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Dangerous Liaisons
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A sumptuously mounted and photographed celebration of artful wickedness, betrayal, and sexual intrigue among depraved 18th-century French aristocrats, Dangerous Liaisons (based on Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses) is seductively decadent fun. The villainous heroes are the Marquise De Merteuil (Glenn Close) and the Vicomte De Valmont (John Malkovich), who have cultivated their mutual cynicism into a highly developed and exquisitely mannered form of (in-)human expression. Former lovers, they now fancy themselves rather like demigods whose mutual desires have evolved beyond the crudeness of sex or emotion. They ritualistically act out their twisted affections by engaging in elaborate conspiracies to destroy the lives of their less calculating acquaintances, daring each other to ever-more-dastardly acts of manipulation and betrayal. Why? Just because they can; it's their perverted way of getting get their kicks in a dead-end, pre-Revolutionary culture.
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Dangerous Liaisons is a gripping, unforgettable tale of passion, treachery, and cruelty whose leading protagonists remain in the memory long after the story has been told. In their secret letters to each other, the unscrupulous yet seductive Valmont, his clever, manipulative accomplice, the Marquise de Merteuil, and their various innocent victims, involve us in the machinations of a sadistic plot which ends in tragedy and misery for all. An enduring success since its first publication in 1782, and more recently through adaptation for the stage and film, the epistolary nature of the original makes this tale equally powerful as an audiobook.
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Dangerous Liaisons provides a new look at international crises that systematically incorporates threats to the national security, the possibility of war, and time pressure; the three defining elements of crises identified by the existing literature. International crises are conceived of as threat relationships, that is, a particular configuration of action sequences produces crisis-creating threats that persist, characterize, and constrain further interactions until they are either realized or undone. Not all threats create crises but only those that involve harm to the leadership, status, or prestige of a country. In the Cuban Missile Crisis they were instantiated by the deceptive deployment of Soviet missiles, and they were undone by a secret deal that involved the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba in exchange for the withdrawal of American missiles in Turkey. Thus, the more general conclusion is that crisis-creating threats can be avoided if the leadership, status, or prestige of a country is not put to the test. Dangerous Liaisons provides the general framework to explore the conditions under which such threats are produced, but information of the specific context is required to determine exactly which actions can instantiate, or conversely, avoid them.
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In Dangerous Liaisons, Glenn Close echoed her more infamous role as a blonde aggressor in Fatal Attraction, earning another Academy Award nomination for her smiling cruelty and cutting wit. Co-stars John Malkovich (Valmont) and Michelle Pfeiffer (Tourvel) ... gave memorable performances as the illicit lovers, but they made just as many headlines by having an affair during production -- a situation later paralleled by Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon, who fell in love and conceived a child while playing the Valmont and Tourvel characters in Cruel Intentions. Just as 18th-century French readers were tempted to take the upper-class excesses of Les Liaisons Dangereuses as reality, contemporary viewers can enjoy the same sort of gossip about celebrities.
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Dangerous Liaisons was directed by Stephen Frears and the screenplay was adapted by Christopher Hampton from his play. It is an attractive looking period piece and won Academy awards for art direction and costumes. However, this is not necessarily a movie for fans of authentic costume drama. The main actors are American rather than European and don't disguise this.
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Based on the 18th-century novel, Dangerous Liaisons centers on the relationship between the Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close) and Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich). The former lovers challenge each other to partake in a tragic game of seductive one-upmanship that has devastating consequences.
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