ABSTRACT
Vadim rose to fame overnight in 1956, when he directed Brigitte Bardot in And God Created Woman (Et Dieu créa la femme). This film’s sexual frankness and use of a young and (then) little-known lead female actor caused Vadim briefly to be assimilated to the Nouvelle Vague. His modern-day adaptation of Laclos’s Les Liaisons dangereuses (1959), with Gérard Philipe and Jeanne Moreau, however, was seen as a retrograde step, and his more recent work (in the United States as well as in France) has done more for his reputation as a womanizer than as a leading cinematic auteur.
