The Fire Within

January 27, 2021 00:03:31
The Fire Within
Flicks with The Film Snob
The Fire Within

Jan 27 2021 | 00:03:31

/

Show Notes

An alcoholic contemplates suicide in Louis Malle’s devastating 1963 film about the human desire for meaning. Louis Malle was a director of astonishing range. He did so many different kinds of films that critics have tended to underappreciate him, because they can’t put him in a neat little category. My favorite of his films is one of his earliest—the 1963 poetic drama The Fire Within. The story concerns Alain, an alcoholic in his mid-20s played by Maurice Ronet, who has just dried out at a clinic in Versailles. His American wife has left him, and when the film opens he…

Other Episodes

Episode 0

March 03, 2026 00:03:31
Episode Cover

A Traveler's Needs

Isabelle Huppert plays a French tutor in Korea with an unconventional method, in Hong Sang-soo’s exploration of the odd ways people communicate. I’m fascinated...

Listen

Episode 0

March 15, 2024 00:03:29
Episode Cover

Women Directors

Women film directors are becoming increasingly prominent after decades of being effectively shut out of the profession. For the majority of movie history, the...

Listen

Episode 0

May 14, 2022 00:03:22
Episode Cover

Gunda

Victor Kossakovsky shows us the experience of farm animals without the mediation of human words and concepts, in a film that extends compassion to...

Listen