Betty Blue

Plot (Spoiler Alert)

This is a story about a man who sticks by his woman no matter what. Zorg and his girlfriend, Betty, do a lot together. Betty has a few mental issues, but Zorg is there for her because he loves her.



Blaine: Directors love making movies because it keeps their creative juices going. Director Jean-Jacques Beineix was trying to figure out what his next project was going to be and he had an urge to direct another movie. A novel was just published and was reaching popularity fast. Jean-Jacques took a look at the novel himself and thought it was a great love story. He also loved how the character, Betty, was her own person. Jean-Jacques got very excited and after reading the whole novel, he had an urge to do this love story right away. He was very passionate about the project and would smile the whole time it was being made. It’s obvious that Jean-Jacques saw the story as very unique and he wanted to give the film everything, so that people could see it the way he did.

When it comes to casting, directors won’t be looking for actors for their fame, they hire them for their talent. They cast actors based on feeling, like thousands of people audition for a part and sometimes the director will be around to check the actor out for them self to see how they feel about the actor. That’s what Jean-Jacques was doing while they were testing out thousands of women who auditioned for the role of Betty. Directors will also want to show the world fresh new talent that’ll be the future. Beatrice Dalle hadn’t acted in anything before “Betty Blue”. She was working as a model and when she auditioned for “Betty Blue”, Jean-Jacques became very fond of her. Jean-Jacques liked the way Beatrice talked and she had a great look to her. It was clear to Jean-Jacques that Beatrice was Betty. After Beatrice got the part, she bought the novel to know all the details of what she was getting involved in and the cashier told Beatrice she should play Betty. He loved the novel and he wasn’t aware that an adaption of the novel was already in pre-production. So everyone agreed on Beatrice being the only person to play Betty. That gave Beatrice a lot of hope. Because Beatrice hadn’t been in movies, she didn’t know how things worked in making them. Beatrice would always pay attention to the actors every time she saw a movie and not the director’s style. Being apart of “Betty Blue” was a great learning experience for Beatrice. And Jean-Jacques was a great leader on “Betty Blue” because he wanted it to look very unique.

Beatrice is fantastic in “Betty Blue”. She is very expressive through her words, her face, her movement and she shows different sides to Betty. Betty can be calm, happy, loving, but you don’t want to get on her bad side. Whenever Betty gets upset she really throws her emotions out there and causes damage by throwing things out a window. She takes things personally. Beatrice Dalle is a people person, where as Betty can’t stand them because she doesn’t like that they treat her like dirt. She’ll have a fit and take her anger out on them. Betty will even scream to the top of her lungs. But whenever Betty gets herself into trouble, her lover, Zorg will be there for her. Zorg is the type of person who can handle anything. Zorg is very devoted to the relationship between him and Betty. There’s no one he loves more in the world than Betty and Betty is lucky to have him as her lover. And he is strong enough to help Betty calm down.

Betty discovers something about Zorg she never knew, that he is a great writer. Zorg has been holding himself back from being an accomplished writer. Betty reads through the novels he has written and it inspires her to want to write herself. Betty feels Zorg should have a career instead of painting houses and waiting tables.

“Betty Blue” shows full body nudity on both genders, Betty and Zorg, sides. They love to get intimate with each other and cuddle a lot. There’s a lot of scenes that show how close these characters are, whether they are both nude or wearing clothes. Beatrice Dalle felt uncomfortable doing the nude scenes in front of the crew, but she was brave enough to do them. Like I said Beatrice was a student and she was learning how movies were made. She didn’t know that the crew could leave the set while shooting a nude scene and she was upset that Jean-Jacques Beineix didn’t ask the crew to leave. A lot of directors are understanding and think of others. When it comes to scenes that may feel uncomfortable for the people in front of the camera, the director will do whatever to make sure the actors feel calm. But Jean-Jacques was too busy bringing his vision to life that he didn’t think about what was on the actors’ minds, besides their performances. Beatrice hated Jean-Jacques for that. She loved the man, but even the people you are fond of can make you angry at times.

There’s a scene where Betty is running through streets after Zorg does something to upset her. Betty is trying to avoid Zorg as he chases after her. That was another thing Beatrice didn’t like shooting because she doesn’t like to run, especially in those pink shorts she had to wear in that scene. She would have chosen a different outfit to run in. There’s a lot of things an actor has to do, even if it’s something they don’t like.



The cinematographer Jean-Jacques Beineix hired for “Betty Blue” was Jean-Francois Robin. Jean-Francois had seen Jean-Jacques first two features and he had noticed Jean-Jacques used a lot of blue for the style of those movies. Jean-Francois thought “Betty Blue” should have something new compared to those movies. The first part of “Betty Blue” takes place near a beach and Jean-Francois knew a warm look would be perfect for that. Jean-Francois’ favorite scene to shoot was where Betty arrives at the summer house to move in with Zorg. The camera is at a birds point of view and then it slowly goes down as Beatrice walks from the side of it. Betty burns the house down, probably feeling there is no place for her and her lover there, and they move to a new place. The film has a different look after that. It looks a little gloomy at times.

There is a lot of blue in “Betty Blue”, even though the style of the shots wasn’t made to look cold, still you see blue in the outfits Betty and Zorg wear, there’s the painted doors that are blue. There’s even this one shot that takes place at the twilight hour. The sky is blue above, the sunset is fading away and the summer house is a silhouette. The crew arrived on set to shoot I think one of the night scenes and Jean-Francoise noticed right away how nice the sky looked. So Jean-Francoise and the crew quickly set up a camera and shot the summer house with that sky. It wasn’t something planned, it just happened. Jean-Francoise knew he had to shoot it. That shot became Jean-Francois’ most popular one on “Betty Blue” because the look of that shot was used for the poster of the film. Beatrice also had a photo of herself taken by a photographer that came in handy. Beatrice had passed a photographer once and he really wanted to take her picture. So she posed for the photographer and the photograph was in black and white. Director Jean-Jacques Beineix wanted that photo for the “Betty Blue” poster.

Another thing Jean-Francois loved shooting was Beatrice. Beatrice always made herself look good for every scene she was in. She would look at the camera monitor to make sure her hair was alright. Beatrice looked great on every angle. Like I said Beatrice was working as a model and I think that’s why the camera loved her so much.



Life has been fair to Zorg and Betty, like having stuff to survive on, clothes, food, a roof over their heads. They even have each other. But Betty is upset that she can’t get everything she wants in life, like having a novel she wrote published and having children. I think that’s why the film is called “Betty Blue” because Betty is feeling blue at times. Of course “Betty Blue” wasn’t the original title. The name of the novel is “37.2 C in the morning”. It didn’t seem like a great title for a movie. Jean-Jacques Beineix’s girlfriend suggested it be called “Betty Blue” instead, when he first told her his interest in the project. It just popped up in her head.

Things are getting worse for Betty. She had high hopes believing she was pregnant, but it was a false pregnancy. She asks herself if fate doesn’t want her to be happy, even though stuff like this just happens. A lot of people don’t like rejection and women will have a miscarriage or something else, but that doesn’t mean Betty and Zorg can’t have children. Betty takes things too seriously. Betty feels all is lost and she looks lost as well. Zorg will do anything to make Betty happy, even if he has to rob a bank and he does. Zorg disguises himself as a woman so that way no one will be able to recognize him. As soon as Zorg puts on that dress and wig, it looks convincing he is someone else. The way Zorg moves in that outfit reminds me of a mime artist. He makes sure not to say one word as he poses as a woman. And if he has something to say he’ll express it through body language. It amuses Betty that Zorg would dress up as a woman.

Just when Zorg thinks everything will work out, things get much worse. Betty is sent to the hospital after pulling out one of her eyes. Zorg finding out that Betty injured herself hurts him. Betty is not the same, it’s like she has no life in her. The doctor is calling Betty mental and Zorg knows she has problems, but he wouldn’t go that far. Zorg loves Betty so much that he refuses to hear the truth about her. Zorg gets thrown out of the hospital after tackling the doctor, but he is able to find his way back in through his female disguise. Zorg puts a pillow over Betty’s head to smother her, so she can be set free. It reminds me of the ending to “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” because that ended with Chief smothering Jack Nicholson’s character with a pillow because Jack’s character is not himself anymore after going through a lobotomy treatment. Chief killed Jack Nicholson so he wouldn’t have to live the rest of his life as a vegetable. And Betty, her mind is just staring up into space and she may never recover from this. It hurts Zorg to take the life of the love of his life, but he does it because he loves her. Betty is gone, but she will always live on in Zorg’s thoughts and he writes a new novel that is dedicated to her.

Jean-Jacques wasn’t quite happy with how “Betty Blue” turned out because it didn’t feel complete. There were scenes that he wanted to keep in that got cut out. The first cut of “Betty Blue” was three hours, which is pretty long enough. The footage Jean-Jacques wanted in the film would add only an extra four minutes to it. Jean-Jaques had high hopes for “Betty Blue” and every thing went as he planned, except for the final cut. A few years later, Jean-Jacques went back to “Betty Blue” and had the extra scenes added in, so he could move on and have the film be the way he originally wanted it to be. But other than that, “Betty Blue” became successful and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

It was an emotional experience for Beatrice Dalle when “Betty Blue” premiered because this film started her career. Learning what it takes to be an actress was difficult for Beatrice Dalle in the beginning, but she was terrific in her first acting job in “Betty Blue” and she got a career out of it.

My rating “Betty Blue” is five out of five stars.