of life universe of V, to the unrelenting ending of DL, faithful to the original versus the optimistic alternated one of V. Where DL was harsh, ascetic, uncompromisingly cruel, V was genteel, opulent and acceptingly forgiving. And while one may aspire for real Life to be run with the compassion exhibited by Forman, it's the grim surgical like approach of Frears which made for better Art.

"I'm teling you, you stupid girl, that you can do it as much as you like with as many men as you like as long as you take some elementary precautions!"

Mme de M.

Rotten Tomatoes: Dangerous Liaisons 93%, Valmont 55%

What I liked the most about DL was how Frears managed to make the movie somewhat light and kinda farsical for much of its run and then, on the final stretch it punches you in the gut with such a devastating end. Everyone gets destroyed.