Louis Malle

Murmur of the Heart

Murmur of the Heart

Louis Malle’s critically acclaimed Murmur of the Heart gracefully combines elements of comedy, drama, and autobiography in a candid portrait of a precocious adolescent boy’s sexual maturation. Both shocking and deeply poignant, this is one of the finest coming-of-age films ever made.

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Film Info

  • France
  • 1971
  • 118 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.66:1
  • French
  • Spine #328

Special Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Ricardo Aronovich
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • A new essay by film critic Michael Sragow
  • New and improved English subtitle translation

New cover by Michael Boland

Purchase Options

Collector's Sets

Collector's Set

3 Films by Louis Malle

3 Films by Louis Malle

DVD Box Set

4 Discs

$63.96

Out Of Print

Special Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Ricardo Aronovich
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • A new essay by film critic Michael Sragow
  • New and improved English subtitle translation

New cover by Michael Boland

Murmur of the Heart
Cast
Benoît Ferreux
Laurent Chevalier
Lea Massari
Clara Chevalier
Daniel Gélin
Charles Chevalier
Michael Lonsdale
Father Henri
Ave Ninchi
Augusta
Gila von Weitershausen
Freda
Credits
Director
Louis Malle
Producer
Vincent Malle
Producer
Claude Nedjar
Cinematography
Ricardo Aronovich
Music
Sidney Bechet
Music
Gaston Frèche
Music
Henri Renaud
Music
Charlie Parker

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Louis Malle

Director

Louis Malle
Louis Malle

Crime dramas, comedies, romances, tragedies, fantasies, documentaries, and, of course, coming-of-age stories­—director Louis Malle did it all. This most unpredictable and eclectic of filmmakers enriched cinema over a nearly forty-year career that took him from Jacques Cousteau’s watery depths (his first film was the Cousteau-codirected Oscar winner The Silent World) to the peripheries of the French New Wave (Zazie dans le métro, The Fire Within) to the vanguard of American moviemaking (My Dinner with André). Malle had an intellectually curious nature that led him to approach film from a variety of angles; he was as comfortable making minimalist works like the wordless Humain trop humain and the talky André as phantasmagorical ones like Black Moon. He is probably best known, though, for his deeply personal films about the terrors and confusions of childhood, such as Murmur of the Heart and Au revoir les enfants. Perhaps not as well-known is his parallel career as a master of the nonfiction form—one of his many documentary achievements was the seven-part Phantom India, which would be a stunning career centerpiece for anyone else; for this director, it was simply a fascinating side project. Malle died in 1995, shortly after directing his final film, the typically experimental Vanya on 42nd Street.

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