Betty Blue (1986, Fr.) (aka 37°2 Le Matin)

In director Jean-Jacques Beineix's erotic arthouse drama of tragic, doomed love - the emotional French sex drama was a big commercial hit in France. Its title referred to a body temperature of 37.2 degrees (Celsius) (or 99 degrees Fahrenheit) - at the time of ovulation when a woman was most apt to become pregnant.

It had a sole Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. It was based upon the 1985 novel by Philippe Djian. There was a longer running time (185 minutes) for the original Director's Cut release compared to the North American release length (119 minutes).

• the film's exceptional opening was a depiction of an ardent, extended thrusting love-making scene filmed with a two-minute slow-zoom toward a couple who were lying sideways having sex on a bed beneath a portrait of the Mona Lisa; the couple were in a borrowed beachside shack on southern France's Mediterranean coast (in the town of Gruissan)

The Film's Opening Sequence - A Slow-Zoom Toward Betty (Beatrice Dalle) and Zorg During Sexual Intercourse

• the female was Betty (Beatrice Dalle in her film debut), a 19 year-old, free-spirited, beguiling, sexually-aggressive, pouty-lipped and emotionally unstable, gap-toothed, restless, vulnerable, reckless manic-depressive who was unfortunately on the verge of insanity
• her partner was Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade), a 30-something, a lonely and slovenly drifter, a peace-loving aspiring novelist and menial laborer-repairman/painter (handyman) for a series of beach-bungalows
• the subtitles translated Zorg's first ominous, film-noirish words (in voice-over): "I had known Betty for a week. We made love [or screwed] every night. The forecast was for storms"
• the next time he saw her, she arrived at his elevated beach-house; she was first viewed at foot level, where she had deposited her one suitcase and purse at his doorstep; as the camera presented her in full-view, she was wearing only a bra-less black apron fashioned into a halter dress; she climbed the steps where he greeted her: Betty: "First time we've met in daylight." Zorg: "You're much too early!" Betty: "So what. How do I look? What do you think? Do you like it?"

Film's Opening: Betty's Sexy Return to Zorg
Betty's Purse and Suitcase at Her Feet	"First time we've met in daylight"	"Do I please you?"

• although he kissed her, he wasn't pleased to see her so unexpectedly; she called men "all bastards" and pushed him away; often used and abused by men, she was planning to move in with him after her previously failed job, and now she was broke: "No wonder a girl ends up splitting...Wait, explain, I don't get you. Why don't you ever listen to me?...I don't just want a guy to screw me. To think I spent a year in that dump wiping tables and dodging drunks just to get felt up one morning by the boss! I've got to start all over again now. I'm dead. Anyway, I left. Can't even buy a train ticket"
• he brought her things in from the door and put them on the bed, causing her to smile; he described her (voice-over): "She was like a flower with translucent antennae and a mauve plastic heart. Not many girls could dress as casually as she did"; she soon told him when they got drunk: "I'm happy being with you. I'd like to stay with you if I can"
• Zorg's boss demanded that he must paint all exteriors of the 500 bungalows, and she had to earn her way to stay there with him: ("I don't think you can keep that girl here and do your job right"); as they were playfully together painting the beach houses in bright pink and turquoise colors, she took Polaroid photographs of them; but when the boss came by to complain, she tossed a full can of pink paint onto his car hood;
• Zorg vowed his steadfast love for her - and that he would do anything to keep her: "I’ll paint the whole town pink just to stay with you, kitten," but she fought back: "Look what s--t we're in with that asshole! You let him screw you and for what?!...How can I love you if I can't admire you? We're only learning how to die here"
• then, during the couple's fierce argument, she discovered a box of his manuscripts and notebooks, and her demeanor changed; She read them with intense interest, and believed that he was a genius writer, although she emphatically stated: "To think you paint shacks drives me crazy!"
• when he was out painting, she became very devoted and loving and turned to traditional domesticity (housework and shopping) - she cooked a fancy meal for them and became very loving; she detested his boss who called her a "hellcat," and became angry about the boss' meddling in their lives; one day after again clashing with his boss, she became furious and displayed her volatile temper; she emptied Zorg's shack by tossing everything out the window; a bystander noted: "Your pad will look very Zen now"; then, Betty burned it down and asked Zorg: "Are you coming?"
• their idyllic beach-times ended when the two fled to Paris to live in a small, mostly-unoccupied bohemian hotel with 13 rooms, the Hotel de la Marne, owned by her widowed best friend Lisa (Consuelo de Haviland) (and her husband Frank before he died); Lisa described the dilapidated residence: "It's no 5-star hotel"
• they were given the top floor's Room # 13 to rent, in exchange for Zorg's odd-jobs work. Betty set about to support Zorg and help him publish his masterpiece novel (a cop story with lots of sex) by typing up his various writings and manuscripts and expectantly hoping for a reply from publishers: ("Not even a masterpiece gets read unless it's typed"); she insisted to him: "You're a writer, not a plumber! What did I type? A novel!"; Betty mailed off his typed work to all the publishing houses in town

Living and Loving Together in Paris and Southern France

• throughout the film, there were many sequences of uninhibited and explicit sexual activity between Zorg and Betty - and full frontal nudity for both sexes, especially in the longer version, including when she unabashedly coerced her lover to provide her with oral sex by pushing his head down to her genital area
• Zorg and Betty formed a close-knit 'family'-like friendship (often fueled by alcohol, music, dancing and good times) with Lisa and her new boyfriend Eddy Sayolle (Gérard Darmon), restaurateur of Pizza Stromboli; Zorg and Betty took part-time jobs as waiters in the "madhouse" pizza parlor, but it wasn't very well suited for Betty's short-fused personality; she stabbed one persistently-rude and demanding female customer (Dominique Besnehard) in the arm with a fork, causing havoc
• increasingly after moving away from the beach, Betty was exhibiting signs of erratic violence, irrationality, self-destructiveness, and mental illness; Eddy was upset by the stabbing incident in the restaurant: "She almost killed that woman"; Zorg admitted that Betty was stressed due to her obsession with his novel: "Keeps waiting for publishers to reply. That drives her nuts"; Zorg was trying to hide nasty rejection letters from publishers to avoid upsetting her; he realized, in voice-over, her increasing madness (as she stood on an overhead train bridge - looking down): "Betty was a wild horse that had cut her hamstrings jumping over a wall and was trying to get up. What she thought was a meadow was a gloomy pen. She couldn't bear immobility. She was not made for that"
• Betty had a violent hysterical outburst toward one editor (Philippe Laudenbach) at his home with a metal comb across his cheek (that required eight stitches) when the submitted writings were harshly rejected by him; Zorg began to realize she had mental issues: "You're totally nuts," and then rationalized it was due to her monthly periods; to defend Betty, Zorg pressured the editor to not press charges; Zorg remained dedicated to Betty: "You're the best thing that ever happened to me." Betty replied: "If I'd written that book, I'd have a meaning in life"; Zorg was less optimistic: "It's only bringing us trouble"; he admitted he was suffering from writer's block
• after the death of Eddy's mother, Zorg and Betty were fortuitously invited to move into his mother's house in the Southern French provincial town of Marvejols, and run her piano shop, although life began anew for the couple, and Betty took to scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees; again, she began to have variable mood swings, including self-harm when she punched through a window pane, and then ran away from Zorg (as he yelled: "You're out of your mind") who was trying to stop the bleeding
• over time, Zorg had become desperate to please Betty and to make her happy, and he improbably promised to move to the country with her, own a house and buy some land ("Everything you see here is yours"); he produced a birthday cake with lit candles from the car's trunk, and then they watched the sunset while drinking wine; she told him: "It's the best present I ever had"
• their love was eventually to be destroyed by their instability, possessiveness and literal amour fou (all-consuming love); she was still hoping for his book to be published: ("I dreamed your book was published"); one night while making love before a burning fire, he realized she was taking sleeping pills; when a home pregnancy test was at first positive, Betty was jubilant (although Zorg was worried), but then after it was revealed to be a false positive with an official test, she went into a deep depression: ("Life is against me. If I want anything, it's denied me"), and defaced her beauty with excessive makeup; Zorg obliged and severely cropped her hair: ("Even bald, I'd love you"), and surmised: "Betty wants something that doesn't exist. The world's too f--king small for her"; she admitted to Zorg: "I hear voices in my head, I'm going insane. It's all over now"

Betty's Mental Depression After Negative Pregnancy Test
Betty's Acting Out Madness with Makeup	Sitting Alone Naked	Zorg: "My Betty, come back, it's me"
To Zorg: "I hear voices in my head"	"I'm going insane"

• unwisely, Zorg (in-drag) stole cash at gunpoint from a clerk in the office of an armored delivery van company; when he returned home, he found Betty in a cemetery hoping: "If I was dead. I'd like people to come to see me"; he showed her the stolen money, hoping it would cheer her up, but she was underwhelmed: "What's it for?" His drag outfit caused her more enjoyment and she laughed; to get away, they visited the sunny seaside, where Zorg hoped for a recovery: "There must be a paradise somewhere for you and me"; however, when Zorg went to buy ice-cream, Betty inexplicably walked off with a young boy and took him to a toy-store, where Zorg found them sitting in a teepee on the second floor; he ran off with her to rescue her from incrimination
• in the film's concluding moments, Zorg returned home and found blood splattered around and learned that Betty had gouged out her right eye; she was hospitalized and declared stable, but she was heavily sedated and catatonic; simultaneously, word arrived that the publisher had accepted Zorg's manuscript and it would be published; he again visited the unresponsive Betty to tell her the good news, and was shocked she was strapped down in bed; he held her in his arms and caressed her breasts, as he told her he would write another novel dedicated to her
• Zorg blamed her medications for her conditions, and refused to accept the diagnosis that she was seriously in "a state of shock" without any guarantee that she would fully recover; when determined she was totally insane, he was told that she might require electroshock therapy; he resisted the doctors ("You're making her sick"), and was thrown out for being unruly
• after considering the situation, he realized that his insane, self-wounded, and broken-down heroine was doomed; he returned to her hospital room in his drag-disguise, and promised her: "We were meant for each other. No one can ever separate us, no one ever" - he mercifully committed euthanasia by pillow smothering
• he returned home to sit in silence and remember her; he was now free to proceed with his next novel (as he heard Betty's happy voice in his head asking: "Are you writing?")