La Chanson d'Hélène of film Les Choses de la Vie 1970 by Claude Sautet

Title:                          La Chanson d'Hélène
Lyrics:                       Jean-Louis Dabadie
Music:                       Philippe Sarde
Release:                     1970, theme song of French film Les Choses de la vie
Performers:               Romy Schneider et Michel Piccoli

music by Philippe Sarde

Les Choses de la vie (The Things of Life)is a 1970 French film directed by Claude Sautet. Based on the novel Les Choses de la vie (English title Intersection) by Paul Guimard, the film circles around a car accident experienced by the main character, and the events before and after it.

The structure of the film involves frequent jumps in time - between the time of, and after, the car crash, and before the crash. The opening sequence jumps between the period immediately after the crash, and the crash itself.

In the French countryside on a summer morning, a lorry full of pigs stalls at a crossroads. An Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint swerves to avoid it and crashes into an orchard, hurling the driver (Michel Piccoli) onto the grass. As he drifts in and out of consciousness, he revisits the essential things which make up his life.

A Paris architect in his forties driving to a meeting at Rennes, he had quarrelled with his lover Hélène (Romy Schneider) the previous night. They were due to leave together for a job he was offered in Tunis but he hadn't signed the documents. But he had agreed to take his teenage son Bertrand, who lived with his estranged wife Catherine, for a holiday in the family's holiday home on the Île de Ré. Stopping at a café, he wrote to Hélène calling everything off, but did not post the letter. Driving past a wedding, he decides that the letter was quite wrong and he should marry Hélène.

Rushed to hospital in Le Mans, he does not recover. As his widow, Catherine is given his effects, including the unsent letter to Hélène. Catherine is reading it when she sees Hélène arriving. She tears it to pieces, and Hélène is told by a nurse that she is too late.

The theme song La Chanson d'Hélène is written like a dialogue between the two main characters expressing their feeling towards each other. And it was sung by the two actors Romy Schneider and Michel Piccoli.

The film was nominated for the top award (the Palme d'Or) at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival.

Claude Sautet at work

Lyrics

  Paroles Francais 

 La Chanson d'Hélène

Ce soir nous sommes septembre
Et j'ai fermé ma chambre
Le soleil n'y entrera plus
Tu ne m'aimes plus
Là-haut un oiseau passe comme une dédicace
Dans le ciel
Tu ne m'aimes plus

Je t'aimais tant Hélène
Il faut se quitter
Les avions partiront sans nous
Je ne sais plus t'aimer Hélène

Avant dans la maison j'aimais quand nous vivions
Comme un dessin d'enfant
Tu ne m'aimes plus
Je regarde le soir tomber dans les miroirs
C'est la vie

C'est mieux ainsi Hélène
C'était l'amour sans amitié Il va falloir changer de mémoire
Je ne t'écrirai plus Hélène

L'histoire n'est plus à suivre et j'ai fermé le livre
Le soleil n'y entrera plus
Tu ne m'aimes plus

English Translation:

Hélène's song

It's September night tonight
and I have closed the bedroom
The sun will not enter there any more
And you do not love me any more
Up there in the sky, 
A bird is passing by like a dedication
You do not love me anymore

 
I loved you so Hélène
It has to stop
The airplanes will leave without us
I do not know how to love you any more Hélène
 
Previously in the home I loved it when we lived together
like a child's drawing
You do not love me anymore 
I watched how the night fall into the mirror
This is life

It's better like this Hélène
It was love without friendship
We must change our memory
I will not write to you any more Hélène

The story will not continue and I have closed the book
The sun will not enter there any more
You don't love me any more